the snowball effect by katherine maclean illustrated by emsh [transcriber's note: this etext was produced from galaxy science fiction september 1952. extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] tack power drives on a sewing circle and you can needle the world into the darndest mess! "all right," i said, "what _is_ sociology good for?" wilton caswell, ph.d., was head of my sociology department, and right then he was mad enough to chew nails. on the office wall behind him were three or four framed documents in latin that were supposed to be signs of great learning, but i didn't care at that moment if he papered the walls with his degrees. i had been appointed dean and president to see to it that the university made money. i had a job to do, and i meant to do it. he bit off each word with great restraint: "sociology is the study of social institutions, mr. halloway." i tried to make him understand my position. "look, it's the big-money men who are supposed to be contributing to the support of this college. to them, sociology sounds like socialism--nothing can sound worse than that--and an institution is where they put aunt maggy when she began collecting wheaties in a stamp album. we can't appeal to them that way. come on now." i smiled condescendingly, knowing it would irritate him. "what are you doing that's worth anything?" he glared at me, his white hair bristling and his nostrils dilated like a war horse about to whinny. i can say one thing for them--these scientists and professors always keep themselves well under control. he had a book in his hand and i was expecting him to throw it, but he spoke instead: "this department's analysis of institutional accretion, by the use of open system mathematics, has been recognized as an outstanding and valuable contribution to--" the words were impressive, whatever they meant, but this still didn't sound like anything that would pull in money. i interrupted, "valuable in what way?" he sat down on the edge of his desk thoughtfully, apparently recovering from the shock of being asked to produce something solid for his position, and ran his eyes over the titles of the books that lined his office walls. "well, sociology has been valuable to business in initiating worker efficiency and group motivation studies, which they now use in management decisions. and, of course, since the depression, washington has been using sociological studies of employment, labor and standards of living as a basis for its general policies of--" i stopped him with both raised hands. "please, professor caswell! that would hardly be a recommendation. washington, the new deal and the present administration are somewhat touchy subjects to the men i have to deal with. they consider its value debatable, if you know what i mean. if they got the idea that sociology professors are giving advice and guidance--no, we have to stick to brass tacks and leave washington out of this. what, specifically, has the work of this specific department done that would make it as worthy to receive money as--say, a heart disease research fund?" he began to tap the corner of his book absently on the desk, watching me. "fundamental research doesn't show immediate effects, mr. halloway, but its value is recognized." i smiled and took out my pipe. "all right, tell me about it. maybe i'll recognize its value." prof. caswell smiled back tightly. he knew his department was at stake. the other departments were popular with donors and pulled in gift money by scholarships and fellowships, and supported their professors and graduate students by research contracts with the government and industry. caswell had to show a way to make his own department popular--or else. i couldn't fire him directly, of course, but there are ways of doing it indirectly. * * * * * he laid down his book and ran a hand over his ruffled hair. "institutions--organizations, that is--" his voice became more resonant; like most professors, when he had to explain something he instinctively slipped into his platform lecture mannerisms, and began to deliver an essay--"have certain tendencies built into the way they happen to have been organized, which cause them to expand or contract without reference to the needs they were founded to serve." he was becoming flushed with the pleasure of explaining his subject. "all through the ages, it has been a matter of wonder and dismay to men that a simple organization--such as a church to worship in, or a delegation of weapons to a warrior class merely for defense against an outside enemy--will either grow insensately and extend its control until it is a tyranny over their whole lives, or, like other organizations set up to serve a vital need, will tend to repeatedly dwindle and vanish, and have to be painfully rebuilt. "the reason can be traced to little quirks in the way they were organized, a matter of positive and negative power feedbacks. such simple questions as, 'is there a way a holder of authority in this organization can use the power available to him to increase his power?' provide the key. but it still could not be handled until the complex questions of interacting motives and long-range accumulations of minor effects could somehow be simplified and formulated. in working on the problem, i found that the mathematics of open system, as introduced to biology by ludwig von bertalanffy and george kreezer, could be used as a base that would enable me to develop a specifically social mathematics, expressing the human factors of intermeshing authority and motives in simple formulas. "by these formulations, it is possible to determine automatically the amount of growth and period of life of any organization. the un, to choose an unfortunate example, is a shrinker type organization. its monetary support is not in the hands of those who personally benefit by its governmental activities, but, instead, in the hands of those who would personally lose by any extension and encroachment of its authority on their own. yet by the use of formula analysis--" "that's theory," i said. "how about proof?" "my equations are already being used in the study of limited-size federal corporations. washington--" i held up my palm again. "please, not that nasty word again. i mean, where else has it been put into operation? just a simple demonstration, something to show that it works, that's all." he looked away from me thoughtfully, picked up the book and began to tap it on the desk again. it had some unreadable title and his name on it in gold letters. i got the distinct impression again that he was repressing an urge to hit me with it. he spoke quietly. "all right, i'll give you a demonstration. are you willing to wait six months?" "certainly, if you can show me something at the end of that time." reminded of time, i glanced at my watch and stood up. "could we discuss this over lunch?" he asked. "i wouldn't mind hearing more, but i'm having lunch with some executors of a millionaire's will. they have to be convinced that by, 'furtherance of research into human ills,' he meant that the money should go to research fellowships for postgraduate biologists at the university, rather than to a medical foundation." "i see you have your problems, too," caswell said, conceding me nothing. he extended his hand with a chilly smile. "well, good afternoon, mr. halloway. i'm glad we had this talk." i shook hands and left him standing there, sure of his place in the progress of science and the respect of his colleagues, yet seething inside because i, the president and dean, had boorishly demanded that he produce something tangible. i frankly didn't give a hoot if he blew his lid. my job isn't easy. for a crumb of favorable publicity and respect in the newspapers and an annual ceremony in a silly costume, i spend the rest of the year going hat in hand, asking politely for money at everyone's door, like a well-dressed panhandler, and trying to manage the university on the dribble i get. as far as i was concerned, a department had to support itself or be cut down to what student tuition pays for, which is a handful of over-crowded courses taught by an assistant lecturer. caswell had to make it work or get out. but the more i thought about it, the more i wanted to hear what he was going to do for a demonstration. * * * * * at lunch, three days later, while we were waiting for our order, he opened a small notebook. "ever hear of feedback effects?" "not enough to have it clear." "you know the snowball effect, though." "sure, start a snowball rolling downhill and it grows." "well, now--" he wrote a short line of symbols on a blank page and turned the notebook around for me to inspect it. "here's the formula for the snowball process. it's the basic general growth formula--covers everything." it was a row of little symbols arranged like an algebra equation. one was a concentric spiral going up, like a cross-section of a snowball rolling in snow. that was a growth sign. i hadn't expected to understand the equation, but it was almost as clear as a sentence. i was impressed and slightly intimidated by it. he had already explained enough so that i knew that, if he was right, here was the growth of the catholic church and the roman empire, the conquests of alexander and the spread of the smoking habit and the change and rigidity of the unwritten law of styles. "is it really as simple as that?" i asked. "you notice," he said, "that when it becomes too heavy for the cohesion strength of snow, it breaks apart. now in human terms--" the chops and mashed potatoes and peas arrived. "go on," i urged. he was deep in the symbology of human motives and the equations of human behavior in groups. after running through a few different types of grower and shrinker type organizations, we came back to the snowball, and decided to run the test by making something grow. "you add the motives," he said, "and the equation will translate them into organization." "how about a good selfish reason for the ins to drag others into the group--some sort of bounty on new members, a cut of their membership fee?" i suggested uncertainly, feeling slightly foolish. "and maybe a reason why the members would lose if any of them resigned, and some indirect way they could use to force each other to stay in." "the first is the chain letter principle," he nodded. "i've got that. the other...." he put the symbols through some mathematical manipulation so that a special grouping appeared in the middle of the equation. "that's it." since i seemed to have the right idea, i suggested some more, and he added some, and juggled them around in different patterns. we threw out a few that would have made the organization too complicated, and finally worked out an idyllically simple and deadly little organization setup where joining had all the temptation of buying a sweepstakes ticket, going in deeper was as easy as hanging around a race track, and getting out was like trying to pull free from a malayan thumb trap. we put our heads closer together and talked lower, picking the best place for the demonstration. "abington?" "how about watashaw? i have some student sociological surveys of it already. we can pick a suitable group from that." "this demonstration has got to be convincing. we'd better pick a little group that no one in his right mind would expect to grow." "there should be a suitable club--" picture professor caswell, head of the department of sociology, and with him the president of the university, leaning across the table toward each other, sipping coffee and talking in conspiratorial tones over something they were writing in a notebook. that was us. * * * * * "ladies," said the skinny female chairman of the watashaw sewing circle. "today we have guests." she signaled for us to rise, and we stood up, bowing to polite applause and smiles. "professor caswell, and professor smith." (my alias.) "they are making a survey of the methods and duties of the clubs of watashaw." we sat down to another ripple of applause and slightly wider smiles, and then the meeting of the watashaw sewing circle began. in five minutes i began to feel sleepy. there were only about thirty people there, and it was a small room, not the halls of congress, but they discussed their business of collecting and repairing second hand clothing for charity with the same endless boring parliamentary formality. i pointed out to caswell the member i thought would be the natural leader, a tall, well-built woman in a green suit, with conscious gestures and a resonant, penetrating voice, and then went into a half doze while caswell stayed awake beside me and wrote in his notebook. after a while the resonant voice roused me to attention for a moment. it was the tall woman holding the floor over some collective dereliction of the club. she was being scathing. i nudged caswell and murmured, "did you fix it so that a shover has a better chance of getting into office than a non-shover?" "i think there's a way they could find for it," caswell whispered back, and went to work on his equation again. "yes, several ways to bias the elections." "good. point them out tactfully to the one you select. not as if she'd use such methods, but just as an example of the reason why only _she_ can be trusted with initiating the change. just mention all the personal advantages an unscrupulous person could have." he nodded, keeping a straight and sober face as if we were exchanging admiring remarks about the techniques of clothes repairing, instead of conspiring. after the meeting, caswell drew the tall woman in the green suit aside and spoke to her confidentially, showing her the diagram of organization we had drawn up. i saw the responsive glitter in the woman's eyes and knew she was hooked. we left the diagram of organization and our typed copy of the new bylaws with her and went off soberly, as befitted two social science experimenters. we didn't start laughing until our car passed the town limits and began the climb for university heights. if caswell's equations meant anything at all, we had given that sewing circle more growth drives than the roman empire. * * * * * four months later i had time out from a very busy schedule to wonder how the test was coming along. passing caswell's office, i put my head in. he looked up from a student research paper he was correcting. "caswell, about that sewing club business--i'm beginning to feel the suspense. could i get an advance report on how it's coming?" "i'm not following it. we're supposed to let it run the full six months." "but i'm curious. could i get in touch with that woman--what's her name?" "searles. mrs. george searles." "would that change the results?" "not in the slightest. if you want to graph the membership rise, it should be going up in a log curve, probably doubling every so often." i grinned. "if it's not rising, you're fired." he grinned back. "if it's not rising, you won't have to fire me--i'll burn my books and shoot myself." i returned to my office and put in a call to watashaw. while i was waiting for the phone to be answered, i took a piece of graph paper and ruled it off into six sections, one for each month. after the phone had rung in the distance for a long time, a servant answered with a bored drawl: "mrs. searles' residence." i picked up a red gummed star and licked it. "mrs. searles, please." "she's not in just now. could i take a message?" i placed the star at the thirty line in the beginning of the first section. thirty members they'd started with. "no, thanks. could you tell me when she'll be back?" "not until dinner. she's at the meetin'." "the sewing club?" i asked. "no, sir, not that thing. there isn't any sewing club any more, not for a long time. she's at the civic welfare meeting." somehow i hadn't expected anything like that. "thank you," i said and hung up, and after a moment noticed i was holding a box of red gummed stars in my hand. i closed it and put it down on top of the graph of membership in the sewing circle. no more members.... poor caswell. the bet between us was ironclad. he wouldn't let me back down on it even if i wanted to. he'd probably quit before i put through the first slow move to fire him. his professional pride would be shattered, sunk without a trace. i remembered what he said about shooting himself. it had seemed funny to both of us at the time, but.... what a mess _that_ would make for the university. i had to talk to mrs. searles. perhaps there was some outside reason why the club had disbanded. perhaps it had not just died. i called back. "this is professor smith," i said, giving the alias i had used before. "i called a few minutes ago. when did you say mrs. searles will return?" "about six-thirty or seven o'clock." five hours to wait. and what if caswell asked me what i had found out in the meantime? i didn't want to tell him anything until i had talked it over with that woman searles first. "where is this civic welfare meeting?" she told me. five minutes later, i was in my car, heading for watashaw, driving considerably faster than my usual speed and keeping a careful watch for highway patrol cars as the speedometer climbed. * * * * * the town meeting hall and theater was a big place, probably with lots of small rooms for different clubs. i went in through the center door and found myself in the huge central hall where some sort of rally was being held. a political-type rally--you know, cheers and chants, with bunting already down on the floor, people holding banners, and plenty of enthusiasm and excitement in the air. someone was making a speech up on the platform. most of the people there were women. i wondered how the civic welfare league could dare hold its meeting at the same time as a political rally that could pull its members away. the group with mrs. searles was probably holding a shrunken and almost memberless meeting somewhere in an upper room. there probably was a side door that would lead upstairs. while i glanced around, a pretty girl usher put a printed bulletin in my hand, whispering, "here's one of the new copies." as i attempted to hand it back, she retreated. "oh, you can keep it. it's the new one. everyone's supposed to have it. we've just printed up six thousand copies to make sure there'll be enough to last." the tall woman on the platform had been making a driving, forceful speech about some plans for rebuilding watashaw's slum section. it began to penetrate my mind dimly as i glanced down at the bulletin in my hands. "civic welfare league of watashaw. the united organization of church and secular charities." that's what it said. below began the rules of membership. i looked up. the speaker, with a clear, determined voice and conscious, forceful gestures, had entered the homestretch of her speech, an appeal to the civic pride of all citizens of watashaw. "with a bright and glorious future--potentially without poor and without uncared-for ill--potentially with no ugliness, no vistas which are not beautiful--the best people in the best planned town in the country--the jewel of the united states." she paused and then leaned forward intensely, striking her clenched hand on the speaker's stand with each word for emphasis. "_all we need is more members. now get out there and recruit!_" i finally recognized mrs. searles, as an answering sudden blast of sound half deafened me. the crowd was chanting at the top of its lungs: "recruit! recruit!" mrs. searles stood still at the speaker's table and behind her, seated in a row of chairs, was a group that was probably the board of directors. it was mostly women, and the women began to look vaguely familiar, as if they could be members of the sewing circle. i put my lips close to the ear of the pretty usher while i turned over the stiff printed bulletin on a hunch. "how long has the league been organized?" on the back of the bulletin was a constitution. she was cheering with the crowd, her eyes sparkling. "i don't know," she answered between cheers. "i only joined two days ago. isn't it wonderful?" i went into the quiet outer air and got into my car with my skin prickling. even as i drove away, i could hear them. they were singing some kind of organization song with the tune of "marching through georgia." even at the single glance i had given it, the constitution looked exactly like the one we had given the watashaw sewing circle. all i told caswell when i got back was that the sewing circle had changed its name and the membership seemed to be rising. * * * * * next day, after calling mrs. searles, i placed some red stars on my graph for the first three months. they made a nice curve, rising more steeply as it reached the fourth month. they had picked up their first increase in membership simply by amalgamating with all the other types of charity organizations in watashaw, changing the club name with each fusion, but keeping the same constitution--the constitution with the bright promise of advantages as long as there were always new members being brought in. by the fifth month, the league had added a mutual baby-sitting service and had induced the local school board to add a nursery school to the town service, so as to free more women for league activity. but charity must have been completely organized by then, and expansion had to be in other directions. some real estate agents evidently had been drawn into the whirlpool early, along with their ideas. the slum improvement plans began to blossom and take on a tinge of real estate planning later in the month. the first day of the sixth month, a big two page spread appeared in the local paper of a mass meeting which had approved a full-fledged scheme for slum clearance of watashaw's shack-town section, plus plans for rehousing, civic building, and rezoning. _and_ good prospects for attracting some new industries to the town, industries which had already been contacted and seemed interested by the privileges offered. and with all this, an arrangement for securing and distributing to the club members _alone_ most of the profit that would come to the town in the form of a rise in the price of building sites and a boom in the building industry. the profit distributing arrangement was the same one that had been built into the organization plan for the distribution of the small profits of membership fees and honorary promotions. it was becoming an openly profitable business. membership was rising more rapidly now. by the second week of the sixth month, news appeared in the local paper that the club had filed an application to incorporate itself as the watashaw mutual trade and civic development corporation, and all the local real estate promoters had finished joining en masse. the mutual trade part sounded to me as if the chamber of commerce was on the point of being pulled in with them, ideas, ambitions and all. i chuckled while reading the next page of the paper, on which a local politician was reported as having addressed the club with a long flowery oration on their enterprise, charity, and civic spirit. he had been made an honorary member. if he allowed himself to be made a _full_ member with its contractual obligations and its lures, if the politicians went into this, too.... i laughed, filing the newspaper with the other documents on the watashaw test. these proofs would fascinate any businessman with the sense to see where his bread was buttered. a businessman is constantly dealing with organizations, including his own, and finding them either inert, cantankerous, or both. caswell's formula could be a handle to grasp them with. gratitude alone would bring money into the university in carload lots. * * * * * the end of the sixth month came. the test was over and the end reports were spectacular. caswell's formulas were proven to the hilt. after reading the last newspaper reports, i called him up. "perfect, wilt, _perfect_! i can use this watashaw thing to get you so many fellowships and scholarships and grants for your department that you'll think it's snowing money!" he answered somewhat disinterestedly, "i've been busy working with students on their research papers and marking tests--not following the watashaw business at all, i'm afraid. you say the demonstration went well and you're satisfied?" he was definitely putting on a chill. we were friends now, but obviously he was still peeved whenever he was reminded that i had doubted that his theory could work. and he was using its success to rub my nose in the realization that i had been wrong. a man with a string of degrees after his name is just as human as anyone else. i had needled him pretty hard that first time. "i'm satisfied," i acknowledged. "i was wrong. the formulas work beautifully. come over and see my file of documents on it if you want a boost for your ego. now let's see the formula for stopping it." he sounded cheerful again. "i didn't complicate that organization with negatives. i wanted it to _grow_. it falls apart naturally when it stops growing for more than two months. it's like the great stock boom before an economic crash. everyone in it is prosperous as long as the prices just keep going up and new buyers come into the market, but they all knew what would happen if it stopped growing. you remember, we built in as one of the incentives that the members know they are going to lose if membership stops growing. why, if i tried to stop it now, they'd cut my throat." i remembered the drive and frenzy of the crowd in the one early meeting i had seen. they probably would. "no," he continued. "we'll just let it play out to the end of its tether and die of old age." "when will that be?" "it can't grow past the female population of the town. there are only so many women in watashaw, and some of them don't like sewing." the graph on the desk before me began to look sinister. surely caswell must have made some provision for-"you underestimate their ingenuity," i said into the phone. "since they wanted to expand, they didn't stick to sewing. they went from general charity to social welfare schemes to something that's pretty close to an incorporated government. the name is now the watashaw mutual trade and civic development corporation, and they're filing an application to change it to civic property pool and social dividend, membership contractual, open to all. that social dividend sounds like a technocrat climbed on the band wagon, eh?" while i spoke, i carefully added another red star to the curve above the thousand member level, checking with the newspaper that still lay open on my desk. the curve was definitely some sort of log curve now, growing more rapidly with each increase. "leaving out practical limitations for a moment, where does the formula say it will stop?" i asked. "when you run out of people to join it. but after all, there are only so many people in watashaw. it's a pretty small town." * * * * * "they've opened a branch office in new york," i said carefully into the phone, a few weeks later. with my pencil, very carefully, i extended the membership curve from where it was then. after the next doubling, the curve went almost straight up and off the page. allowing for a lag of contagion from one nation to another, depending on how much their citizens intermingled, i'd give the rest of the world about twelve years. there was a long silence while caswell probably drew the same graph in his own mind. then he laughed weakly. "well, you asked me for a demonstration." that was as good an answer as any. we got together and had lunch in a bar, if you can call it lunch. the movement we started will expand by hook or by crook, by seduction or by bribery or by propaganda or by conquest, but it will expand. and maybe a total world government will be a fine thing--until it hits the end of its rope in twelve years or so. what happens then, i don't know. but i don't want anyone to pin that on me. from now on, if anyone asks me, i've never heard of watashaw. transcriber's note: italic text has been marked with _underscores_. a list of corrections to the text can be found at the end of the document. inconsistencies in spelling or hyphenation have not been corrected. contributions to education number ii the university of chicago founded by john d. rockefeller contributions to education number ii psychology and social practice by john dewey professor and head of departments of philosophy and education chicago the university of chicago press 1901 copyright, 1901, by the university of chicago chicago, ill. psychology and social practice psychology and social practice.[1] [1] address of the president before the american psychological association, new haven, 1899. in coming before you i had hoped to deal with the problem of the relation of psychology to the social sciences--and through them to social practice, to life itself. naturally, in anticipation, i had conceived a systematic exposition of fundamental principles covering the whole ground, and giving every factor its due rating and position. that discussion is not ready today. i am loath, however, completely to withdraw from the subject, especially as there happens to be a certain phase of it with which i have been more or less practically occupied within the last few years. i have in mind the relation of psychology to education. since education is primarily a social affair, and since educational science is first of all a social science, we have here a section of the whole field. in some respects there may be an advantage in approaching the more comprehensive question through the medium of one of its special cases. the absence of elaborated and coherent view may be made up for by a background of experience, which shall check the projective power of reflective abstraction, and secure a translation of large words and ideas into specific images. this special territory, moreover, may be such as to afford both sign-posts and broad avenues to the larger sphere--the place of psychology among the social sciences. because i anticipate such an outcome, and because i shall make a survey of the broad field from the special standpoint taken, i make no apology for presenting this discussion to an association of psychologists rather than to a gathering of educators. in dealing with this particular question, it is impossible not to have in mind the brilliant and effective discourses recently published by my predecessor in this chair. i shall accordingly make free to refer to points, and at times to words, in his treatment of the matter. yet, as perhaps i hardly need say, it is a problem of the most fundamental importance for both psychology and social theory that i wish to discuss, not any particular book or article. indeed, with much of what dr. münsterberg says about the uselessness and the danger for the teacher of miscellaneous scraps of child study, of unorganized information regarding the nervous system, and of crude and uninterpreted results of laboratory experiment, i am in full agreement. it is doubtless necessary to protest against a hasty and violent bolting of psychological facts and principles which, of necessity, destroys their scientific form. it is necessary to point out the need of a preliminary working over of psychological material, adapting it to the needs of education. but these are minor points. the main point is whether the standpoint of psychological science, as a study of _mechanism_, is indifferent and opposed to the demands of education with its free interplay of personalities in their vital attitudes and aims. i. the school practice of today has a definite psychological basis. teachers are already possessed by specific psychological assumptions which control their theory and their practice. the greatest obstacle to the introduction of certain educational reforms is precisely the permeating persistence of the underlying psychological creed. traced back to its psychological ultimates, there are two controlling bases of existing methods of instruction. one is the assumption of a fundamental distinction between child psychology and the adult psychology where in reality identity reigns, viz., in the region of the motives and conditions which make for mental power. the other is the assumption of likeness where marked difference is the feature most significant for educational purposes; i mean the specialization of aims and habits in the adult, compared with the absence of specialization in the child, and the connection of undifferentiated status with the full and free growth of the child. the adult is primarily a person with a certain calling and position in life. these devolve upon him certain _specific_ responsibilities which he has to meet, and call into play certain formed habits. the child is primarily one whose calling is _growth_. he is concerned with arriving at specific ends and purposes--instead of having a general framework already developed. he is engaged in _forming_ habits rather than in definitely utilizing those already formed. consequently he is absorbed in getting that all-around contact with persons and things, that range of acquaintance with the physical and ideal factors of life, which shall afford the background and material for the specialized aims and pursuits of later life. he is, or should be, busy in the formation of a flexible variety of habits whose sole immediate criterion is their relation to _full growth_, rather than in acquiring certain _skills_ whose value is measured by their reference to specialized technical accomplishments. this is the radical psychological and biological distinction, i take it, between the child and the adult. it is because of this distinction that children are neither physiologically nor mentally describable as "little men and women." the full recognition of this distinction means of course the selection and arrangement of all school materials and methods for the facilitation of full normal growth, trusting to the result in growth to provide the instrumentalities of later specialized adaptation. if education means the period of prolonged infancy, it means nothing less than this. but look at our school system and ask whether the three r's are taught, either as to subject-matter or as to method, with reference to growth, to its present demands and opportunities; or as technical acquisitions which are to be needed in the specialized life of the adult. ask the same questions about geography, grammar, and history. the gap between psychological theory and the existing school practice becomes painfully apparent. we readily realize the extent to which the present school system is dominated by carrying over into child life a standpoint and method which are significant in the psychology of the adult. the narrow scope of the traditional elementary curriculum, the premature and excessive use of logical analytic methods, the assumption of ready-made faculties of observation, memory, attention, etc., which can be brought into play if only the child chooses to do so, the ideal of formal discipline--all these find a large measure of their explanation in neglect of just this psychological distinction between the child and the adult. the hold of these affairs upon the school is so fixed that it is impossible to shake it in any fundamental way, excepting by a thorough appreciation of the actual psychology of the case. this appreciation cannot be confined to the educational leaders and theorists. no individual instructor can be sincere and whole-hearted, to say nothing of intelligent, in carrying into effect the needed reforms, save as he genuinely understands the scientific basis and necessity of the change. but in another direction there is the assumption of a fundamental difference: namely, as to the _conditions_ which secure intellectual and moral progress and power.[2] no one seriously questions that, with an adult, power and control are obtained through realization of personal ends and problems, through personal selection of means and materials which are relevant, and through personal adaptation and application of what is thus selected, together with whatever of experimentation and of testing is involved in this effort. practically every one of these three conditions of increase in power for the adult is denied for the child. for him problems and aims are determined by another mind. for him the material that is relevant and irrelevant is selected in advance by another mind. and, upon the whole, there is such an attempt to teach him a ready-made method for applying his material to the solution of his problems, or the reaching of his ends, that the factor of experimentation is reduced to the minimum. with the adult we unquestioningly assume that an attitude of personal inquiry, based upon the possession of a problem which interests and absorbs, is a necessary precondition of mental growth. with the child we assume that the precondition is rather the willing disposition which makes him ready to submit to any problem and material presented from without. _alertness_ is our ideal in one case; _docility_ in the other. with one we assume that power of attention develops in dealing with problems which make a personal appeal, and through personal responsibility for determining what is relevant. with the other we provide next to no opportunities for the evolution of problems out of immediate experience, and allow next to no free mental play for selecting, assorting, and adapting the experiences and ideas that make for their solution. how profound a revolution in the position and service of text-book and teacher, and in methods of instruction depending therefrom, would be effected by a sincere recognition of the psychological identity of child and adult in these respects can with difficulty be realized. [2] i owe this point specifically (as well as others more generally) to my friend and colleague, mrs. ella flagg young. here again it is not enough that the educational commanders should be aware of the correct educational psychology. the rank and file, just because they are persons dealing with persons, must have a sufficient grounding in the psychology of the matter to realize the necessity and the significance of what they are doing. any reform instituted without such conviction on the part of those who have to carry it into effect would never be undertaken in good faith, nor in the spirit which its ideal inevitably demands; consequently it could lead only to disaster. at this point, however, the issue defines itself somewhat more narrowly. it may be true, it is true, we are told, that some should take hold of psychological methods and conclusions, and organize them with reference to the assistance which they may give to the cause of education. but this is not the work of the teacher. it belongs to the general educational theorist: the middleman between the psychologist and the educational practitioner. he should put the matter into such shape that the teacher may take the net results in the form of advice and rules for action; but the teacher who comes in contact with the living personalities must not assume the psychological attitude. if he does, he reduces persons to objects, and thereby distorts, or rather destroys, the ethical relationship which is the vital nerve of instruction (_psychology and life_, p. 122, and pp. 136-8). that there is some legitimate division of labor between the general educational theorist and the actual instructor, there is, of course, no doubt. as a rule, it will not be the one actively employed in instruction who will be most conscious of the psychological basis and equivalents of the educational work, nor most occupied in finding the pedagogical rendering of psychological facts and principles. of necessity, the stress of interest will be elsewhere. but we have already found reason for questioning the possibility of making the somewhat different direction of interest into a rigid dualism of a legislative class on one side and an obedient subject class on the other. can the teacher ever receive "obligatory prescriptions"? can he receive from another a statement of the means by which he is to reach his ends, and not become hopelessly servile in his attitude? would not such a result be even worse than the existing mixture of empiricism and inspiration?--just because it would forever fossilize the empirical element and dispel the inspiration which now quickens routine. can a passive, receptive attitude on the part of the instructor (suggesting the soldier awaiting orders from a commanding general) be avoided, unless the teacher, as a student of psychology, himself sees the reasons and import of the suggestions and rules that are proffered him? i quote a passage that seems of significance: "do we not lay a special linking science everywhere else between the theory and practical work? we have engineering between physics and the practical workingmen in the mills; we have a scientific medicine between the natural science and the physician" (p. 138). the sentences suggest, in an almost startling way, that the real essence of the problem is found in an _organic_ connection between the two extreme terms--between the theorist and the practical worker--through the medium of the linking science. the decisive matter is the extent to which the ideas of the theorist actually project themselves, through the kind offices of the middleman, into the consciousness of the practitioner. it is the participation by the practical man in the theory, through the agency of the linking science, that determines at once the effectiveness of the work done, and the moral freedom and personal development of the one engaged in it. it is because the physician no longer follows rules, which, however rational in themselves, are yet arbitrary to him (because grounded in principles that he does not understand), that his work is becoming liberal, attaining the dignity of a profession, instead of remaining a mixture of _empiricism and quackery_. it is because, alas, engineering makes only a formal and not a real connection between physics and the practical workingmen in the mills that our industrial problem is an ethical problem of the most serious kind. the question of the amount of wages the laborer receives, of the purchasing value of this wage, of the hours and conditions of labor, are, after all, secondary. the problem primarily roots in the fact that the mediating science does not connect with his _consciousness_, but merely with his outward actions. he does not appreciate the significance and bearing of what he does; and he does not perform his work because of sharing in a larger scientific and social consciousness. if he did, he would be free. all other proper accompaniments of wage, and hours, healthful and inspiring conditions, would be added unto him, because he would have entered into the ethical kingdom. shall we seek analogy with the teacher's calling in the workingmen in the mill, or in the scientific physician? it is quite likely that i shall be reminded that i am overlooking an essential difference. the physician, it will be said, is dealing with a body which either is in itself a pure object, a causal interplay of anatomical elements, or is something which lends itself naturally and without essential loss to treatment from this point of view; while the case is quite different in the material with which the teacher deals. here is personality, which is destroyed when regarded as an object. but the gap is not so pronounced nor so serious as this objection implies. the physician, after all, is not dealing with a lifeless body; with a simple anatomical structure, or interplay of mechanical elements. life-functions, active operations, are the reality which confronts him. we do not have to go back many centuries in the history of medicine to find a time when the physician attempted to deal with these functions directly and immediately. they were so overpoweringly present, they forced themselves upon him so obviously and so constantly, that he had no resource save a mixture of magic and empiricism: magic so far as he followed methods derived from uncritical analogy, or from purely general speculation on the universe and life; empiricism so long as he just followed procedures which had been found helpful before in cases which somewhat resembled the present. we have only to trace the intervening history of medicine to appreciate that it is precisely the ability to state function in terms of structure, to reduce life in its active operations to terms of a causal mechanism, which has taken the medical calling out of this dependence upon a vibration between superstition and routine. progress has come by taking what is really an activity _as if_ it were only an object. it is the capacity to effect this transformation of life-activity which measures both the scientific character of the physician's procedure and his practical control, the certainty and efficacy of what he, as a living man, does in relation to some other living man. it is an old story, however, that we must not content ourselves with analogies. we must find some specific reason in the principles of the teacher's own activities for believing that psychology--the ability to transform a living personality into an objective mechanism for the time being--is not merely an incidental help, but an organic necessity. upon the whole, the best efforts of teachers at present are partly paralyzed, partly distorted, and partly rendered futile precisely from the fact that they are in such immediate contact with sheer, unanalyzed personality. the relation is such a purely ethical and personal one that the teacher cannot get enough outside the situation to handle it intelligently and effectively. he is in precisely the condition in which the physician was when he had no recourse save to deal with health as entity or force on one side, and disease as opposing agency or invading influence upon the other. the teacher reacts _en bloc_, in a gross wholesale way, to something which he takes in an equally undefined and total way in the child. it is the inability to regard, upon occasion, both himself and the child as just objects working upon each other in specific ways that compels him to resort to purely arbitrary measures, to fall back upon mere routine traditions of school-teaching, or to fly to the latest fad of pedagogical theorists--the latest panacea peddled out in school journals or teachers' institutes--just as the old physician relied upon his magic formula. i repeat, it is the fundamental weakness of our teaching force today (putting aside teachers who are actually incompetent by reason either of wrong motives or inadequate preparation) that they react in gross to the child's exhibitions in gross without analyzing them into their detailed and constituent elements. if the child is angry, he is dealt with simply as an angry being; anger is an entity, a force, not a symptom. if a child is inattentive, this again is treated as a mere case of refusal to use the faculty or function of attention, of sheer unwillingness to act. teachers tell you that a child is careless or inattentive in the same final way in which they would tell you that a piece of paper is white. it is just a fact, and that is all there is of it. now, it is only through some recognition of attention as a mechanism, some awareness of the interplay of sensations, images, and motor impulses which constitute it as an objective fact, that the teacher can deal effectively with attention as a function. and, of course, the same is true of memory, quick and useful observation, good judgment, and all the other practical powers the teacher is attempting to cultivate. consideration of the abstract concepts of mechanism and personality is important. too much preoccupation with them in a general fashion, however, without translation into relevant imagery of actual conditions, is likely to give rise to unreal difficulties. the ethical personality does not go to school naked; it takes with it the body as the instrument through which all influences reach it, and through control of which its ideas are both elaborated and expressed. the teacher does not deal with personality at large, but as expressed in intellectual and practical impulses and habits. the ethical personality is not formed--it is forming. the teacher must provide stimuli leading to the equipment of personality with active habits and interests. when we consider the problem of forming habits and interests, we find ourselves at once confronted with matters of this sort: what stimuli shall be presented to the sense-organs and how? what stable complexes of associations shall be organized? what motor impulses shall be evoked, and to what extent? how shall they be induced in such a way as to bring favorable stimuli under greater control, and to lessen the danger of excitation from undesirable stimuli? in a word, the teacher is dealing with the psychical factors that are concerned with furtherance of certain habits, and the inhibition of others--habits intellectual, habits emotional, habits in overt action. moreover, all the instruments and materials with which the teacher deals must be considered as psychical stimuli. such consideration involves of necessity a knowledge of their reciprocal reactions--of what goes by the name of _causal mechanism_. the introduction of certain changes into a network of associations, the reinforcement of certain sensori-motor connections, the weakening or displacing of others--this is the psychological rendering of the greater part of the teacher's actual business. it is not that one teacher employs mechanical considerations, and that the other does not, appealing to higher ends; it is that one does not know his mechanism, and consequently acts servilely, superstitiously, and blindly, while the other, knowing what he is about, acts freely, clearly, and effectively.[3] [3] that some teachers get their psychology by instinct more effectively than others by any amount of reflective study may be unreservedly stated. it is not a question of manufacturing teachers, but of reinforcing and enlightening those who have a right to teach. the same thing is true on the side of materials of instruction--the school studies. no amount of exaltation of teleological personality (however true, and however necessary the emphasis) can disguise from us the fact that instruction is an affair of bringing a child into intimate relations with concrete objects, positive facts, definite ideas, and specific symbols. the symbols are objective things in arithmetic, reading, and writing. the ideas are truths of history and of science. the facts are derived from such specific disciplines as geography and language, botany and astronomy. to suppose that by some influence of pure personality upon pure personality, conjoined with a knowledge of rules formulated by an educational theorist, an effective interplay of this body of physical and ideal objects with the life of the child can be effective, is, i submit, nothing but an appeal to magic, plus dependence upon servile routine. symbols in reading and writing and number are, both in themselves and in the way in which they stand for ideas, elements in a mechanism which has to be rendered operative within the child. to bring about this influence in the most helpful and economical way, in the most fruitful and liberating way, is absolutely impossible save as the teacher has some power to transmute symbols and contents into their working psychical equivalents; and save as he also has the power to see what it is in the child, as a psychical mechanism, that affords maximum leverage. probably i shall now hear that at present the danger is not of dealing with acts and persons in a gross, arbitrary way, but (so far as what is called new education is concerned) in treating the children too much as mechanism, and consequently seeking for all kinds of stimuli to stir and attract--that, in a word, the tendency to reduce instruction to a merely agreeable thing, weakening the child's personality and indulging his mere love of excitement and pleasure, is precisely the result of taking the psycho-mechanical point of view. i welcome the objection, for it serves to clear up the precise point. it is through a partial and defective psychology that the teacher, in his reaction from dead routine and arbitrary moral and intellectual discipline, has substituted an appeal to the satisfaction of momentary impulse. it is not because the teacher has a knowledge of the psycho-physical mechanism, but because he has a _partial_ knowledge of it. he has come to consciousness of certain sensations and certain impulses, and of the ways in which these may be stimulated and directed, but he is in ignorance of the larger mechanism (just as a mechanism), and of the causal relations which subsist between the unknown part and the elements upon which he is playing. what is needed to correct his errors is not to inform him that he gets only misleading from taking the psychical point of view, but to reveal to him the scope and intricate interactions of the mechanism as a whole. then he will realize that, while he is gaining apparent efficacy in some superficial part of the mechanism, he is disarranging, dislocating, and disintegrating much more fundamental factors in it. in a word, he is operating, not as a psychologist, but as a poor psychologist, and the only cure for a partial psychology is a fuller one. he is gaining the momentary attention of the child through an appeal to pleasant color, or exciting tone, or agreeable association, but at the expense of isolating one cog and ratchet in the machinery, and making it operate independently of the rest. in theory, it is as possible to demonstrate this to a teacher, showing how the faulty method reacts unhappily into the personality, as it is to locate the points of wrong construction and of ineffective transfer of energy in a physical apparatus. this suggests the admission made by writers, in many respects as far apart as dr. harris and dr. münsterberg, that scientific psychology is of use on the pathological side, where questions of "physical and mental health" are concerned. but is there anything with which the teacher has concern that is not included in the ideal of physical and mental health? does health define to us anything less than the teacher's whole end and aim? where does pathology leave off in the scale and series of vicious aims and defective means? i see no line between the more obvious methods and materials which result in nervous irritation and fatigue, in weakening the power of vision, in establishing spinal curvatures, and others which, in more remote and subtle, but equally real, ways leave the child with, say, a muscular system which is only partially at the service of his ideas, with blocked and inert brain paths between eye and ear, and with a partial and disconnected development of the cerebral paths of visual imagery. what error in instruction is there which could not, with proper psychological theory, be stated in just such terms as these? a wrong method of teaching reading, wrong, i mean, in the full educational and ethical sense, is also a case of pathological use of the psycho-physical mechanism. a method is ethically defective that, while giving the child a glibness in the mechanical facility of reading, leaves him at the mercy of suggestion and chance environment to decide whether he reads the "yellow journal," the trashy novel, or the literature which inspires and makes more valid his whole life. is it any less certain that this failure on the ethical side is repeated in some lack of adequate growth and connection in the psychical and physiological factors involved? if a knowledge of psychology is important to the teacher in the grosser and more overt cases of mental pathology, is it not even more important in these hidden and indirect matters--just because they are less evident, and more circuitous in their operation and manifestation? the argument may be summarized by saying that there is controversy neither as to the ethical character of education, nor as to the abstraction which psychology performs in reducing personality to an object. the teacher is, indeed, a person occupied with other persons. he lives in a social sphere--he is a member and an organ of a social life. his aims are social aims; the development of individuals taking ever more responsible positions in a circle of social activities continually increasing in radius and in complexity. whatever he as a teacher effectively does, he does as a person; and he does with and toward persons. his methods, like his aims, when actively in operation, are practical, are social, are ethical, are anything you please--save merely _psychical_. in comparison with this, the material and the data, the standpoint and the methods of psychology, are abstract. they transform specific acts and relations of individuals into a flow of processes in consciousness; and these processes can be adequately identified and related only through reference to a biological organism. i do not think there is danger of going too far in asserting the social and teleological nature of the work of the teacher; or in asserting the abstract and partial character of the mechanism into which the psychologist, as a psychologist, transmutes the play of vital values. does it follow from this that any attempt on the part of the teacher to perform this abstraction, to see the pupil as a mechanism, to define his own relations and that of the study taught in terms of causal influences acting upon this mechanism, is useless and harmful? on the face of it, i cannot understand the logic which says that because mechanism is mechanism, and because acts, aims, values are vital, therefore a statement in terms of one is alien to the comprehension and proper management of the other. ends are not compromised when referred to the means necessary to realize them. values do not cease to be values when they are minutely and accurately measured. acts are not destroyed when their operative machinery is made manifest. the statement of the disparity of mechanism and actual life, be it never so true, solves no problem. it is no distinction that may be used off-hand to decide the question of the relation of psychology to any form of practice. it is a valuable and necessary distinction; but it is only preliminary. the purport of our discussion has, indeed, led us strongly to suspect any ideal which exists purely at large, out of relation to machinery of execution, and equally a machinery that operates in no particular direction. the proposition that a description and explanation of stones, iron, and mortar, as an absolutely necessary causal nexus of mechanical conditions, makes the results of physical science unavailable for purposes of practical life, would hardly receive attention today. every sky-scraper, every railway bridge, is a refutation, compared with which oceans of talk are futile. one would not find it easy to stir up a problem, even if he went on to include, in this same mechanical system, the steam derricks that hoist the stones and iron, and the muscles and nerves of architect, mason, and steel worker. the simple fact is still too obvious: the more thoroughgoing and complete the mechanical and causal statement, the more controlled, the more economical, are the discovery and realization of human aims. it is not in spite of, nor in neglect of, but because of, the mechanical statement that human activity has been freed, and made effective in thousands of new practical directions, upon a scale and with a certainty hitherto undreamed of. our discussion tends to suggest that we entertain a similar question regarding psychology only because we have as yet made so little headway--just because there is so little scientific control of our practice in these directions; that at bottom our difficulty is local and circumstantial, not intrinsic and doctrinal. if our teachers were trained as architects are trained; if our schools were actually managed on a psychological basis as great factories are run on the basis of chemical and physical science; if our psychology were sufficiently organized and coherent to give as adequate a mechanical statement of human nature as physics does of its material, we should never dream of discussing this question. i cannot pass on from this phase of the discussion without at least incidental remark of the obverse side of the situation. the difficulties of psychological observation and interpretation are great enough in any case. we cannot afford to neglect any possible auxiliary. the great advantage of the psycho-physical laboratory is paid for by certain obvious defects. the completer control of conditions, with resulting greater accuracy of determination, demands an isolation, a ruling out of the usual media of thought and action, which leads to a certain remoteness, and easily to a certain artificiality. when the result of laboratory experiment informs us, for example, that repetition is the chief factor influencing recall, we must bear in mind that the result is obtained with nonsense material, _i. e._, by excluding the conditions of ordinary memory. the result is pertinent if we state it thus: the more we exclude the usual environmental adaptations of memory, the greater importance attaches to sheer repetition. it is dubious (and probably perverse) if we say: repetition is the prime influence in memory. now, this illustrates a general principle. unless our laboratory results are to give us artificialities, mere scientific curiosities, they must be subjected to interpretation by gradual reapproximation to conditions of life. the results may be very accurate, very definitive in form; but the task of re-viewing them so as to see their actual import is clearly one of great delicacy and liability to error. the laboratory, in a word, affords no final refuge that enables us to avoid the ordinary scientific difficulties of forming hypotheses, interpreting results, etc. in some sense (from the very accuracy and limitations of its results) it adds to our responsibilities in this direction. now the school, for psychological purposes, stands in many respects midway between the extreme simplifications of the laboratory and the confused complexities of ordinary life. its conditions are those of life at large; they are social and practical. but it approaches the laboratory in so far as the ends aimed at are reduced in number, are definite, and thus simplify the conditions; and their psychological phase is uppermost--the formation of habits of attention, observation, memory, etc.--while in ordinary life these are secondary and swallowed up. if the biological and evolutionary attitude is right in looking at mind as fundamentally an instrument of adaptation, there are certainly advantages in any mode of approach which brings us near to its various adaptations while they are still forming, and under conditions selected with special reference to promoting these adaptations (or faculties). and this is precisely the situation we should have in a properly organized system of education. while the psychological theory would guide and illuminate the practice, acting upon the theory would immediately test it, and thus criticise it, bringing about its revision and growth. in the large and open sense of the words, psychology becomes a working hypothesis, instruction is the experimental test and demonstration of the hypothesis; the result is both greater practical control and continued growth in theory. ii. i must remind myself that my purpose does not conclude with a statement of the auxiliary relation of psychology to education; but that we are concerned with this as a type case of a wider problem--the relation of psychology to social practice in general. so far i have tried to show that it is not in spite of its statement of personal aims and social relations in terms of mechanism that psychology is useful, but because of this transformation and abstraction. through reduction of ethical relations to presented objects we are enabled to get outside of the existing situation; to see it objectively, not merely in relation to our traditional habits, vague aspirations, and capricious desires. we are able to see clearly the factors which shape it, and therefore to get an idea of how it may be modified. the assumption of an identical relationship of physics and psychology to practical life is justified. our freedom of action comes through its statement in terms of necessity. by this translation our control is enlarged, our powers are directed, our energy conserved, our aims illuminated. the school is an especially favorable place in which to study the availability of psychology for social practice; because in the school the formation of a certain type of social personality, with a certain attitude and equipment of working powers, is the express aim. in idea, at least, no other purpose restricts or compromises the dominance of the single purpose. such is not the case in business, politics, and the professions. all these have upon their surface, taken directly, other ends to serve. in many instances these other aims are of far greater immediate importance; the ethical result is subordinate or even incidental. yet as it profiteth a man nothing to gain the whole world and lose his own self, so indirectly and ultimately all these other social institutions must be judged by the contribution which they make to the value of human life. other ends may be immediately uppermost, but these ends must in turn be means; they must subserve the interests of conscious life or else stand condemned. in other words, the moment we apply an ethical standard to the consideration of social institutions, that moment they stand on exactly the same level as does the school, viz., as organs for the increase in depth and area of the realized values of life. in both cases the statement of the mechanism, through which the ethical ends are realized, is not only permissible, but absolutely required. it is not merely incidentally, as a grateful addition to its normal task, that psychology serves us. the essential nature of the standpoint which calls it into existence, and of the abstraction which it performs, is to put in our possession the method by which values are introduced and effected in life. the statement of personality as an object, of social relations as a mechanism of stimuli and inhibitions, is precisely the statement of ends in terms of the method of their realization. it is remarkable that men are so blind to the futility of a morality which merely blazons ideals, erects standards, asserts laws without finding in them any organic provision for their own realization. for ideals are held up to follow; standards are given to work by; laws are provided to guide action. the sole and only reason for their conscious moral statement is, in a word, that they may influence and direct conduct. if they cannot do this, not merely by accident, but of their own intrinsic nature, they are worse than inert. they are impudent impostors and logical self-contradictions. when men derive their moral ideals and laws from custom, they also realize them through custom; but when they are in any way divorced from habit and tradition, when they are consciously proclaimed, there must be some substitute for custom as an organ of execution. we must know the method of their operation and know it in detail. otherwise the more earnestly we insist upon our categorical imperatives, and upon their supreme right of control, the more flagrantly helpless we are as to their actual domination. the fact that conscious, as distinct from customary, morality and psychology have had a historic parallel march is just the concrete recognition of the necessary equivalence between ends consciously conceived, and interest in the means upon which the ends depend. we have the same reality stated twice over: once as value to be realized, and once as mechanism of realization. so long as custom reigns, as tradition prevails, so long as social values are determined by instinct and habit, there is no conscious question as to the method of their achievement, and hence no need of psychology. social institutions work of their own inertia, they take the individual up into themselves and carry him along in their own sweep. the individual is dominated by the mass life of his group. institutions and the customs attaching to them take care of society both as to its ideals and its methods. but when once the values come to consciousness, when once a socrates insists upon the organic relation of a reflective life and morality, then the means, the machinery by which ethical ideals are projected and manifested, comes to consciousness also. psychology must needs be born as soon as morality becomes reflective. moreover, psychology, as an account of the mechanism of workings of personality, is the only alternative to an arbitrary and class view of society, to an aristocratic view in the sense of restricting the realization of the full worth of life to a section of society. the growth of a psychology that, as applied to history and sociology, tries to state the interactions of groups of men in familiar psychical categories of stimulus and inhibition, is evidence that we are ceasing to take existing social forms as final and unquestioned. the application of psychology to social institutions is the only scientific way of dealing with their ethical values in their present unequal distribution, their haphazard execution, and their thwarted development. it marks just the recognition of the principle of sufficient reason in the large matters of social life. it is the recognition that the existing order is determined neither by fate nor by chance, but is based on law and order, on a system of existing stimuli and modes of reaction, through knowledge of which we can modify the practical outcome. there is no logical alternative, save either to recognize and search for the mechanism of the interplay of personalities that controls the existing distributions of values, _or_ to accept as final a fixed hierarchy of persons in which the leaders assert, on no basis save their own supposed superior personality, certain ends and laws which the mass of men passively receive and imitate. the effort to apply psychology to social affairs means that the determination of ethical values lies, not in any set or class, however superior, but in the workings of the social whole; that the explanation is found in the complex interactions and interrelations which constitute this whole. to save personality in all, we must serve all alike--state the achievements of all in terms of mechanism, that is, of the exercise of reciprocal influence. to affirm personality independent of mechanism is to restrict its full meaning to a few, and to make its expression in the few irregular and arbitrary. the anomaly in our present social life is obvious enough. with tremendous increase in control of nature, in ability to utilize nature for the indefinite extension and multiplication of commodities for human use and satisfaction, we find the actual realization of ends, the enjoyment of values, growing unassured and precarious. at times it seems as if we were caught in a contradiction; the more we multiply means, the less certain and general is the use we are able to make of them. no wonder a carlyle or a ruskin puts our whole industrial civilization under a ban, while a tolstoi proclaims a return to the desert. but the only way to see the situation steadily, and to see it as a whole, is to keep in mind that the entire problem is one of the development of science, _and of its application to life_. our control of nature, with the accompanying output of material commodities, is the necessary result of the growth of physical science--of our ability to state things as interconnected parts of a mechanism. physical science has for the time being far outrun psychical. we have mastered the physical mechanism sufficiently to turn out possible goods; we have not gained a knowledge of the conditions through which possible values become actual in life, and so are still at the mercy of habit, of haphazard, and hence of force. psychology, after all, simply states the mechanism through which conscious value and meaning are introduced into human experience. as it makes its way, and is progressively applied to history and all the social sciences, we can anticipate no other outcome than increasing control in the ethical sphere--the nature and extent of which can be best judged by considering the revolution that has taken place in the control of physical nature through a knowledge of her order. psychology will never provide ready-made materials and prescriptions for the ethical life, any more than physics dictates off-hand the steam-engine and the dynamo. but science, both physical and psychological, makes known the conditions upon which certain results depend, and therefore puts at the disposal of life a method for controlling them. psychology will never tell us just what to do ethically, nor just how to do it. but it will afford us insight into the conditions which control the formation and execution of aims, and thus enable human effort to expend itself sanely, rationally, and with assurance. we are not called upon to be either boasters or sentimentalists regarding the possibilities of our science. it is best, for the most part, that we should stick to our particular jobs of investigation and reflection as they come to us. but we certainly are entitled in this daily work to be sustained by the conviction that we are not working in indifference to or at cross-purposes with the practical strivings of our common humanity. the psychologist, in his most remote and technical occupation with mechanism, is contributing his bit to that ordered knowledge which alone enables mankind to secure a larger and to direct a more equal flow of values in life. corrections: page original text correction 34 ii ii. 40 reciprocal influence reciprocal influence. the following sentence on page 26 is left unchanged: "... he gets only misleading from taking the psychical point of view," a reprint of the essay in educational essays by john dewey (edited by j. j. finlay) has "... he is only misled by taking the psychical point of view," the growth of thought as affecting the progress of society. by william withington. 1851. contents. part i. introductory. life defined. intellectual culture and intellectual life, distinguished. human life, a problem. the evil to be managed. self-love considered under a three-fold aspect. three agencies for meliorating the human condition. the growth of thought, slow; and oft most in unexpected quarter. part ii. welfare as dependent on the social institutions. limited aim of the received political economy. an enlightened policy but the effective aim at managing self-love, directed towards present goods, vulgarly understood. the political fault of the papacy. its substantial correction by the reformation. republicanism carried from religion into legislation; still without a clear perception of its principle. its progress accordingly slow. part iii. philosophy the second agency for promoting general welfare, as the educator of self-love; the corrector of mistaken apprehensions of temporal good; the revealer of the ties which bind the members of the human family to one lot, to suffer or rejoice together. progress in estimating life. part iv. mightier influences yet needed, to contend with the powers of evil. supplied by man's recognizing the whole of his being; the extent of his duties; the duration of his existence. religion, supplying the defects of the preceding agencies; considered in nine particulars. conclusion. recapitulation. suggestions to christian ministers. preface. a contemporary thus reveals the state of mind, through which he has come to the persuasion of great insight into the realities, which stand behind the veil: "what more natural, more spontaneous, more imperative, than that the conditions of his future being should press themselves on his anxious thought! should we not suppose, the 'every third thought would be his grave,' together with the momentous realities that lie beyond it? if man is indeed, as shakespeare describes him, 'a being of large discourse, looking before and after,' we could scarcely resist the belief, that, when once assured of the possibility of information on his head, he would, as it were, _rush_ to the oracle, to have his absorbing problems solved, and his restless heart relieved of its load of uncertain forebodings."* [bush's statement of reasons, &c., p. 12.] not less frequently or intensely, the writer's mind has turned to the problem of applying know truth to the present, reconciling self-love with justice and benevolence, and vindicating to godliness, the promise of the life that now is. if, meanwhile, he has been "intruding into those things which he hath not seen," like affecting an angelic religion,--then it were hardly possible but that he should mistake fancy for fact. but if his inquiries have been into what it is given to know, then he cannot resist the belief, that some may derive profit from the results of many fearfully anxious years, here compressed within a few pages. he might have further compressed, just saying: mainly, political wisdom is the management of self-love; civilization is the cultivation of self-love; the excrescenses of civilization are the false refinements of self-love; while unselfish love is substantial virtue,--the end of the commandments,--the fulfilling of the law: or, he might have enlarged indefinitely; more especially might have been written on practically applying the principles to the advancement of society. he may yet produce something of the kind. of the substance of the following pages he has only to say, that, if false, the falsehood has probably become too much a part of his nature to be ever separated. as to such minor considerations, as logical arrangement and the niceties of style, he asks only the criticism due to one, whose hands have been necessitated to guide the plough oftener than the pen, through the best years of life. the growth of thought, as affecting the progress of society. part i. introductory. the meditation on human life--on the contrast between what _is_, and what _might be_, on supposing a general concurrence to make the best of things-yields emotions both painful and pleasing;--painful for the demonstrations every where presented, of a love of darkness, rather than light; pleasing, that the worst evils are seen to be so remediable; and so clear the proofs of a gradual, but sure progress towards the remedy. the writer is not very familiar with those authors, who have so much to say on the problem of life--the question, what is life? he supposes them to follow a train of thought, something like this: the life of a creature is that perfection and flourish of its faculties, of which its constitution is capable, and which some of the race are destined to reach. thus, the life of the lion is realized, when the animal ranges undisputed lord of the sunny desert; finds sufficiency of prey for himself and offspring, which he raises to inherit dominion; lives the number of years he is capable of enjoying existence, and then closes it, without excessive pains, lingering regrets, or fearful anticipations. life differs from happiness. it is supposable, that the lion, tamed and petted, trained to feed somewhat after man's chosen manner, may be as happy as if at liberty in his native range. but such happiness is not the animal's life; since this implies the kind of happiness proper to the creature's constitution, in distinction from that induced by forced habits. to happiness add knowledge and intellectual culture, and all together do not realize the idea of life. the tame lion may be taught many arts, assimilating him to the intelligence of man; but these remove him so much further from his appropriate life. thus there may be a cultivated intelligence, which constitutes no part of the creature's life; and this without considering the same as a moral agent. macauley remarks, that the jesuits seem to have solved the problem, how far intellectual culture may be carried, without producing intellectual emancipation. i suppose it would be only varying the expression of his thought to say, jesuitical education strikingly exemplifies, how much intellectual culture may be superinduced upon the mind, without awakening intellectual life--without developing a spontaneous aptness to appreciate, seek, find, embrace the truth. the head is filled with the thoughts of others-many ascertained facts and just conclusions. it can reason aright in the circles of thought, where it has been trained to move; but elsewhere, no spontaneous activity--no self-directed power of thinking justly on new emergencies and questions not yet settled by rule--no spring within, from which living waters flow. the difference between intellectual culture and intellectual life appears in the fact, that in regard to those mastering ideas, which to after times mark one age as in advance of the preceding, the classical scholars, the scientific luminaries, the constitutional expounders of the day, are quite as likely to be behind the general sense of the age, as to be in advance. the question, what is human life? arises on a contemplation like this: there is no difficulty in determining the life of all the other tenants of earth; unless, indeed, those which man has so long and so universally subjected to his purposes, that the whereabouts, or indeed the existence of the original stock, remains in doubt. the inferior animals, left to themselves in favorable circumstances, manifest one development, attain to one flourish, live the same life, from generation to generation. man may superinduce upon them what he calls _improvements_, because they better fit them for _his_ purposes. but said improvements are never transmitted from generation to its successor; left to itself, the race reverts to proper life, the same it has lived from the beginning. man here presents a singular exception to the general rule of earth's inhabitants. the favorite pursuits of one age are abandoned in the next. this generation looks back on the earnest occupations of a preceding, as the adult looks back on the sports and toys of childhood. it is more than supposable, that the planning for the chances of office, the competition for making most gain out of the least productiveness--these earnest pursuits of the men of this age--in the next will be resigned to the children of larger growth; just as are now resigned the trappings of military glory. where then is the human mind ultimately to fix? where is man to find so essentially his good, as to fix his earnest pursuit in one direction, in which the race is still to hold on? such seems to be the question, what is life? the elements of that darkness, which excludes the light of life, may be considered as these three: first, the excessive preponderance of self-love, as the ruling motive of human conduct. secondly, the short-sightedness of self-love, in magnifying the present, at the cost of the distant future. and, thirdly, the grossness of self-love, in preferring of present goods the vulgar and the sensible, to the refined and more exquisitely satisfactory. and there are three ways, in which we may attempt the abatement of existing evils; or, there are three agencies we may call in for this purpose. in the first place, leaving individuals to the operation of the common motives, we may labor at the social institutions, to adjust them to the rule, that, each seeking his own, after the common apprehension of present interests, may do so consistently with acting the part of a good citizen--contributing something to the general welfare; or, at least, not greatly detracting therefrom. here, the agency employed, the greeks would have called by a name, from which we have derived the word _politics_; which word, from abuse, has well nigh lost its original sense, _the science of social welfare_. _policy_, we might say, for want of an exacter word. the second way, in which we may seek the same result, is, to inculcate juster apprehensions of present good--to inform and refine self-love; to show, that the purest of present enjoyments, are like the loaves and fishes distributed by divine hands, multiplying by division and participation--the best of all being such as none can enjoy fully, till they become the common property of the race. for want of a more accurately defined term, the agent here introduced may be called philosophy; understanding by the term, the search, what would be the conduct and preferences of a truly wise man, dispassionately seeking for himself the best enjoyment of this life, uninformed of another to follow. or, thirdly, we may seek to infuse a nobler principle than self-love, however refined--even the charity, whose essence is, to love one's neighbor as one's self; while, at the same time, this life being earnestly contemplated as but the introductory part of an immense whole, additional security is provided for the coincidence of interest with duty. in a word, the third agency to be employed is _religion_. the whole subject thus sketched is one of which the writer is not aware, that it has been distinctly defined, as a field for thought and investigation. he has little to learn from the successes or the failures of predecessors. be this his excuse for seeming prosy and dull; possibly for mistakes and crudities. he has the doubly difficulty of attempting to turn thought into trains to which it is not accustomed; and yet of offering no results so profound as to have escaped other observers; or so sublime as to be the due prize of genius, venturing where few can soar. if he offers any thoughts new, just, and important, they have rather been overlooked for their simplicity and obviousness. one may dive too deep for that which floats on the surface. here are to be expected none of the splendid results, which dazzle in the popular sciences. the cultivator of this field can hope only to favor, imperceptibly it may be, the growth of thoughts and sentiments, tending slowly to work out a better condition of the human family. and he begs to commend that advice of lacon, which himself has found so profitable: "in the pursuit of knowledge, follow it, wherever it is to be found; like fern, it is the produce of all climates; and like coin, its circulation is not restricted to any particular class. * * * * pride is less ashamed of being ignorant, than of being instructed; and she looks too high to find that, which very often lies beneath her. therefore condescend to men of low estate, and be for wisdom, that which alcibiades was for power." (vol. i., p. 122.) the difficulty with us americans, in the way of being instructed, has been, that too proud, as if already possessed of the fullness of political wisdom, we have withal cherished a self-distrust, forbidding us to harmonize our institutions and modes of thinking into conformity with our work and altered situation. we have seen the british nation, choosing by the accident of birth a baby for its future sovereign, and training it in a way the least possible calculated to favor relations of acquaintance and sympathy with varied wants of the many; and our first impression, i fear, has been our last: what drivellers! obstinately blind to the clearest lights of common sense! whereas wiser for us would it be, to derive from the spectacle these general conclusion: that hard is it for the human mind to proceed in advance of ideas received and fashionable; that the so-called independent and original thinkers--leaders of public sentiment-are such as anticipate by a little the general progress of thought, as our hill-tops catch first by a little the beams of the rising sun, before they fill the intervening valleys; that men's superiority in profound thought or liberal ideas, in one direction, affords no security for their attaining to mediocrity in others; and that one familiar with the history of thought, may pronounce, with moral certainty, that such and such ideas were never entertained in such or such society, where due preparation did not exist. as we may confidently say, no mountain-top can tower high enough, to catch the sunbeams at midnight; with equal confidence we may say of many ideas now familiar as school-boy truths: no intellect in ancient greece or rome soared high enough above the mass to grasp them. part ii. welfare as dependent on policy. as generally at all points, so the materialism of the age particularly appears, in that the political economists take _wealth_, defining their science in the vulgar acceptation, rather than in the good old english sense, _welfare_, _well-being_. if they occasionally venture a remark of a more liberal bearing on the general subject of public welfare; such is the exception to the general rule. money, with its equivalents and exchangeables, is their usual theme in treating of wealth; thought the common use of the word economy might suggest a higher science. for he does not exhaust our idea of a good economist, who manages to have at command abundant materials for rendering home happy; while, for lack of wisdom to turn such materials to account, that home may be less happy than the next-door neighbor's, where want is hardly staved off. we exact, for fulfilling that character, wisdom in using the material means--provision for physical, intellectual, and moral training of the household--the just apportionment between labor and recreation-the true contentment, which frets not at present imperfection, while it still presses on to that perfection conceived to be attainable. our writers on political economy would do well, to give the word as liberal a latitude of sense, as it legitimately assumes, when used in its primitive meaning of _household management_. but, rather than attempt to raise a scientific term so much above its received sense, i use another word, and say, policy must begin with the admission, that self-love is the mightiest mover of human conduct; and not a self-love enlightened, deep, calculating, directed to the sources of fullest contentment; but following the groveling estimate, that riches, power, office, ease, being the object of envy or admiration, are the chief goods of life. every business man admits, that his security for men's conduct must be found in their self-interest. he admits thus much practically, so for as his own business is concerned; the exceptions being so rare, as not to justify neglect of the general rule. yet, neither business men nor politicians grasp the principle clearly, nor consequently apply it consistently. and he who would make a new application of it, is met with charges of great uncharitableness. this backwardness to generalize a rule, found so necessary practically to be followed, may be resolved into that flattering conceit of human dignity, which is yielded reluctantly, inch by inch, as plain demonstration wrests it away. and further, self-love conceals itself, because generally it operates first to pervert the judgment. the consciousness of preferring private interest to worthier considerations, is too painful to be endured. the man therefore strives, but too successfully, to misrepresent the case to himself. he contrives to make that seem right, which tends to his own advantage. but though indirect, the operation of self-love is none the less sure. whether the individual be any the less blamable, because self-love assumes this disguise, is not now to be considered. there are individuals, to whom implicit confidence in their unguarded honesty, proves but an added motive to be more tremulously sensitive, not to abuse such confidence. there are, whom respect for their calling binds wholly to more carefulness, to prove worthy of such respect. so always if one is thoroughly pervaded with the right spirit. but dealing with bodies of men, as men yet are, these two rules should shape political institutions and social relations. first, so far as men can command confidence and respect, for the sake of birth, calling, or office, so far they are relieved from the necessity of seeking the same by personal qualifications; and accordingly a body of men so protected, will perceptibly fall short of the average, in the staple elements of respectability. respect for station or calling so ample is here meant, as to satisfy the average desire of approbation. the extent, to which this is satisfied by the respect paid by the child, to the parent, for the relation's sake, is so moderate, as one of the elements tending to the formation of character, that it may be expected to operate generally as it universally would, where the right spirit fully reigns. the remark holds good, with moderate abatement, in the relation of teacher and pupil. in the infancy of the christian church, the relation between pastor and flock was closely analogous to that between parents and children. on the one side were men of a disinterested and paternal spirit, so earnestly living the new life hid with christ in god, that hardly the possibility could be conceived of a desire to exalt and magnify self, over the ignorance and degradation of their spiritual charge. on the other side were men, children in knowledge, incapable of estimating the ministry simply after the consciousness of benefits received. we are not then to condemn the arrangement, which clothed the ministry with an official dignity, the office being revered independently of the claims of the man; nor to wonder, if the arrangement outlived the necessity, or passed the bounds of moderation; or if it was not fully calculated, the danger, lest men of the primitive spirit yield places to those of an inferior stamp; and how truly eternal vigilance is the cost, at which all things here must be saved from their tendencies to deterioration. accordingly the history of the papacy for centuries has been, that its ministers are sure of unbounded respect from the populace, independently of their personal claims. the consequence is, that while a few are thus moved to heroic and almost angelic devotion to the spiritual good of their flocks, the many would never command respect for what they are as men. similar remarks may be applied to the infancy of civil society. the prevalence of monarchy and aristocracy has been too universal, to be charged wholly upon force or chance. and yet in the origin, rational considerations can hardly be supposed to have been distinctly entertained. still there may have been a dim consciousness of thoughts like these: it is so necessary that civil rulers be at all events respected, and so uncertain how to secure due respect to men meriting it, that we must invest a class of men with a factitious official dignity, and take the risk--rather the certainty--of its proving, in most cases, a cover for personal unworthiness, some degrees below the ordinary standard of humanity. if there existed a dim consciousness of such reasoning, it might have been well entertained. the second rule of policy--the master maxim of political wisdom--is, that no class of men must be expected to concur heartily, for extirpating the evils, from which its own revenues and importance are derived. speaking of men acting in a body, there is no room for the many exceptions, necessarily admitted to the rule, that with the individual self-love is the ruling motive. the individual sometimes yields to nobler considerations, than the calculations of self-interest. in the corporation, the _esprit du corps_--the clannish spirit--is sure to master it over public spirit. devotion to the honor, aggrandizement, wealth and power of the order, company, or corporation, is more sure to control their acts as individuals. it is less liable to self-rebuke for conscious meanness. it looks somewhat more like the public spirit which ought to be. it is less liable to occasional counteractions from impulses of honor, humanity, or regard to reputation. accordingly a body of men, so constituted as to find its best flourish short of the perfection of the whole social system, will inevitably, sooner or later, prove an obstacle to the onward march of improvement. a corporation is not necessarily a grievance and a sore on the body politic. if it can have its full flourish, without let to the progress of society, it may be harmless or beneficent. "_sooner or later_;" be this condition marked, in estimating the spiritual policy of rome. the body of reverends, which mediates between god and men, finds its best flourish, in just such degree of popular intelligence as suffices for comprehending the specious arguments, on which rest the claims of holy mother church; and such amount of conscientiousness as galls the offender, till he has purchased absolution. more intelligence generally prevailing, and better appreciation of the divine law as a living rule of duty, would abate the awe in which the priesthood is held, and diminish the revenues accruing from mediating between offending man and his offended maker. but christianity found the world sunk below this moderate standard of intelligence and morals. the best flourish of the priesthood required in the people cultivation of understanding and conscience, up to the point of caring for their account in heaven's record. so the faulty relation between priesthood and people did not at once appear in the results; and, accordingly, the weight of the qualification, _sooner or later_. but in the early growth of society, considerations like the above have been little attended to, compared with the obvious advantages of the division of labor. as ordinarily each handicraft is best exercised by those earliest and steadiest in their devotion to the trade; so it is argued, universally, that the several departments of the public service will be best attended to, by being left to their respective trades, guilds, faculties, orders, or corporations, each strictly guarded from unhallowed intrusion. so religion has been left to its official functionaries, prescribing articles of belief and terms of salvation by a divine right,--legislation to princes and nobles, equally claiming by the same right to give law in temporals; and so of other general interests. now a movement has been slowly going on, through some centuries, for working society into conformity with a rational rule; a rule not overlooking the advantages of the division of labor, but taking in too such qualifying considerations as the healthful stimulus of free competition, watchfulness over public functionaries, and the necessity of harmonizing private and corporate interests, with public duty. the movement has been slow; for the actors have dimly apprehended the part they were acting, and the principles by themselves vindicated. it has consisted of two principle acts. the reformation carried republicanism into religion: our own revolution into legislation. the two movements were parts of one whole; and, to get at the principles at bottom, either will serve for both, as well as for what may remain for finishing the work begun. the reformation having been conducted by theologians, it was natural that disproportionate importance should have been attached to theological niceties. so far as luther was right in regarding the doctrine of justification by faith only as the great article at issue, it must have been, because the opposite doctrine favored the conceit of a mysterious mediating power vested in a priesthood--a conceit so favorable to the aggrandizement of the order thus distinguished. but considered as a _politic_ movement--as an advance in rightly adjusting the social relations--the reformation aimed principally at that ill arrangement, by which the authorized expounders of the law divine found their account, in involving that law in a glorious uncertainty, and entrapping people in a frequent violation thereof. considered as a politic institution, protestantism differs essentially from popery, in that it makes more of prevention than of remedy; gives the ministry its best flourish, in the best welfare of the whole body; and pays for spiritual health, rather than for spiritual sickness. if all protestants do not consistently so, the fact accords with the dim understanding, on both sides, of the essential points contested. this dim understanding further appears, in that after all the political discussion which has been, the success of republican institutions is still appealed to, as vindicating the reign of justice and benevolence in the public mind; mankind have within so much of the divine, are so self-disposed to do right, that they do not need much control, but may pretty safely be left to their own guidance. nor is it left to the mere demagogue to talk thus. doubtful it may be, whether it should be called dimness of understanding, or rather perverse ingenuity, that men reason thus, when the facts are: so general is the disposition to abuse power, that wherever it is accumulated, it will surely be abused; accordingly it must be distributed as equally as possible. if government be made the business of one part of the community--one tenth, or one hundredth, or one thousandth--that part will inevitably exalt self, at the cost of the others. so strong is self-love, turned towards temporal interests, so acute to discern what tends to the one desired end, and so sure to bend every thing that way, that men's temporal interests are pretty safe in their own hands, and safe no where else. now the legitimate end of civil government being, to secure the temporal welfare of _all_, _all_ must have a share in it, or the excluded portions must find their rights neglected. it may have favored the common mistake, that the leaders in successful republican movements have so often shown a heroic self-devotion and disinterestedness--men like luther, and washington. but these are the exceptions, the rare gems of humanity. if they were the fair specimens, their work would never have been needed. then we might leave to a class the regulation, whether of our spirituals or temporals, with the like advantage, that we leave the making of our watches or our shoes to their respective trades. but the indistinct apprehension, why the advantages of the division of labor fail in the matter of government, accords well with the observation, that republican principles make slow progress in the world, are held in gross inconsistencies; and the most zealous assertors thereof in one department, are oft found most strenuously opposed in others. it is thus that we are so slow to conform to one rule, our arrangements for spiritual instruction; for preserving health; for preventing crime; for cheaply, expeditiously, and satisfactorily settling disputed claims; for furnishing the whole people with instruction in their rights, interests, and duties; as well as that thorough cultivation of the whole man, which the full success of republicanism requires. part iii. welfare as dependent on philosophy. but the whole office of policy, in arranging the social relations, supposes the prevalence of an ill-informed and misdirected self-love. and, accordingly, the second way of attempting the promotion of general welfare is, to convey and impress just estimates of its constituents. such is the office of philosophy: the study of the truly wise man-wise for the present life--still leaving out man's hold on a future, and his relations to his maker. what would such an one pursue; as life's chief ends--covet, as life's best goods? we still suppose self-love to be as really as ever the main-spring to human conduct; but that self-love enlightened, regulated, refine-choosing first the goods which satisfy the nobler parts of man's nature, and on a liberal estimate of the ties which bind society together; in virtue of which, if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it. the items, claiming to constitute life's happiness, may be divided into two classes, distinguished by this important difference: one class essentially such, that only a limited number of mankind can obtain them;--if some succeed in the pursuit, their success involves the failure of others: the other class are such, as to involve no contradiction in the supposition of their becoming the common property of all. the success of a part, far from obstructing, rather facilitates the success of others; they constitute a store of wealth, from which each may take his fill; and the more he takes, the more he leaves, to satisfy the desires of all who come after. now, in view of the case, philosophy inquiring for life's chief goods, cannot make them to be fortune's prizes, scattered to tempt the cupidity of all; but which a few only can catch, while their luck proves the disappointment and vexation of the many. the supposition were monstrous. we so instinctively recoil from supposing such to be the appointment of nature's author, and so consciously grasp it for a truth clear by its own light--the conviction of a provision fully made in nature for all, whenever nature's wants are truly consulted--that we may safely reject, by this test, every notion of temporal good, which makes it consist preeminently in whatever, by the nature of the case, can be the lot of but a limited number. eminent above all other conceptions of temporal good, is that which makes it to consist emphatically in the possession of money, or the ability to command it by its equivalents. and because the capacities of enjoyment have never been measured, nor material wealth rationally estimated as a means of meeting those capacities, riches are prized, not as a means, but an end; and becoming themselves the end, no amount of possession lessens the desire to accumulate. a just philosophy argues on the case, that all cannot be rich, in the common acceptation of the term, whether be considered the limits to earth's productiveness, and the possibility of increasing material wealth; or whether, _rich_ being more a relative than an absolute term, that the supposition of _all rich_ is self-contradictory: therefore, in a juster sense, the supposition of all rich must be admissible;--the sense, namely, that whenever riches shall be reasonably estimated simply as the means of meeting capacities of enjoyment surveyed and known, then it will be found that the earth's productiveness, and the stock of material wealth, admit each to take to the fullness of his wants, leaving enough for all who come after. it is further the office of philosophy to show in detail, what is thus wrought out as a conclusion from general principles; to show how much is consumed by artificial wants, and subjection to the tyranny of fashion; to show how the correction of factitious desires would leave natural and rational desires for better enjoyment than is now found, so that self-love would find not occasion for envy, or repining at a brother's prosperity. the unceasing desire to become richer would be, however, but a mitigated evil, if men sought only wealth by production. the aggravation of the case is, that they whom the desire most impels, seek the increase of their own store, not by producing, but by contriving to turn to their own stock the avails of the industry of others. our young men, in deplorable numbers, slide into the persuasion, that any means of living and thriving are better than productive industry. hence the rush into trade, the professions, into speculations, where the hazards are such, that the cool calculations of pure avarice would rather incline a man to prefer the prospect of growing rich by digging the earth. so much the preference of contrivance to labor overmaster the mastering desire to become rich. but there is a strange hankering after whatever is of the nature of a lottery. so the prizes are but splendid, no matter, if they are but few compared with the blanks. we are given to presuming each on his own good fortune. "nothing venture, nothing have," has become a proverb. so agriculture is treated as if it had no rewards, because one ventures so little by engaging therein. and one might almost think that the conscious earth resented the indignity. aided by philosophy, we shall argue on this matter thus: all cannot live by their wits; the many must produce with the hands; and, the greater the part who shuffle off the charge, the more heavily it falls on others. the first law given to man in innocency, was, to keep the garden and till it; the first after the loss of innocency, "in the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread;"--so a dispensation from such law, given by him, who best knows what is good for man, in whatever state, is not worthy to stand high among life's blessings. more particularly we are taught in the same school, that the good thus contemplated must cost something at least on the score of that best of physical enjoyments--health. if it were duly appreciated, how high this stands among life's goods, and how much its perfection depends on freedom to the mind from the anxieties of hazardous speculation, and a goodly amount of manly labor, of which the varied occupations of agriculture are the most favorable of all; this consideration would check the prevalent ambition to make the contrivance of the brain supply the place of the labor of the hands. health is commended to us, not only as among the first of present goods, but as one, the security of which is placed very much in our own power; if we will but study and practise the means. it is remarkable, that, while the healing art is proverbial for its sects and uncertainties--amid the disputes of homoeopaths and allopaths, mineralists and herbalists, stimulators and depletors--there is a pretty general agreement of parties on the laws of hygiene, or the art of preserving health. we might find here a law, taught by the constitution of nature, that its author never intended healing to hold an important place in the cause of human welfare. he meant it should be well nigh dispensed with, by the obedience men should pay to laws, which they may understand. the full appreciation of these considerations would tend greatly to establish friendly relations in society; because, first, the good contemplated is such, that the success of one in seeking, facilitates the success of all. secondly, it would abate the strife for luxuries,--amassing without producing, and cultivating artificial wants,--most fertile sources of discord. and, thirdly, it would establish between physicians and their employers, relations the most agreeable. another most unmanageable misconception of life's good, makes one of its choicest items to be, the possession of power and superiority. to what depths of degradation will man depress his fellows, just to contemplate the distance between his might and their weakness! if this ambition seems less general than the desire of accumulating, or of substituting contrivance for productiveness, it may be, because the necessity of the case more limits the number who can bear rule; otherwise, the passion for power might find as ready an entrance to as many hearts as are taken by the love of gain, or the dislike to labor. we may find in this thought a partial explanation of the fact, that the thrift of the non-slaveholding states contrasted with the stagnation at the south, is so powerless an argument addressed to the slaveholders there; for you have not only to satisfy avarice of the superior profitableness of free labor; you have still to contend with the lust of dominion--the passion for power and superiority. to manage this passion is the heaviest charge of policy--to provide that the offices which must be intrusted to human hands, be filled peaceably and worthily. philosophy explodes this notion of good (as claiming to be eminently such), in that it cannot stand the general test: it is a good, which a few must share by detracting so much from the happiness of others. and further, to the love of power is submitted the consideration, that knowledge is power. it may be feared, this maxim oft suggests scarce other sense, that that deeper insight into the tricks of trade or politics enables the possessor to outwit competitors for riches or honors in the game. it is still a low understanding, that knowledge of nature's laws multiplies the means of physical enjoyment. knowledge is power in a higher sense, in that it empowers the possessor to call forth stores of enjoyment form objects, which seem to vulgar apprehension most barren of utility. but knowledge--taken for the round of mental cultivation--is power, in that it is competent to yield to all more than the delightful sense of conscious superiority, which vulgar ambition may afford to a few of its successful votaries; a store, from which each in taking does but multiply the remainder. but to find it so one must look well, that he apprehend knowledge to be a good of itself, independently of the distinction it confers. for a vain ambition often takes this direction; and then it matters little to one whether himself advance, or others be kept back--since, in either case, the difference between him and them, the distinction chiefly enjoyed, is the same. now, the love of knowledge is prior in time to the love of distinction; it should seem then, that, with proper care, it might maintain the mastery over its rival. the child is delighted with the acquisition of new ideas, before it thinks of turning them to a vain-glorious account. it deserves to be considered, whether our modes of education, offering prizes and honors of scholarship, do not train into the ascendancy that love of distinction, which education ought and might keep subordinate; which in fact is one of the greatest hinderances to progress;--for when one's immediate aim is not truth itself, but the glory which attends the acquisition, he meets a thousand sidelong impulses from the straightforward search. that knowledge is a good which grows by being shared, is a truth more fully apprehended, as the idea of knowledge is enlarged. it is measurably so, while taken for eminence in common studies and the received sciences. one's advance is facilitated by the advance of others. much more does this hold, when the distinction between intellectual culture and intellectual life is made, and the preference due to the latter apprehended. when the missionary enterprize was a new thing, in favor of the missionary's being a married man was argued the advantage of having children trained up in a christian way before the eyes of the heathen. but so completely has that expectation been disappointed, that now the missionaries send home their children to be educated; alleging the danger, lest their children become stumbling blocks, through the apparent little difference between them and the heathen children. and the difficulty is not, that they cannot there, as well as here, be taught latin, greek, mathematics--all the received sciences-the branches of what is nominally education. it is not so much, that they cannot there be shielded from evil influences abroad; as that their children there want, what our children enjoy--the sight of magnificent enterprises; a spirit of inquiry and freedom breathing all around them; and the healthful contact and stimulus of multitudes of young minds, in the like process of intellectual and moral training. it is such nameless imperceptible influences, that awaken intellectual life, from the mind, and determine the future man more than the teaching, which is nominally education. why else does the acknowledged excellence of the teaching in the prussian schools do so little to quicken intellectual life--to form men of progressive thoughts? we should be repaid the whole cost of the missionary enterprize, were it only in the clearness and importance of the lesson thus taught us, as otherwise we should hardly have suspected--the doctrine of our mutual dependencies and tendencies to a common average--how our intellectual life is subject to the law, "whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." we may hence take instruction, first, in the matter of educating our children. we have but half done our duty as parents, when we have joined with such of our neighbors as better appreciate, or readier furnish the means, of good instruction, to unite our children in a select school, furnished with competent masters and ample apparatus. the children of one neighborhood educate one another mainly. they receive from one another more of those impressions which form the mind and fix the after character, than all they get from their masters. the carefully trained will receive a deleterious impression from the neglected portion, despite of care to ward off evil influences. or, however successfully care may be applied, that is but negative success. our children still want the kindly stimulus to mental growth, to be realized in a whole community of young minds, all sharing the like wise training. we may hence take occasion, secondly, to mark (what is not so obvious), that through life the same law binds us: the law, that our intellectual life depends more on the state of society in which we exist, than on our direct efforts at self-culture. individual effort may give one great preeminence before his associates in any of the acknowledged sciences, though even in such their success facilitates his; and if he prizes the knowledge--the truth--for itself, rather than for the attending glory, he will find in another's success, that, "whether one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it." but distinctively is it so, in regard to the general progress of universal mind in justness of thought and sentiment--those new developed master ideas which mark the place of each successive age in the line of progression; and in regard to which, the masters in the received sciences are quite as often found lagging behind, as going before. in regard to this, we are all of us individually very like the several drops which compose the mighty current of the mississippi, moving with resistless force to its destination. a few may outstrip by a little the general progress of thought, and but a little; just as one drop in the current may receive an impulse, carrying it a little in advance; or, if we might suppose the drops gifted with intelligence, some by self-directed effort and seizing opportunities, might speed themselves a little. so study and determination will enable one to anticipate by a little the birth of ideas. and, on the other hand, the current of thought none can resist. sometimes a man resolves to be so conservative, as to stick fast by the old moorings--_he_ is not going to yield to popular impulses. but it fares with him very much as it would with the single drop in the mississippi, which should resolve to stop in its place, and so reluct against impulses and take advantage of all impediments. the result from day to day would be, not that it had stopped in its place, or any thing like it; but that its daily approach to the ocean was a little less than that of its fellows. thus we are brought round to the same position--that the attempt to monopolize heaven's best gifts to man, must be a very small affair-that the individual best consults his own attainments in knowledge, after the sublimest sense of the term, by consulting the progress of his neighbors and the race; just as the single drop in the mississippi sees its best hope of speedily reaching the ocean, in whatever gives onward impulse to the whole current. the thought receives force from the consideration, that here emphatically is that knowledge, which he who increaseth beyond the average increase, increaseth sorrow. a saying of so much currency must have some foundation in reality. and yet is not knowledge commended to us as one of the richest sources of enjoyment? "happy the mortal, who has traced effects to their first cause." where is the reconciling link between these seeming contradictions? now eminence in any of the received sciences, or branches of literature, has rich capabilities of affording happiness. to penetrate the depths of mathematics, chemistry, or astronomy--to revel in the stores of ancient lore;--all such pursuits generally become more delightfully attractive, the further one advances; or, after the ancient indefinite use of terms, _knowledge_ might be taken for the just proportionate training of all the faculties, in distinction from the teaching, which impresses so many items of truth. and such education preeminently fits one to pass time happily. the maxim in question then applies emphatically to the forethought, which anticipates the dawn of ideas.* [or, more generally, we might define, an accurate perception of the difference between _what is_ and _what ought to be_--between reality and ideal perfection. perhaps we might say, _insight into logical futurity_.] and although, as above said, none do greatly anticipate beyond the general sense of the age, yet some may too much for their own comfort. this thought schiller finely sets forth in his cassandra. at the hour of her sister's nuptials, while the rest give loose to merriment at the festival, the prophetess wanders forth alone, complaining, that her insight into futurity debars her from participation in the common joy. "to all its arms doth mirth unfold, and every heart foregoes its cares, and hope is busy in the old; the bridal robe my sister wears, and i alone, alone am weeping; the sweet delusion mocks not me; around these walls destruction sweeping, more near and near i see. a torch before my vision glows, but not in hymen's hand it shines; a flame that to the welkin goes, but not from holy offering shrines: glad hands the banquet are preparing, and near and near the halls of state, i hear the god that comes unsparing, i hear the steps of fate. and men my prophet wail deride! the solemn sorrow dies in scorn; and lonely in the waste i hide the tortured heart that would forewarn. and the happy, unregarded, mocked by their fearful joy, i trod: oh! dark to me the lot awarded, thou evil pythian god! thine oracle in vain to be, oh! wherefore am i thus consigned, with eyes that every truth must see, lone in the city of the blind? cursed with the anguish of a power to view the fates i may not thrall; the hovering tempest still must lower, the horror must befall. boots it, the veil to lift, and give to sight the frowning fates beneath? for error is the life we live, and, oh, our knowledge is but death! take back the clear and awful mirror, shut from mine eyes the blood-red glare; thy truth is but a gift of terror, when mortal lips declare. my blindness give to me once more, the gay, dim senses that rejoice; the past's delighted songs are o'er for lips that speak a prophet's voice. to me _the future_ thou has granted; i miss the moment from the chain- the happy present hour enchanted! take back thy gift again!"* [bulwer's translation.] these lines express more than the trite observation, that a knowledge of futurity would prove a torment to the possessor. beneath that obvious is couched the deeper moral, which expresses the sufferings of the philosophic prophet--of the man who, too much for his own quiet, anticipates reasonings, conclusions, sentiments, forms of social life yet to prevail--the man to whom not coming events, but coming ideas, cast their shadows before. if we could suppose one at the time of the crusades, educated to associate and sympathize with the choice spirits of the age, yet anticipating the sense of their age, in making the comparative estimate of chivalrous adventure, and successful cultivation of the arts of peace and industry; he must have felt somewhat like cassandra among the less gifted. if we could look on life, as our successors will two hundred years hence, we too might complain of being "lone in the city of the blind;" unless large hope and benevolence enabled us to live on the future. thus we find additional motive to desiring a united and absolute, rather than an individual and relative progress, in the consideration that knowledge most worthily so called--whoso increaseth greatly beyond the average attainment, doth so to his own sorrow. to complete the list of false estimates of good, refuted by one test, we should allude to the frivolities of gentility and fashion-the passion for wearing badges of distinction, however impotent or unmeaning such may be. this is the very poorest form of finding delight, in what from the nature of the case can be shared by few. for its incommunicableness is its only recommendation. it is an icy repellant, freezing up the kindly flow of sympathy with universal humanity; and uncompensated loss of that best ingredient of earthly felicity--the interchange of friendly feelings and offices; that store of wealth, from which the more that take, and the fuller their share, the more they leave to be taken by others. the foregoing may be treated as a fine and just speculation, but as what ever must remain a barren speculation; as if it were after the example of all ages, that men should mistake the material of happiness for happiness itself. so it always has been, so it always will be, that false notions of good usurp the place of the true, despite the demonstrations of moralists and divines to the contrary. mind, however, has not stood still in this matter. it has moved, and that in the right direction. we may note a progress from age to age, in coming to a just estimate of life. start not at the use of terms, rendered suspicious by the extravagancies of which they have been made the vehicle. but we must not reject ideas great, just, or new, because of the distortions and caricatures of little minds. if one idea occupies the mind all them more for being great and just, it will be likely to overmaster that mind, so as not to be produced in its fair proportions, or rightly applied. so fare they, with whom the one idea is, the progress of society--the growth of thought. the mississippi in its progress throws froth and scum on its surface, more conspicuous than the under-running current. so radical folly and transcendental nonsense is obtruded on the sight, from the sympathy of little minds with the deeper current of thought. to gauge the progress of mind from those who are most noisy on the matter, would be, like taking the direction and rapidity of the mississippi, from the froth, which the wind blows hither and thither over its surface. "let us go on to perfection"--"forgetting the things behind, and pressing onward to the things before." such language describes distinctively the american character, and the spirit of christianity. only, where is perfection? what are the things before? if, as a people, we do fully take these expressions in their author's sense, we may hope there is one element of agreement, betokening good for the future. it is encouraging, that the two rival systems, most boldly promising to lead to perfection, both had their birth under political and mental bondage. so evidently with romanism, whether under its proper form and name, or refined and disguised after the modern fashion. and the same is true of the baptized infidelity imported from germany. the german mind is cramped and diseased by the bands which confine it. it is not allowed to speculate freely on politics, and the many questions most nearly touching present interests. therefore, on the records and on the doctrines which pertain to eternal interests, it falls with an insane avidity for innovation, and runs into licentiousness a liberty no where else enjoyed. hence the levity, in dealing with things sacred, in germany often found in minds of the first and second orders, here is taken up by those to the third and fourth--the copyists and imitators; nay, by the buffoons who figure at the farces of mock philanthropy. now, though every folly must find minds whose caliber it fits, we may hope the genuine american mind will not be extensively beguiled by either of the misbegotten offspring of europe's mental servitude. but, to the point--progress made in estimating life. a few centuries ago, a torrent of enthusiasm set in the direction of bearing the cross into asia, to fight for glory, and the propagation of christianity, on the fields of palestine. already the old roman military character was greatly improved on. virtue, (_manliness_, a` vir-_man_) was no longer supposed to fulfil its highest office in parcere subjectis et debellare superbos. a delicate sense of honor, of the courtesy due to a foe and the gallantry to the other sex, betoken a type of humanity in advance of the brute ferocity of the best days of rome. but, notwithstanding mr. burke's eloquence, and the opinion sometimes expressed, that the courtly knight of the middle age, realized the perfection of humanity; we have no reason to regret that the age of chivalry is gone by, and that the age of speculation, and money-making, and industrial enterprize has succeeded. the materialism of this age, with all its faults, is better than the chivalry of an age gone by. it tends to keep the world at peace; _that_ tended to perpetual turmoil. the supposition _all rich_, according to modern ideas, is not so flat a contradiction as the supposition _all glorious_, in military heroism. as the past age estimated life's supreme good, the enjoyment of a few _required_ the exclusion of the many from its benefits: as this age estimates the enjoyment of some, _admits_ the exclusion of others. whether the mercantile spirit thoroughly entered into makes a better man than did the spirit of chivalry, may be doubted; not so, which best comports with the welfare of society. now if one, at the time of the crusades, had so anticipated the spirit of the age, as to picture to himself modern europe and america, manufacturing, trading, flocking to california, as if there a holy sepulcher was to be rescued from hands profane, glorying chiefly in mechanical development and mercantile enterprize; and had ventured to suggest, that instead of trooping to asia to fight for glory, and the fancy of promoting religion by arguments of steel, it would be worthier of the choice spirits of the age to stay at home, and by industry and enterprize aim at multiplying the means of content to quiet life: he might have found a harder task than now devolves on him, who urges, that the materialism of this age must pass away, as has passed the chivalry of the crusades; both for the same reason; the progress of thought must outgrow the one, as it has outgrown the other. a new age with another spirit will be ushered in. what is to be the spirit of that age? are we to find the forebodings in the dreamy sentimentalism, which boasts so much its flights beyond common material ideas? i trow rather, we may trace the character of the coming age in an increasing estimation of health, knowledge, mental cultivation, intellectual life, and the flow of the social affections, as the prime of earthly felicities--in an approximation towards rationally estimating money (with the ability to command it) as the means of meeting one's capacities of enjoyment--to be no longer worshipped as itself the idol or the end. when a pestilential disease breaks out in the city, the plainness and urgency of the case compel all to see in the sickness of one the danger of all. wants and discomforts, which charity had been too cold to attend to, now considered as sources of contagion, are administered to with a ready alacrity. the law is recognized, according to which, "if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it." and this law will be more fully recognized, as self-love is educated--as men better understand their own welfare, and choose with reference to the whole of their nature, and the duration of their existence. self-love is a motive of the indifferent kind--not of itself essentially good or bad. this appears from its being an essential part of our nature. indeed, we can hardly conceive it as within the province of omnipotence, to create a rational sentient being, who should be indifferent to his own happiness. the advantages accruing from an educated self-love are: first, additional security, that the good work of charity be done; and to all but the individual doer, it may matter little what be the prompting motives. secondly, the expansion of yet nobler principles. each act favors the growth of the sentiments, of which it is the expression. so he who does as benevolence bids, though from a motive secondary on the score of purity, will be likely again to do the same from yet purer motives. so at least if the essential principle be there, though appearing no more vividly than as a cold sense of duty. but, thirdly, self-love is made the rule and standard of charity: "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." one must then first love himself, in order to loving his neighbor. keeping this rule, there is no danger of loving thyself too well; rather, the more truly thou lovest thyself, the more truly thou lovest thy neighbor. suppose one to cherish the vulgar notion of life--that it consists in the abundance of the things which one possesses, in the ability to live without exertion, amid plenty of good cheer. suppose him to love his neighbor as himself. his charity must partake of the contraction and grossness of his self-love. suppose another to prize duly intellectual riches. to him the discovery of a new principle in the physical, intellectual, or moral world, brings a joy unsurpassed by the merchant's, on the return of his heavily laden ship from a successful voyage. as the best legacy to his children, he would leave them a good education; and, knowing the natural influences and dependencies existing between young minds, he aims to have all the children in the neighborhood well educated, as the best security against failure in the attempt to educate his own. if all is but a refined calculation, how best to benefit himself and household; it is far more estimable and amiable than the gross selfishness which grovels after vulgar goods, and in the success of a brother sees an obstacle to its own success. but if he too loves his neighbor as himself, why how far his self-love is educated to find its satisfaction in nobler ends, by so much his charity is better than the other's. there is hope for the future in the consideration, that self-interest, the first, as well as love of approbation, the second, of the great powers which move the world, indeed all the indifferent motives, are getting still more into coincidence of action with justice and benevolence. when jesus enforced a duty by the consideration, "then shalt thou have worship [respect, approval,] in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee," he implied two things; first, that regard to the world's respectful esteem is not a censurable motive; and, secondly, that the same operates to good, rather than to evil. so it must have been even in that corrupt generation, so disposed to call evil good and good evil. it must be much more so now, when public sentiment has so much improved. notwithstanding the danger of loving the praise of man more than the praise of god, and the mischiefs resulting from such preference, we should lose, on the whole, by eradicating the love of human praise. witness the accounts of the atrocious outbreaks of depravity at the gold diggings, while society was yet unformed. witness, wherever cease the common restraints of civilization. thus agents--so often the authors of discord and confusion, so often the fire-brands to set the world in fumes--philanthropy is more and more firing as her sure allies. "even so, the torch of hellish flames becomes a leading light to heaven: and so corruption's self becomes to bread of life the living leaven." all analogies point to a still increasing vigor in the growth of the kingdom of heaven. if the mustard tree is never seen growing, but only to have grown; yet the greater the tree, the greater its power of daily making large growth, without its growing being perceived. all considerations indicate the power of each to do something to forward the consummation. no member of society is so insignificant, that his spiritual life does not affect the health of the whole. the obscurest, who cherishes a preference of ideal wealth over material riches and sensual delights, does something towards forming a sane public sentiment, just as surely as the tenant of the humblest city dwelling, who keeps clean his own premises, does something towards promoting the general health. it is well to review the progress made in estimating life--to impress our minds with its existence as a reality; because mind and enterprize just now tend so strongly to the material and mechanical, that we might be tempted to doubt, whether any other improvement were to be thought of. if so, we might well enough stop where we are. but we shall contemplate with most satisfaction our multiplied facilities for manufacturing, transportation, fertilizing the earth, and conveying intelligence, if we see in the whole a store, from which we may draw with good effect for promoting general welfare, whenever the true end of these means shall be earnestly studied. otherwise the discovery, how to make two kernels of corn grow where one grew before, would all redound to the tyranny of fashion, and only foreshadow an increase of artificial wants, quite up to the increased supply; so that want would still be as close treading on our heels as ever. but if we yet scarce attain to longer life, better health, or more content, than fell to the lot of our fathers, with their simpler arts and manner, because we are forgetting to discriminate between true and false wants--between real and imaginary happiness: the true voice of history still is, not that the material means must always thus fall short of their legitimate end; but that, though the material and the mechanical travel first and fastest, the moral and the spiritual are following after. these in due time will reveal the meaning and the value of our stored acquisitions. dr. franklin calculated, that the labor of all for three or four hours a day, would furnish all the necessaries and all the conveniences of life; supposing men freed from the exactions of an arbitrary fashion. if he was near correctness, his time must be abundant in our day, when the productiveness of machinery, and skill in the arts, are so much improved. then it is within existing possibilities, that every mind be thoroughly cultivated; and every body taxed for labor, only to the extent required by the conditions of its own best vigor and that of the inhabiting mind. so far afield from truth is the common supposition, that the many can receive but the elements of learning; while the few must sacrifice bodily vigor to excessive intellectual cultivation. connect with this thought that before advanced of the irresistible tendencies of our intellectual life to one average; and what a boundless vista, in the direction of human progress, opens before us. as citizens of the republic, we have comparatively little cause to exult in the conceit of being freer or happier than other communities; much more in the chance, having broken the fetters of superstition and tyranny, next to rend those of false habit and fashion--to enthrone reason over the authority of one another's eyes and prejudices: to say in truth,- "here the free spirit of mankind at length throws its last fetters off; and who shall place a limit to the giant's untamed strength, or curb his swiftness in the forward race? far, like the comet's way through infinite space, stretches the long untravelled path of light into the depth of ages; we may trace, distant the brightening glory of his flight, till the receding beams are lost to human sight." *bryant. part iv. welfare as dependent on religion. but in all our attempts to educate self-love into harmony with universal benevolence, we contend with the enemy, somewhat as hercules wrestled with antaeus:- und erstickst du ihn nicht in den luften frei, stets wachst ihm die kraft anf der erde neu.* [if thou strangle him not high lifted in air, fresh strength from the earth he continues to share.] thus we come to speak of present welfare, as dependent on the cultivation of the whole man--on a recognition of his immortality, his allegiance to his maker, and his capacity for more disinterested sentiments, than self-love, however modified. the influences thus accruing are a confirmation, from higher authority, of the conclusions approved by philosophy, ethics, the prudence which calculates how man should live with man, considered as but creatures of earth--a _re-binding_--a _re-ligation_ to what was _obligation_ before; and such precisely is the proper sense of the word _religion_. that the promise of the life that now is attaches to godliness-the vivid recognition of a father in heaven, with the union of reverence and love cherished by a dutiful child--and that naught else secures the possession, might be argued,-1. first, as anticipated from the nature of the case. if man is formed to own allegiance to his maker, and to spend this life as preparatory and introductory to a coming existence, then, till these conditions are fulfilled, he must be expected, not to fill worthily his place, as possessor of the present life; but must, in important points, compare disadvantageously with the beasts that perish. if, like the inferior races, ours attained to a life which should be the full flourish of its demonstrable capacities, while immortality entered not into account, then would fail one argument to prove us destined to an hereafter. if the philosopher, from the examination of the chick eaglet in the shell, knowing naught else of the animal, could make out for it, within its narrow walls, a life answering to the indications of its organization; he might fitly question, whether it were destined to burst its prison, and soar aloft. and such embryo eaglet is man, considered only as to what this life realizes. 2. historically, we are in little danger of being confounded on this argument. the evidence from fact is very plain and positive, that men have never become wise for the life that now is, but as they have first become wise for the life that is to come; that self-love never becomes a just prudence, till informed by the faith, hope, and charity of jesus; in a word, that in him is life, and only through the light derived from him is life realized to men. seeking the lowest form of worldly wisdom--political science applied as the agent for promoting general welfare--we may look in vain for a beginning thus to apply such science, in any nation unblest by revelation. they on whom the light has shone, have generally so imperfectly comprehended it, that they have only attained to that vulgar love of liberty, which guizot defines to be removed but a step from the love of power. rather, we might say, that step is not--the two are but the same thing. viewed on one side, it is the hatred of being domineered over; on the other, it is the love of domineering. only where the christian account of human character has been taken for a sober reality, has been taken for a sober reality, has been practically understood the rule of dividing power equally, because so universal is the tendency to grasp it inordinately. only (we may add) where, better still, some good deference has been paid to the charge, "call no man master on earth, for one is your master in heaven." if this is the instruction, after which one becomes a republican, and shapes his love liberty; the conclusion is equally obvious and inevitable-call no man slave or vassal on earth, for one in heaven is the common master of all. mistaking here, france has gone through a series of signal failures. her liberty, equality, fraternity, still prove empty names; while want and oppression stare millions in the face, despite the promises of more than half a century's experimenting with revolutions. a vision of political blessedness mocks her sight, which, like fabled enchanted island, ever and anon seeming just within the grasp, still escapes, and flies the faster, the faster it is pursued. o my country! mercy spare thee from thus mistaking heaven's high decree! but if we should allow to some of the more enlightened gentiles of antiquity, some degree of political wisdom; we might still look in vain for their progress in that estimation of temporal wealth, which reveals our community of interests, thus divesting self-love of its hatefulness, by training it to its best satisfaction. historically, we every where find self-love too blind, freakish, springing upon immediate results, too envenomed with maliciousness to calculate prudently. 3. religion affords altogether the readiest, shortest, directest way to the conclusion, that interest and duty most coincide. it brings the man of humblest intellectual attainments at once to the conclusion, which the prudent calculator may reach, after long research and extensive induction of particulars; namely, that he cannot add ultimately to his own stock of enjoyment, by detracting from another's share. what might seem prudence at the expense of justice and benevolence, may assume a contrary aspect, at the first flush of conviction, that another life shall rectify the inequalities of this. philosophy, having done its best at showing the interest of each in the welfare of all, and how much would redound to the happiness of all if all heartily concurred in thus regarding life, still labors at the question, as the world goes, how the individual will fare, who takes a course so different from the general current, as to devote his best zeal to bettering the condition of that world, which will be likely so little to appreciate his devotion. so that, as matter of fact, one is little likely to see first (in earnestness) the reign of righteousness, as the best security for the necessaries and conveniences of life, unless in the faith which apprehends, that "all these things shall be added" to those thus devoted to promoting the holy cause of humanity. 4. again; to the great majority of mankind, religion is the best spur to the understanding, towards the conclusions of a just prudence. "the entrance of the word giveth understanding to the simple," says the psalmist. how often have we found its so! how often the first impulse to intellectual activity is given by the man's religious interest! how often they, in whom a taste for reading could never be formed otherwise, begin to read for satisfying their spiritual wants, and so develop mental powers which else had ever lain dormant. if we mark those extremes of social humanity, the masses of hindostan and the people of new england--the monotonous stagnation there, and the progressive enterprize here--we see a difference mainly attributable to a religion whose very spirit is, forgetting the things behind, and pressing onward to the things before. and, though this spirit may not always go forth in accordance with the teaching of that religion, it is none the less true, that such was its source; mind being awake, enterprising, on the track of improvement, only where a lively faith in christianity has kindled the flame. every where else, policy at best presses so hard on the subject individuals, as tolerably to restrain the passions from breaking out of one against another. only "where the spirit of the lord is," ventured the experiment, of making the pressure on each so light, as to become the best security for his keeping in place. 5. philosophy fails (once more), because it has no adequate malady for the moral malady under which our race labors. when we speak of men weighing fairly the present and the future, comparing impartially the substantial with the showy, the gross with the refined, and choosing after the decision of a fully informed prudence, we suppose what does not exist; "the good that i would, i do not; but the evil that i would not, that i do." "the better seeing and approving, towards the worse i still am moving:" such is the united testimony of christian and heathen to that "law of sin and death," through whose tyranny the united decisions of reason, prudence and conscience are powerless, till what the law could not do, "in that it was weak through the flesh," the grace of the gospel accomplishes; restoring reason and conscience to the throne, giving effect to the conviction, how fully coincident are interest and duty-"that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled by us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit." paul's account of this matter may have accommodated to it, what john says of the command to mutual christian love; that it is an old history, and yet not an old but a new one. _old_, in the sense, that, from what time by one man sin came into the world and death by sin, every one in earnest to fulfil the true end of his being, has found the dame impotence attached to good resolves; the same supremacy gained by the baser impulses, in the hour of trial; the same temptation to find an excuse in what seems so like a law unavoidable, as if it were no more i that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me, as if it were not the responsible _i_ that did wrong: this _i_ being controlled by sin, which is fancied as a foreign agent taking up a residence within, and controlling the man in spite of him. and, escaped from this and the like deceits, all have been brought to the stand, "o wretched man that i am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!"--that species of self-despair, finishing the preparation for that renewing influence, which "is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of god that showeth mercy." thus the enemy is raised _in die luften frei_, no more to receive fresh strength from mother earth, to renew the contest successfully. but this account, so old in one sense, is not so in another--in the sense of being obsolete, or out of date. it still retains the freshness of novelty, to answer to the last example of a man's ordering life, as, he knows, meets the approval of his judge, and his own truest welfare. 6. but "the end of the commandment," or the result of the process by which the soul is put into condition to contend successfully with the powers of evil, "is charity." so religion preeminently rebinds men to the rule of not seeking their own advantage at the cost of others; because it implants a principle, which might dispense with the certainty of always calculating prudently in doing right. charity seeketh not her own--not one's own welfare calculated on the largest scale, exclusively, or at the cost of the greatest good of the whole. thus it is essentially distinct from a prudence, however refined, and calculating its ends through eternity. it is called "the bond of perfectness," or a most perfect bond; because, if men were all devoted thus disinterestedly, each to the good of the whole, society would be perfectly held together, without other bond. all forms of civil compact and voluntary association might be dispensed with. even prudence might fail to calculate, how the present sacrifice to general good is to be compensated; and charity would rebind the man to love his neighbor as himself, and do as he would receive again. it is further called "the perfect law of liberty;" as by a simple rule it perfectly secures to individuals those immunities, which constitutional provisions at best secure but imperfectly by complicated apparatus, and where philosophy halts at the perversities of human selfishness. 7. faith alone is the sure foundation, whereto to add virtue [courage], and that for the further addition of knowledge. this courage is _du coeur_--of the heart, and alone gives that simple love of truth, which, for _its_ sake, dares equally to be new and singular, or to be vulgar and common-place. without that foundation, assuming to be courageous enough to leave the beaten track, and reject received opinions, one does but attain to the bravery, which, in its efforts to dare danger or opposition, is sure to overact its part. who holds an even balance in weighing evidence, equally guarded against rejecting the old, because it is old, or the new, because it is new? i know not, unless such as have apprehended the _urwahr_--the essential truth, which throws all temporal considerations into the shade. there are two difficulties in the way of attempting changes in the existing state of things, with good prospect of improvement. the first arises from the force of habit, and a reluctance to try a new, it may be, hazardous course. the other form the little discrimination exercised, when men set about in earnest exchanging the old for the new--discrimination to avoid treating the old as necessarily antiquated, and the presumption of "laying again the foundation" of all things. and these difficulties will hardly be met successfully, except by men, in whom the fear of god has cast out other fear. the intelligent part of the people of southern europe have been, for many years, more thoroughly divested of reverence for the papacy, than was luther in the days of his greatest vehemence. but they have quietly taken things as they are. they have wanted luther's substitute for superstition--a fervently religious spirit. they have had only worldly and political motives, for wishing to see the old imposition done away; and these have been powerless against natural apathy, and the fixedness of old establishment. infidelity and indifferentism prove poor antagonists to superstition. but when this apathy is one overcome, then the difficulty is, to temper with discretion the zeal for innovation. throughout, such only as heartily prize the true, because it is true, will be likely to shun alike, rejecting the old for its antiquity, and the new for its novelty. the first lesson is, to learn how much of human wisdom is but folly: the second, that it is not yet all folly, but a good deal of it genuine wisdom. and he will be most likely to unite these in the habit of thinking soberly, who first moderates his estimate of human power and wisdom, by marking how far their utmost flights had failed to anticipate, what has proved the power of god and the wisdom of god to the world's renovation. such is the best preparation for still learning, how much that wears the appearance of wisdom and science unsubstantial. this best teaches so to reason soberly and conscientiously, as not to run into licentiousness the liberty of thinking. religious zeal indeed has hitherto been little enough tempered with discretion; but no other zeal has glowed so intensely, without still more disastrous consequences, in setting the world on fire. it is yet a consideration in point, that, as in all undertakings hope of success best stimulates and sustains exertion; so the hope, that the world's disorders will yet be cured, is best furnished by the faith, which recognizes a sovereign ordering and disposing all, bringing light out of darkness; making the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder thereof pledged to restrain. judging from history and appearances, the philanthropist may often doubt, whether the race be not destined still to go a ceaseless round; ever exchanging one delusion for another, but no real progress. as it was in character for the prophetess of apollo, it complain: "my youth was by my tears corroded, my sole familiar was my pain; each coming ill my heart foreboded, and felt at first--in vain." so the philosophic prophet may lament, that he anticipates so much more clearly, what _ought_ to be, than what _will_ be; that he finds the increase of knowledge, beyond the general sense of the age, to be but the increase of sorrow. but the religious insight into futurity saves from such anguish, by the hope which gilds and realizes the future: hope for the race, armed with a higher assurance than philosophy can work out, that and right and peace shall reign triumphant; and personal hope, inasmuch as, however dark the prospect for earth's races may be, the individual has a future, whose joy is his strength. 9. and this habitual reference of the government of earth to its supreme ruler, is not more necessary to the hope, that sustains endurance, than to the patience which bides the time, in opposition to the indecent, passionate haste, which defeats its own end. "he that believeth shall not make haste." there is much fruitless haste to bring the world to rights, for want of a lively belief in a sovereign controlling power; whose wisdom, whose goodness, whose resources, whose interest, to bring the world to order and happiness, infinitely transcend ours. thus is missed the conclusion, if he can endure to see the stream of evil flow on age after age; then discretion would set some bounds to our zeal, to see all evil rectified. and the clearer this conclusion is the result of faith, the surer the bounds will be just such, as to save from losing all by a headlong precipitancy. in short, that habit of mind equally ready to accept the right and the true, whether it come with a suspicious air of novelty and singularity, or whether as old and vulgar it be scouted for being behind the age-that habit which neither yields to discouragements, nor favors the fool-hardy haste, which calculates neither time nor its own strength; which discriminates, when to "contend earnestly," and when to "let them alone," the dogged adherents to falsehood and wrong, to the teachings of time and circumstances, their conscience and their god, till every plant which he hath not planted be rooted up by these mightier energies--the habit, realizing all the good of the radical, in proving all things, and all the glory of the conservative, in holding fast what is good;--this habit, so favorable to human progress, but involving so rare a combination of seemingly opposite qualities, as scarcely to be accounted for on all apparent influences, has been well described, as a "life hid with christ in god." and truly has it been remarked, in view of the general result of ordinary tendencies and influences in forming one-sided characters, that _becoming as a little child_, expresses no less fittingly the conditions of entering the kingdom of nature, and thinking with the wise, than of entering the kingdom of heaven, and worshipping with the holy. of the spiritual more grievously than of the intellectual life is it true, that, "whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." here emphatically does the individual labor hardly, to digest into his life the conclusions of reason and conscience, in advance of the average understanding of the age. professor lyell, speaking of the millerite phrenzy, and how some men of pretty sound mind were carried away with it, remarks to this effect: "religious delusion is like a famine fever, which attacks first the hungry and emaciated, but in its progress cuts down many of the well-fed and robust." so it is. so strong are our tendencies to one tone, that the christian, in setting to his worldly desires the bounds which his religion exacts, feels to be exercising a self-denial--yielding the temporal to the eternal. he scarce seems to himself to be acting the part of true worldly wisdom. in reading the life of dr. payson, it is obviously manifest, that his deeply spiritual views were not inwrought harmoniously into his life's web, as would have been, if he had carried along with him a whole community. the materialism of this age must pass away, as has passed the quixotism of the crusades. each has but expressed a stage in the progress of thought; and neither measures the mature life of the soul. it is not so certain to sight, what will be next grasped by this reaching onward to the things before; whether a better reconcilement of the life that now is with that which is to come, or whether a vaporing, misty sentimentalism is to be the spirit of the next age. there are not wanting indications, that the materialism of this age is to be followed by a dreamy spiritualism, raising men above the observance of vulgar duties, but not above the practice of the grossest vices. it is not uncharitable to mark such tendencies, where we see canonized rousseau, the very embodiment of sensuality, egotism, and misanthropy; and progress _so_ taught to be the law of _individual_ man, that, whether going to commit his crimes at the brothel, or to expiate them on the gallows, his tendencies are still and forever upward. we need better evidence than sight can afford, to say,- "o no! a thousand cheerful omens give hope of yet happier days, whose dawn is nigh: he who has tamed the elements, shall not live the slave of his own passions; he whose eye unwinds the eternal dances of the sky, and in the abyss of brightness dares to span the sun's broad circle, rising yet more high, in god's magnificent works his will shall scan; and love and peace shall make their paradise with man." *bryant conclusion. the matter of the preceding thoughts may be thus summed up. a progressive movement has been going on towards the rule, that, self-love directed towards the material, the sensible, the showy, the distinguishing, is so the ruling motive of human conduct, as to constitute it the first requisite in adjusting the social relations, that private interests, and class interests may not flourish best, short of the best attainable flourish of the whole. when this point shall be so thoroughly understood, that it shall be taken for no reproach of any class of men to regard them practically as subject to the common influences which control human conduct; we may expect an effective move, for giving to the lawyer and to the physician a relation to society, analogous to that sustained by the pastor among protestants; instead of leaving their professions to find their best flourish, at about the vigor of intellectual and moral life, which just now we live. but this idea loses its importance as another comes into appreciation, --namely, that the conflicts of self-love with self-love, suppose mistaken estimates of happiness to be uppermost; and, just in proportion as men rightly estimate life, and truly love themselves, they appreciate those strong, numberless, delicate, indissoluble ties, which bind the members of the social body to suffer, or to rejoice together. and this idea again lessens in importance, as yet a third gains the ascendancy--the living conviction, that time is but the portal to eternity; the soul meanwhile tasting "the powers of the world to come;" and knowing the persuasiveness of that strongest call to mutual endearment, "if god so loved us, we ought also to love one another." and now the consideration of these three points is commended especially to the attention of those, who, in the execution of their office and ministry, have weekly access to the mind of the people. we mourn the waning influence of the american pulpit. where the power thence emanating in the stirring days of trial to men's souls,--when its ministers stood on that commanding point, where they caught the first beams of rising day, and reflected the light in the face of the people? at our revolutionary period, ministers, in their earnestness to preach to the times, might have come short in preaching eternity. so far there was a mistake to be rectified; but they did well to preach to the times. it is among the reasons, why religious so tempered political zeal; and, accordingly, why, as our revolution _was_ without a model, so it _remains_ without a rival. it is well that the struggle came, before the toad-eaters to capital's feed agents in legislative halls occupied the high seats of moral influence. the true successors to the fathers are not the preachers of party politics, but they who aim to supply the lack of all parties, in that they fail to make liberty a means, valuable only as affording facilities to improvement. we are exceedingly contracted in our notions of the christian preacher's just province. if we confine it to administering directly to the soul's spiritual wants and everlasting interests, we stray wide from the example, which god himself sets, when he writes a revelation for man. the bible is full of histories, maxims, laws, just as might be expected in a book, which ignored any other life, than that which now is. one half of it (within bounds) might remain as it is, on the supposition, that men have neither hopes nor duties, but such as pertain to them as joint tenants of this earthly life. if we would keep people superior to the impulses of appetite, and the solicitations of sensual pleasure, we must attempt _servitute corporis uti_ by _imperio animi_* [in sallust's well known sentence _servitute_ may be the object of _utimur_, _imperio_ the ablative of the means; or, reversing the construction, the sense may be, by keeping the body in subjection, we better maintain the mind's supremacy. neither, i believe, is the common understanding of the passage.]--by training the mind to know its capacities and powers. if this be neglected, purely spiritual influences, supposing them forthcoming, will hardly save the body from unduly controlling the man. vulgar ambition is to be forestalled in the same way. _imperium populi_ may be expected to be attractive, in proportion as _imperium animi_ is unstudied, unknown; and of course the full sense missed, in which knowledge is power. he who knows the greatness of the world within, hears nothing strange in the declaration-that "greater is he who ruleth his own spirit, than he who taketh a city." that the recipients of a (so called) liberal education so often become the votaries of vulgar ambition, and vulgar pleasure too, is to be accounted for on the three-fold consideration: first, that what passes for a liberal education is often a very illiberal thing, doing very little to unfold the spirit to itself, and so impress the greatness of mastering its capabilities; secondly, that merely intellectual without moral influences, do not suffice; and thirdly, the law is supreme, which binds all to suffer, in their intellectual and spiritual life, from the mental and moral degradation of a part. jesus thought it not beneath the dignity of his office, nor the sacredness of the sabbath, nor the proprieties of the synagogue, to discourse to people on politeness and good breeding; nor to enforce attention to decorum, by the comparatively low consideration, "then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee." unworthy alike, both the lesson and the motive, would cry a false spirituality, if the example of such preaching were set by any lower authority. a false spirituality it is, for it originates in missing the close connection between the temporal and the spiritual, the outward and the inward, the life that now is, and that which is to come. in faithfully delivering the whole counsel of god, we may encounter something like the wrath of the ruler of the synagogue, whose spirituality was offended at the restoration of a withered hand on the sabbath. we may find, that we have cast pearls before swine. we may be referred to paul's determination to know nothing among the corinthians, save jesus christ and him crucified. and, if we minister to a people who, like the corinthians, need to be fed with milk and not meat; like them carnal, factious, party-spirited, and if we would delicately hint to them their character--let us do it indirectly, following paul's example, when he put restraint on the fullness of matter within, and discoursed only on the elements of christian doctrine. but shall the strong man be confined to a milk diet, because the careful nurse ventures to supply nothing else to the tender infant? if when for the time our people ought to be teachers, they need to be taught again the first principles of the oracle of god, we may reserve pearls for a worthier reception. but, if they are well-grounded in the elements, let us lead them on to perfection. society's pillars, the temple's three p.s, philosophy, policy, piety--these i commend to your notice. my labor is done: may we meet in that city where temple is none, nor sun supervenes on the shadows of night; jehovah--the lamb--are its temple and light. home university library of modern knowledge no. 37 _editors:_ herbert fisher, m.a., f.b.a. prof. gilbert murray, litt.d., ll.d., f.b.a. prof. j. arthur thomson, m.a. prof. william t. brewster, m.a. _a complete classified list of the volumes of_ the home university library _already published will be found at the end of this book_. anthropology by r.r. marett, m.a. reader in social anthropology in the university of oxford author of "the threshold of religion," etc. new york henry holt and company london williams and norgate contents chap. page i scope of anthropology . . . 7 ii antiquity of man . . . . . 30 iii race . . . . . . . . . . . 59 iv environment . . . . . . . . 94 v language . . . . . . . . . 130 vi social organization . . . . 152 vii law . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 viii religion . . . . . . . . . 204 ix morality . . . . . . . . . 235 x man the individual . . . . 241 bibliography . . . . . . . 251 index . . . . . . . . . . . 254 "bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, are these half-brutish prehistoric brothers. girdled about with the immense darkness of this mysterious universe even as we are, they were born and died, suffered and struggled. given over to fearful crime and passion, plunged in the blackest ignorance, preyed upon by hideous and grotesque delusions, yet steadfastly serving the profoundest of ideals in their fixed faith that existence in any form is better than non-existence, they ever rescued triumphantly from the jaws of ever-imminent destruction the torch of life which, thanks to them, now lights the world for us. how small, indeed, seem individual distinctions when we look back on these overwhelming numbers of human beings panting and straining under the pressure of that vital want! and how inessential in the eyes of god must be the small surplus of the individual's merit, swamped as it is in the vast ocean of the common merit of mankind, dumbly and undauntedly doing the fundamental duty, and living the heroic life! we grow humble and reverent as we contemplate the prodigious spectacle." william james, in _human immortality_. anthropology chapter i scope of anthropology in this chapter i propose to say something, firstly, about the ideal scope of anthropology; secondly, about its ideal limitations; and, thirdly and lastly, about its actual relations to existing studies. in other words, i shall examine the extent of its claim, and then go on to examine how that claim, under modern conditions of science and education, is to be made good. firstly, then, what is the ideal scope of anthropology? taken at its fullest and best, what ought it to comprise? anthropology is the whole history of man as fired and pervaded by the idea of evolution. man in evolution--that is the subject in its full reach. anthropology studies man as he occurs at all known times. it studies him as he occurs in all known parts of the world. it studies him body and soul together--as a bodily organism, subject to conditions operating in time and space, which bodily organism is in intimate relation with a soul-life, also subject to those same conditions. having an eye to such conditions from first to last, it seeks to plot out the general series of the changes, bodily and mental together, undergone by man in the course of his history. its business is simply to describe. but, without exceeding the limits of its scope, it can and must proceed from the particular to the general; aiming at nothing less than a descriptive formula that shall sum up the whole series of changes in which the evolution of man consists. that will do, perhaps, as a short account of the ideal scope of anthropology. being short, it is bound to be rather formal and colourless. to put some body into it, however, it is necessary to breathe but a single word. that word is: darwin. anthropology is the child of darwin. darwinism makes it possible. reject the darwinian point of view, and you must reject anthropology also. what, then, is darwinism? not a cut-and-dried doctrine. not a dogma. darwinism is a working hypothesis. you suppose something to be true, and work away to see whether, in the light of that supposed truth, certain facts fit together better than they do on any other supposition. what is the truth that darwinism supposes? simply that all the forms of life in the world are related together; and that the relations manifested in time and space between the different lives are sufficiently uniform to be described under a general formula, or law of evolution. this means that man must, for certain purposes of science, toe the line with the rest of living things. and at first, naturally enough, man did not like it. he was too lordly. for a long time, therefore, he pretended to be fighting for the bible, when he was really fighting for his own dignity. this was rather hard on the bible, which has nothing to do with the aristotelian theory of the fixity of species; though it might seem possible to read back something of the kind into the primitive creation-stories preserved in genesis. now-a-days, however, we have mostly got over the first shock to our family pride. we are all darwinians in a passive kind of way. but we need to darwinize actively. in the sciences that have to do with plants, and with the rest of the animals besides man, naturalists have been so active in their darwinizing that the pre-darwinian stuff is once for all laid by on the shelf. when man, however, engages on the subject of his noble self, the tendency still is to say: we accept darwinism so long as it is not allowed to count, so long as we may go on believing the same old stuff in the same old way. how do we anthropologists propose to combat this tendency? by working away at our subject, and persuading people to have a look at our results. once people take up anthropology, they may be trusted not to drop it again. it is like learning to sleep with your window open. what could be more stupefying than to shut yourself up in a closet and swallow your own gas? but is it any less stupefying to shut yourself up within the last few thousand years of the history of your own corner of the world, and suck in the stale atmosphere of its own self-generated prejudices? or, to vary the metaphor, anthropology is like travel. every one starts by thinking that there is nothing so perfect as his own parish. but let a man go aboard ship to visit foreign parts, and, when he returns home, he will cause that parish to wake up. with darwin, then, we anthropologists say: let any and every portion of human history be studied in the light of the whole history of mankind, and against the background of the history of living things in general. it is the darwinian outlook that matters. none of darwin's particular doctrines will necessarily endure the test of time and trial. into the melting-pot must they go as often as any man of science deems it fitting. but darwinism as the touch of nature that makes the whole world kin can hardly pass away. at any rate, anthropology stands or falls with the working hypothesis, derived from darwinism, of a fundamental kinship and continuity amid change between all the forms of human life. it remains to add that, hitherto, anthropology has devoted most of its attention to the peoples of rude--that is to say, of simple--culture, who are vulgarly known to us as "savages." the main reason for this, i suppose, is that nobody much minds so long as the darwinizing kind of history confines itself to outsiders. only when it is applied to self and friends is it resented as an impertinence. but, although it has always up to now pursued the line of least resistance, anthropology does not abate one jot or tittle of its claim to be the whole science, in the sense of the whole history, of man. as regards the word, call it science, or history, or anthropology, or anything else--what does it matter? as regards the thing, however, there can be no compromise. we anthropologists are out to secure this: that there shall not be one kind of history for savages and another kind for ourselves, but the same kind of history, with the same evolutionary principle running right through it, for all men, civilized and savage, present and past. * * * * * so much for the ideal scope of anthropology. now, in the second place, for its ideal limitations. here, i am afraid, we must touch for a moment on very deep and difficult questions. but it is well worth while to try at all costs to get firm hold of the fact that anthropology, though a big thing, is not everything. it will be enough to insist briefly on the following points: that anthropology is science in whatever way history is science; that it is not philosophy, though it must conform to its needs; and that it is not policy, though it may subserve its designs. anthropology is science in the sense of specialized research that aims at truth for truth's sake. knowing by parts is science, knowing the whole as a whole is philosophy. each supports the other, and there is no profit in asking which of the two should come first. one is aware of the universe as the whole universe, however much one may be resolved to study its details one at a time. the scientific mood, however, is uppermost when one says: here is a particular lot of things that seem to hang together in a particular way; let us try to get a general idea of what that way is. anthropology, then, specializes on the particular group of human beings, which itself is part of the larger particular group of living beings. inasmuch as it takes over the evolutionary principle from the science dealing with the larger group, namely biology, anthropology may be regarded as a branch of biology. let it be added, however, that, of all the branches of biology, it is the one that is likely to bring us nearest to the true meaning of life; because the life of human beings must always be nearer to human students of life than, say, the life of plants. but, you will perhaps object, anthropology was previously identified with history, and now it is identified with science, namely, with a branch of biology? is history science? the answer is, yes. i know that a great many people who call themselves historians say that it is not, apparently on the ground that, when it comes to writing history, truth for truth's sake is apt to bring out the wrong results. well, the doctored sort of history is not science, nor anthropology, i am ready to admit. but now let us listen to another and a more serious objection to the claim of history to be science. science, it will be said by many earnest men of science, aims at discovering laws that are clean out of time. history, on the other hand, aims at no more than the generalized description of one or another phase of a time-process. to this it may be replied that physics, and physics only, answers to this altogether too narrow conception of science. the laws of matter in motion are, or seem to be, of the timeless or mathematical kind. directly we pass on to biology, however, laws of this kind are not to be discovered, or at any rate are not discovered. biology deals with life, or, if you like, with matter as living. matter moves. life evolves. we have entered a new dimension of existence. the laws of matter in motion are not abrogated, for the simple reason that in physics one makes abstraction of life, or in other words leaves its peculiar effects entirely out of account. but they are transcended. they are multiplied by _x_, an unknown quantity. this being so from the standpoint of pure physics, biology takes up the tale afresh, and devises means of its own for describing the particular ways in which things hang together in virtue of their being alive. and biology finds that it cannot conveniently abstract away the reference to time. it cannot treat living things as machines. what does it do, then? it takes the form of history. it states that certain things have changed in certain ways, and goes on to show, so far as it can, that the changes are on the whole in a certain direction. in short, it formulates tendencies, and these are its only laws. some tendencies, of course, appear to be more enduring than others, and thus may be thought to approximate more closely to laws of the timeless kind. but _x_, the unknown quantity, the something or other that is not physical, runs through them all, however much or little they may seem to endure. for science, at any rate, which departmentalizes the world, and studies it bit by bit, there is no getting over the fact that living beings in general, and human beings in particular, are subject to an evolution which is simple matter of history. and now what about philosophy? i am not going into philosophical questions here. for that reason i am not going to describe biology as natural history, or anthropology as the natural history of man. let philosophers discuss what "nature" is going to mean for them. in science the word is question-begging; and the only sound rule in science is to beg as few philosophical questions as you possibly can. everything in the world is natural, of course, in the sense that things are somehow all akin--all of a piece. we are simply bound to take in the parts as parts of a whole, and it is just this fact that makes philosophy not only possible but inevitable. all the same, this fact does not prevent the parts from having their own specific natures and specific ways of behaving. the people who identify the natural with the physical are putting all their money on one specific kind of nature or behaviour that is to be found in the world. in the case of man they are backing the wrong horse. the horse to back is the horse that goes. as a going concern, however, anthropology, as part of evolutionary biology, is a history of vital tendencies which are not natural in the sense of merely physical. what are the functions of philosophy as contrasted with science? two. firstly, it must be critical. it must police the city of the sciences, preventing them from interfering with each other's rights and free development. co-operation by all means, as, for instance, between anthropology and biology. but no jumping other folks' claims and laying down the law for all; as, for instance, when physics would impose the kind of method applicable to machines on the sciences of evolving life. secondly, philosophy must be synthetic. it must put all the ways of knowing together, and likewise put these in their entirety together with all the ways of feeling and acting; so that there may result a theory of reality and of the good life, in that organic interdependence of the two which our very effort to put things together presupposes as its object. what, then, are to be the relations between anthropology and philosophy? on the one hand, the question whether anthropology can help philosophy need not concern us here. that is for the philosopher to determine. on the other hand, philosophy can help anthropology in two ways: in its critical capacity, by helping it to guard its own claim, and develop freely without interference from outsiders; and in its synthetic capacity, perhaps, by suggesting the rule that, of two types of explanation, for instance, the physical and the biological, the more abstract is likely to be farther away from the whole truth, whereas, contrariwise, the more you take in, the better your chance of really understanding. it remains to speak about policy. i use this term to mean any and all practical exploitation of the results of science. sometimes, indeed, it is hard to say where science ends and policy begins, as we saw in the case of those gentlemen who would doctor their history, because practically it pays to have a good conceit of ourselves, and believe that our side always wins its battles. anthropology, however, would borrow something besides the evolutionary principle from biology, namely, its disinterestedness. it is not hard to be candid about bees and ants; unless, indeed, one is making a parable of them. but as anthropologists we must try, what is so much harder, to be candid about ourselves. let us look at ourselves as if we were so many bees and ants, not forgetting, of course, to make use of the inside information that in the case of the insects we so conspicuously lack. this does not mean that human history, once constructed according to truth-regarding principles, should and could not be used for the practical advantage of mankind. the anthropologist, however, is not, as such, concerned with the practical employment to which his discoveries are put. at most, he may, on the strength of a conviction that truth is mighty and will prevail for human good, invite practical men to study his facts and generalizations in the hope that, by knowing mankind better, they may come to appreciate and serve it better. for instance, the administrator, who rules over savages, is almost invariably quite well-meaning, but not seldom utterly ignorant of native customs and beliefs. so, in many cases, is the missionary, another type of person in authority, whose intentions are of the best, but whose methods too often leave much to be desired. no amount of zeal will suffice, apart from scientific insight into the conditions of the practical problem. and the education is to be got by paying for it. but governments and churches, with some honourable exceptions, are still wofully disinclined to provide their probationers with the necessary special training; though it is ignorance that always proves most costly in the long run. policy, however, including bad policy, does not come within the official cognizance of the anthropologist. yet it is legitimate for him to hope that, just as for many years already physiological science has indirectly subserved the art of medicine, so anthropological science may indirectly, though none the less effectively, subserve an art of political and religious healing in the days to come. * * * * * the third and last part of this chapter will show how, under modern conditions of science and education, anthropology is to realize its programme. hitherto, the trouble with anthropologists has been to see the wood for the trees. even whilst attending mainly to the peoples of rude culture, they have heaped together facts enough to bewilder both themselves and their readers. the time has come to do some sorting; or rather the sorting is doing itself. all manner of groups of special students, interested in some particular side of human history, come now-a-days to the anthropologist, asking leave to borrow from his stock of facts the kind that they happen to want. thus he, as general storekeeper, is beginning to acquire, almost unconsciously, a sense of order corresponding to the demands that are made upon him. the goods that he will need to hand out in separate batches are being gradually arranged by him on separate shelves. our best way, then, of proceeding with the present inquiry, is to take note of these shelves. in other words, we must consider one by one the special studies that claim to have a finger in the anthropological pie. or, to avoid the disheartening task of reviewing an array of bloodless "-ologies," let us put the question to ourselves thus: be it supposed that a young man or woman who wants to take a course, of at least a year's length, in the elements of anthropology, joins some university which is thoroughly in touch with the scientific activities of the day. a university, as its very name implies, ought to be an all-embracing assemblage of higher studies, so adjusted to each other that, in combination, they provide beginners with a good general education; whilst, severally, they offer to more advanced students the opportunity of doing this or that kind of specific research. in such a well-organized university, then, how would our budding anthropologist proceed to form a preliminary acquaintance with the four corners of his subject? what departments must he attend in turn? let us draw him up a curriculum, praying meanwhile that the multiplicity of the demands made upon him will not take away his breath altogether. man is a many-sided being; so there is no help for it if anthropology also is many-sided. for one thing, he must sit at the feet of those whose particular concern is with pre-historic man. it is well to begin here, since thus will the glamour of the subject sink into his soul at the start. let him, for instance, travel back in thought to the europe of many thousands of years ago, shivering under the effects of the great ice-age, yet populous with human beings so far like ourselves that they were alive to the advantage of a good fire, made handy tools out of stone and wood and bone, painted animals on the walls of their caves, or engraved them on mammoth-ivory, far more skilfully than most of us could do now, and buried their dead in a ceremonial way that points to a belief in a future life. thus, too, he will learn betimes how to blend the methods and materials of different branches of science. a human skull, let us say, and some bones of extinct animals, and some chipped flints are all discovered side by side some twenty feet below the level of the soil. at least four separate authorities must be called in before the parts of the puzzle can be fitted together. again, he must be taught something about race, or inherited breed, as it applies to man. a dose of practical anatomy--that is to say, some actual handling and measuring of the principal portions of the human frame in its leading varieties--will enable our beginner to appreciate the differences of outer form that distinguish, say, the british colonist in australia from the native "black-fellow," or the whites from the negroes, and redskins, and yellow asiatics in the united states. at this point, he may profitably embark on the details of the darwinian hypothesis of the descent of man. let him search amongst the manifold modern versions of the theory of human evolution for the one that comes nearest to explaining the degrees of physical likeness and unlikeness shown by men in general as compared with the animals, especially the man-like apes; and again, those shown by the men of divers ages and regions as compared with each other. nor is it enough for him, when thus engaged, to take note simply of physical features--the shape of the skull, the colour of the skin, the tint and texture of the hair, and so on. there are likewise mental characters that seem to be bound up closely with the organism and to follow the breed. such are the so-called instincts, the study of which should be helped out by excursions into the mind-history of animals, of children, and of the insane. moreover, the measuring and testing of mental functions, and, in particular, of the senses, is now-a-days carried on by means of all sorts of ingenious instruments; and some experience of their use will be all to the good, when problems of descent are being tackled. further, our student must submit to a thorough grounding in world-geography with its physical and human sides welded firmly together. he must be able to pick out on the map the headquarters of all the more notable peoples, not merely as they are now, but also as they were at various outstanding moments of the past. his next business is to master the main facts about the natural conditions to which each people is subjected--the climate, the conformation of land and sea, the animals and plants. from here it is but a step to the economic life--the food-supply, the clothing, the dwelling-places, the principal occupations, the implements of labour. a selected list of books of travel must be consulted. no less important is it to work steadily through the show-cases of a good ethnological museum. nor will it suffice to have surveyed the world by regions. the communications between regions--the migrations and conquests, the trading and the borrowing of customs--must be traced and accounted for. finally, on the basis of their distribution, which the learner must chart out for himself on blank maps of the world, the chief varieties of the useful arts and appliances of man can be followed from stage to stage of their development. of the special studies concerned with man the next in order might seem to be that which deals with the various forms of human society; since, in a sense, social organization must depend directly on material circumstances. in another and perhaps a deeper sense, however, the prime condition of true sociality is something else, namely, the exclusively human gift of articulate speech. to what extent, then, must our novice pay attention to the history of language? speculation about its far-off origins is now-a-days rather out of fashion. moreover, language is no longer supposed to provide, by itself at any rate, and apart from other clues, a key to the endless riddles of racial descent. what is most needed, then, is rather some elementary instruction concerning the organic connection between language and thought, and concerning their joint development as viewed against the background of the general development of society. and, just as words and thoughts are essentially symbols, so there are also gesture-symbols and written symbols, whilst again another set of symbols is in use for counting. all these pre-requisites of human intercourse may be conveniently taken together. coming now to the analysis of the forms of society, the beginner must first of all face the problem: "what makes a people one?" neither blood, nor territory, nor language, but only the fact of being more or less compactly organized in a political society, will be found to yield the unifying principle required. once the primary constitution of the body politic has been made out, a limit is set up, inside of which a number of fairly definite forms of grouping offer themselves for examination; whilst outside of it various social relationships of a vaguer kind have also to be considered. thus, amongst institutions of the internal kind, the family by itself presents a wide field of research; though in certain cases it is liable to be overshadowed by some other sort of organization, such as, notably, the clan. under the same rubric fall the many forms of more or less voluntary association, economic, religious, and so forth. on the other hand, outside the circle of the body politic there are, at all known stages of society, mutual understandings that regulate war, trade, travel, the celebration of common rites, the interchange of ideas. here, then, is an abundance of types of human association, to be first scrutinized separately, and afterwards considered in relation to each other. closely connected with the previous subject is the history of law. every type of association, in a way, has its law, whereby its members are constrained to fulfil a certain set of obligations. thus our student will pass on straight from the forms of society to the most essential of their functions. the fact that, amongst the less civilized peoples, the law is uncodified and merely customary, whilst the machinery for enforcing it is, though generally effective enough, yet often highly indefinite and occasional, makes the tracing of the growth of legal institutions from their rudiments no less vitally important, though it makes it none the easier. the history of authority is a strictly kindred topic. legislating and judging on the one hand, and governing on the other, are different aspects of the same general function. in accordance, then, with the order already indicated, law and government as administered by the political society in the person of its representatives, chiefs, elders, war-lords, priest-kings, and so forth, must first be examined; then the jurisdiction and discipline of subordinate bodies, such as the family and the clan, or again the religious societies, trade guilds, and the rest; then, lastly, the international conventions, with the available means of ensuring their observance. again, the history of religion is an allied theme of far-reaching interest. for the understanding of the ruder forms of society it may even be said to furnish the master-key. at this stage, religion is the mainstay of law and government. the constraining force of custom makes itself felt largely through a magnifying haze of mystic sanctions; whilst, again, the position of a leader of society rests for the most part on the supernormal powers imputed to him. religion and magic, then, must be carefully studied if we would understand how the various persons and bodies that exercise authority are assisted, or else hindered, in their efforts to maintain social discipline. apart from this fundamental inquiry, there is another, no less important in its way, to which the study of religion and magic opens up a path. this is the problem how reflection manages as it were to double human experience, by setting up beside the outer world of sense an inner world of thought-relations. now constructive imagination is the queen of those mental functions which meet in what we loosely term "thought"; and imagination is ever most active where, on the outer fringe of the mind's routine work, our inarticulate questionings radiate into the unknown. when the genius has his vision, almost invariably, among the ruder peoples, it is accepted by himself and his society as something supernormal and sacred, whether its fruit be an act of leadership or an edict, a practical invention or a work of art, a story of the past or a prophecy, a cure or a devastating curse. moreover, social tradition treasures the memory of these revelations, and, blending them with the contributions of humbler folk--for all of us dream our dreams--provides in myth and legend and tale, as well as in manifold other art-forms, a stimulus to the inspiration of future generations. for most purposes fine art, at any rate during its more rudimentary stages, may be studied in connection with religion. so far as law and religion will not account for the varieties of social behaviour, the novice may most conveniently consider them under the head of morals. the forms of social intercourse, the fashions, the festivities, are imposed on us by our fellows from without, and none the less effectively because as a general rule we fall in with them as a matter of course. the difference between manners and morals of the higher order is due simply to the more pressing need, in the case of our most serious duties, of a reflective sanction, a "moral sense," to break us in to the common service. it is no easy task to keep legal and religious penalties or rewards out of the reckoning, when trying to frame an estimate of what the notions of right and wrong, prevalent in a given society, amount to in themselves; nevertheless, it is worth doing, and valuable collections of material exist to aid the work. the facts about education, which even amongst rude peoples is often carried on far into manhood, throw much light on this problem. so do the moralizings embodied the traditional lore of the folk--the proverbs, the beast-fables, the stories of heroes. there remains the individual to be studied in himself. if the individual be ignored by social science, as would sometimes appear to be the case, so much the worse for social science, which, to a corresponding extent, falls short of being truly anthropological. throughout the history of man, our beginner should be on the look-out for the signs, and the effects, of personal initiative. freedom of choice, of course, is limited by what there is to choose from; so that the development of what may be termed social opportunity should be concurrently reviewed. again, it is the aim of every moral system so to educate each man that his directive self may be as far as possible identified with his social self. even suicide is not a man's own affair, according to the voice of society which speaks in the moral code. nevertheless, lest the important truth be overlooked that social control implies a will that must meet the control half-way, it is well for the student of man to pay separate and special attention to the individual agent. the last word in anthropology is: know thyself. chapter ii antiquity of man history, in the narrower sense of the word, depends on written records. as we follow back history to the point at which our written records grow hazy, and the immediate ancestors or predecessors of the peoples who appear in history are disclosed in legend that needs much eking out by the help of the spade, we pass into proto-history. at the back of that, again, beyond the point at which written records are of any avail at all, comes pre-history. how, then, you may well inquire, does the pre-historian get to work? what is his method of linking facts together? and what are the sources of his information? first, as to his method. suppose a number of boys are in a field playing football, whose superfluous garments are lying about everywhere in heaps; and suppose you want, for some reason, to find out in what order the boys arrived on the ground. how would you set about the business? surely you would go to one of the heaps of discarded clothes, and take note of the fact that this boy's jacket lay under that boy's waistcoat. moving on to other heaps you might discover that in some cases a boy had thrown down his hat on one heap, his tie on another, and so on. this would help you all the more to make out the general series of arrivals. yes, but what if some of the heaps showed signs of having been upset? well, you must make allowances for these disturbances in your calculations. of course, if some one had deliberately made hay with the lot, you would be nonplussed. the chances are, however, that, given enough heaps of clothes, and bar intentional and systematic wrecking of them, you would be able to make out pretty well which boy preceded which; though you could hardly go on to say with any precision whether tom preceded dick by half a minute or half an hour. such is the method of pre-history. it is called the stratigraphical method, because it is based on the description of strata, or layers. let me give a simple example of how strata tell their own tale. it is no very remarkable instance, but happens to be one that i have examined for myself. they were digging out a place for a gas-holder in a meadow in the town of st. helier, jersey, and carried their borings down to bed rock at about thirty feet, which roughly coincides with the present mean sea-level. the modern meadow-soil went down about five feet. then came a bed of moss-peat, one to three feet thick. there had been a bog here at a time which, to judge by similar finds in other places, was just before the beginning of the bronze-age. underneath the moss-peat came two or three feet of silt with sea-shells in it. clearly the island of jersey underwent in those days some sort of submergence. below this stratum came a great peat-bed, five to seven feet thick, with large tree-trunks in it, the remains of a fine forest that must have needed more or less elevated land on which to grow. in the peat was a weapon of polished stone, and at the bottom were two pieces of pottery, one of them decorated with little pitted marks. these fragments of evidence are enough to show that the foresters belonged to the early neolithic period, as it is called. next occurred about four feet of silt with sea-shells, marking another advance of the sea. below that, again, was a mass, six to eight feet deep, of the characteristic yellow clay with far-carried fragments of rock in it that is associated with the great floods of the ice-age. the land must have been above the reach of the tide for the glacial drift to settle on it. finally, three or four feet of blue clay resting immediately on bed-rock were such as might be produced by the sea, and thus probably betokened its presence at this level in the still remoter past. here the strata are mostly geological. man only comes in at one point. i might have taken a far more striking case--the best i know--from st. acheul, a suburb of amiens in the north of france. here m. commont found human implements of distinct types in about eight out of eleven or twelve successive geological layers. but the story would take too long to tell. however, it is well to start with an example that is primarily geological. for it is the geologist who provides the pre-historic chronometer. pre-historians have to reckon in geological time--that is to say, not in years, but in ages of indefinite extent corresponding to marked changes in the condition of the earth's surface. it takes the plain man a long time to find out that it is no use asking the pre-historian, who is proudly displaying a skull or a stone implement, "please, how many years ago exactly did its owner live?" i remember hearing such a question put to the great savant, m. cartailhac, when he was lecturing upon the pre-historic drawings found in the french and spanish caves; and he replied, "perhaps not less than 6,000 years ago and not more than 250,000." the backbone of our present system of determining the series of pre-historic epochs is the geological theory of an ice-age comprising a succession of periods of extreme glaciation punctuated by milder intervals. it is for the geologists to settle in their own way, unless, indeed, the astronomers can help them, why there should have been an ice-age at all; what was the number, extent, and relative duration of its ups and downs; and at what time, roughly, it ceased in favour of the temperate conditions that we now enjoy. the pre-historians, for their part, must be content to make what traces they discover of early man fit in with this pre-established scheme, uncertain as it is. every day, however, more agreement is being reached both amongst themselves and between them and the geologists; so that one day, i am confident, if not exactly to-morrow, we shall know with fair accuracy how the boys, who left their clothes lying about, followed one another into the field. sometimes, however, geology does not, on the face of it, come into the reckoning. thus i might have asked the reader to assist at the digging out of a cave, say, one of the famous caves at mentone, on the italian riviera, just beyond the south-eastern corner of france. these caves were inhabited by man during an immense stretch of time, and, as you dig down, you light upon one layer after another of his leavings. but note in such a case as this how easily you may be baffled by some one having upset the heap of clothes, or, in a word, by rearrangement. thus the man whose leavings ought to form the layer half-way up may have seen fit to dig a deep hole in the cave-floor in order to bury a deceased friend, and with him, let us suppose, to bury also an assortment of articles likely to be useful in the life beyond the grave. consequently an implement of one age will be found lying cheek by jowl with the implement of a much earlier age, or even, it may be, some feet below it. thereupon the pre-historian must fall back on the general run, or type, in assigning the different implements each to its own stratum. luckily, in the old days fashions tended to be rigid; so that for the pre-historian two flints with slightly different chipping may stand for separate ages of culture as clearly as do a greek vase and a german beer-mug for the student of more recent times. * * * * * enough concerning the stratigraphical method. a word, in the next place, about the pre-historian's main sources of information. apart from geological facts, there are three main classes of evidence that serve to distinguish one pre-historic epoch from another. these are animal bones, human bones, and human handiwork. again i illustrate by means of a case of which i happen to have first-hand knowledge. in jersey, near the bay of st. brelade, is a cave, in which we dug down through some twenty feet of accumulated clay and rock-rubbish, presumably the effects of the last throes of the ice-age, and came upon a pre-historic hearth. there were the big stones that had propped up the fire, and there were the ashes. by the side were the remains of a heap of food-refuse. the pieces of decayed bone were not much to look at; yet, submitted to an expert, they did a tale unfold. he showed them to be the remains of the woolly rhinoceros, the mammoth's even more unwieldy comrade, of the reindeer, of two kinds of horse, one of them the pony-like wild horse still to be found in the mongolian deserts, of the wild ox, and of the deer. truly there was better hunting to be got in jersey in the days when it formed part of a frozen continent. next, the food-heap yields thirteen of somebody's teeth. had they eaten him? it boots not to inquire; though, as the owner was aged between twenty and thirty, the teeth could hardly have fallen out of their own accord. such grinders as they are too! a second expert declares that the roots beat all records. they are of the kind that goes with an immensely powerful jaw, needing a massive brow-ridge to counteract the strain of the bite, and in general involving the type of skull known as the neanderthal, big-brained enough in its way, but uncommonly ape-like all the same. finally, the banqueters have left plenty of their knives lying about. these good folk had their special and regular way of striking off a broad flat flake from the flint core; the cores are lying about, too, and with luck you can restore some of the flakes to their original position. then, leaving one side of the flake untouched, they trimmed the surface of the remaining face, and, as the edges grew blunt with use, kept touching them up with the hammer-stone--there it is also lying by the hearth--until, perhaps, the flake loses its oval shape and becomes a pointed triangle. a third expert is called in, and has no difficulty in recognizing these knives as the characteristic handiwork of the epoch known as the mousterian. if one of these worked flints from jersey was placed side by side with another from the cave of le moustier, near the right bank of the vezere in south-central france, whence the term mousterian, you could hardly tell which was which; whilst you would still see the same family likeness if you compared the jersey specimens with some from amiens, or from northfleet on the thames, or from icklingham in suffolk. putting all these kinds of evidence together, then, we get a notion, doubtless rather meagre, but as far as it goes well-grounded, of a hunter of the ice-age, who was able to get the better of a woolly rhinoceros, could cook a lusty steak off him, had a sharp knife to carve it, and the teeth to chew it, and generally knew how, under the very chilly circumstances, both to make himself comfortable and to keep his race going. there is one other class of evidence on which the pre-historian may with due caution draw, though the risks are certain and the profits uncertain. the ruder peoples of to-day are living a life that in its broad features cannot be wholly unlike the life of the men of long ago. thus the pre-historian should study spencer and gillen on the natives of central australia, if only that he may take firm hold of the fact that people with skulls inclining towards the neanderthal type, and using stone knives, may nevertheless have very active minds; in short, that a rich enough life in its way may leave behind it a poor rubbish-heap. when it comes, however, to the borrowing of details, to patch up the holes in the pre-historic record with modern rags and tatters makes better literature than science. after all, the australians, or tasmanians, or bushmen, or eskimo, of whom so much is beginning to be heard amongst pre-historians, are our contemporaries--that is to say, have just as long an ancestry as ourselves; and in the course of the last 100,000 years or so our stock has seen so many changes, that their stocks may possibly have seen a few also. yet the real remedy, i take it, against the misuse of analogy is that the student should make himself sufficiently at home in both branches of anthropology to know each of the two things he compares for what it truly is. * * * * * having glanced at method and sources, i pass on to results. some text-book must be consulted for the long list of pre-historic periods required for western europe, not to mention the further complications caused by bringing in the remaining portions of the world. the stone-age, with its three great divisions, the eolithic (_eos_, greek for dawn, and _lithos_, stone) the palaeolithic (_pallaeos_, old), and the neolithic (_neos_, new), and their numerous subdivisions, comes first; then the age of copper and bronze; and then the early iron-age, which is about the limit of proto-history. here i shall confine my remarks to europe. i am not going far afield into such questions as: who were the mound-builders of north america? and are the calaveras skull and other remains found in the gold-bearing gravels of california to be reckoned amongst the earliest traces of man in the globe? nor, again, must i pause to speculate whether the dark-stained lustrous flint implements discovered by mr. henry balfour at a high level below the victoria falls, and possibly deposited there by the river zambezi before it had carved the present gorge in the solid basalt, prove that likewise in south africa man was alive and busy untold thousands of years ago. also, i shall here confine myself to the stone-age, because my object is chiefly to illustrate the long pedigree of the species from which we are all sprung. the antiquity of man being my immediate theme, i can hardly avoid saying something about eoliths; though the subject is one that invariably sets pre-historians at each other's throats. there are eoliths and eoliths, however; and some of m. rutot's belgian examples are now-a-days almost reckoned respectable. let us, nevertheless, inquire whether eoliths are not to be found nearer home. i can wish the reader no more delightful experience than to run down to ightham in kent, and pay a call on mr. benjamin harrison. in the room above what used to be mr. harrison's grocery-store, eoliths beyond all count are on view, which he has managed to amass in his rare moments of leisure. as he lovingly cons the stones over, and shows off their points, his enthusiasm is likely to prove catching. but the visitor, we shall suppose, is sceptical. very good; it is not far, though a stiffish pull, to ash on the top of the north downs. hereabouts are mr. harrison's hunting-grounds. over these stony tracts he has conducted sir joseph prestwich and sir john evans, to convince the one authority, but not the other. mark this pebbly drift of rusty-red colour spread irregularly along the fields, as if the relics of some ancient stream or flood. on the surface, if you are lucky, you may pick up an unquestionable palaeolith of early type, with the rusty-red stain of the gravel over it to show that it has lain there for ages. but both on and below the surface, the gravel being perhaps from five to seven feet deep, another type of stone occurs, the so-called eolith. it is picked out from amongst ordinary stones partly because of its shape, and partly because of rough and much-worn chippings that suggest the hand of art or of nature, according to your turn of mind. take one by itself, explains mr. harrison, and you will be sure to rank it as ordinary road-metal. but take a series together, and then, he urges, the sight of the same forms over and over again will persuade you in the end that human design, not aimless chance, has been at work here. well, i must leave mr. harrison to convert you into the friend or foe of his eoliths, and will merely add a word in regard to the probable age of these eolith-bearing gravels. sir joseph prestwich has tried to work the problem out. now-a-days kent and sussex run eastwards in five more or less parallel ridges, not far short of 1,000 feet high, with deep valleys between. formerly, however, no such valleys existed, and a great dome of chalk, some 2,500 feet high at its crown, perhaps, though others would say less, covered the whole country. that is why rivers like the darenth and medway cut clean through the north downs and fall into the thames, instead of flowing eastwards down the later valleys. they started to carve their channels in the soft chalk in the days gone by, when the watershed went north and south down the slopes of the great dome. and the red gravels with the eoliths in them, concludes prestwich, must have come down the north slope whilst the dome was still intact; for they contain fragments of stone that hail from right across the present valleys. but, if the eoliths are man-made, then man presumably killed game and cut it up on top of the wealden dome, how many years ago one trembles to think. * * * * * let us next proceed to the subject of palaeoliths. there is, at any rate, no doubt about them. yet, rather more than half a century ago, when the abbe boucher de perthes found palaeoliths in the gravels of the somme at abbeville, and was the first to recognize them for what they are, there was no small scandal. now-a-days, however, the world takes it as a matter of course that those lumpish, discoloured, and much-rolled stones, shaped something like a pear, which come from the high terraces deposited by the ancient thames, were once upon a time the weapons or tools of somebody who had plenty of muscle in his arm. plenty of skill he had in his fingers, too; for to chip a flint-pebble along both faces, till it takes a more or less symmetrical and standard shape, is not so easy as it sounds. hammer away yourself at such a pebble, and see what a mess you make of it. to go back for one moment to the subject of eoliths, we may fairly argue that experimental forms still ruder than the much-trimmed palaeoliths of the early river-drift must exist somewhere, whether mr. harrison's eoliths are to be classed amongst them or not. indeed, the tasmanians of modern days carved their simple tools so roughly, that any one ignorant of their history might easily mistake the greater number for common pieces of stone. on the other hand, as we move on from the earlier to the later types of river-drift implements, we note how by degrees practice makes perfect. the forms grow ever more regular and refined, up to the point of time which has been chosen as the limit for the first of the three main stages into which the vast palaeolithic epoch has to be broken up. the man of the late st. acheul period, as it is termed, was truly a great artist in his way. if you stare vacantly at his handiwork in a museum, you are likely to remain cold to its charm. but probe about in a gravel-bed till you have the good fortune to light on a masterpiece; tenderly smooth away with your fingers the dirt sticking to its surface, and bring to view the tapering or oval outline, the straight edge, the even and delicate chipping over both faces; then, wrapping it carefully in your handkerchief, take it home to wash, and feast till bedtime on the clean feel and shining mellow colour of what is hardly more an implement than a gem. they took a pride in their work, did the men of old; and, until you can learn to sympathize, you are no anthropologist. during the succeeding main stage of the palaeolithic epoch there was a decided set-back in the culture, as judged by the quality of the workmanship in flint. those were the days of the mousterians who dined off woolly rhinoceros in jersey. their stone implements, worked only on one face, are poor things by comparison with those of late st. acheul days, though for a time degenerated forms of the latter seem to have remained in use. what had happened? we can only guess. probably something to do with the climate was at the bottom of this change for the worse. thus m. rutot believes that during the ice-age each big freeze was followed by an equally big flood, preceding each fresh return of milder weather. one of these floods, he thinks, must have drowned out the neat-fingered race of st. acheul, and left the coast clear for the mousterians with their coarser type of culture. perhaps they were coarser in their physical type as well.[1] [footnote 1: theirs was certainly the rather ape-like neanderthal build. if, however, the skull found at galley hill, near northfleet in kent, amongst the gravels laid down by the thames when it was about ninety feet above its present level, is of early palaeolithic date, as some good authorities believe, there was a kind of man away back in the drift-period who had a fairly high forehead and moderate brow-ridges, and in general was a less brutal specimen of humanity than our mousterian friend of the large grinders.] to the credit of the mousterians, however, must be set down the fact that they are associated with the habit of living in caves, and perhaps may even have started it; though some implements of the drift type occur in le moustier itself, as well as in other caves, such as the famous kent's cavern near torquay. climate, once more, has very possibly to answer for having thus driven man underground. anyway, whether because they must, or because they liked it, the mousterians went on with their cave life during an immense space of time, making little progress; unless it were to learn gradually how to sharpen bones into implements. but caves and bones alike were to play a far more striking part in the days immediately to follow. the third and last main stage of the palaeolithic epoch developed by degrees into a golden age of art. but i cannot dwell on all its glories. i must pass by the beautiful work in flint; such as the thin blades of laurel-leaf pattern, fairly common in france but rare in england, belonging to the stage or type of culture known as the solutrian (from solutre in the department of saone-et-loire). i must also pass by the exquisite french examples of the carvings or engravings of bone and ivory; a single engraving of a horse's head, from the cave at creswell crags in derbyshire, being all that england has to offer in this line. any good museum can show you specimens or models of these delightful objects; whereas the things about which i am going to speak must remain hidden away for ever where their makers left them--i mean the paintings and engravings on the walls of the french and spanish caves. i invite you to accompany me in the spirit first of all to the cave of gargas near aventiron, under the shadow of the pic du midi in the high pyrenees. half-way up a hill, in the midst of a wilderness of rocky fragments, the relics of the ice-age, is a smallish hole, down which we clamber into a spacious but low-roofed grotto, stretching back five hundred feet or so into infinite darkness. hard by the mouth, where the light of day freely enters, are the remains of a hearth, with bone-refuse and discarded implements mingling with the ashes to a considerable depth. a glance at these implements, for instance the small flint scraper with narrow high back and perpendicular chipping along the sides, is enough to show that the men who once warmed their fingers here were of the so-called aurignacian type (aurignac in the department of haute garonne, in southern france), that is to say, lived somewhere about the dawn of the third stage of the palaeolithic epoch. directly after their disappearance nature would seem to have sealed up the cave again until our time, so that we can study them here all by themselves. now let us take our lamps and explore the secrets of the interior. the icy torrents that hollowed it in the limestone have eaten away rounded alcoves along the sides. on the white surface of these, glazed over with a preserving film of stalactite, we at once notice the outlines of many hands. most of them left hands, showing that the aurignacians tended to be right-handed, like ourselves, and dusted on the paint, black manganese or red ochre, between the outspread fingers in just way that we, too, would find convenient. curiously enough, this practice of stencilling hands upon the walls of caves is in vogue amongst the australian natives; though unfortunately, they keep the reason, if there is any deeper one than mere amusement, strictly to themselves. like the australians, again, and other rude peoples, these aurignacians would appear to have been given to lopping off an occasional finger--from some religious motive, we may guess--to judge from the mutilated look of a good many of the handprints. the use of paint is here limited to this class of wall-decoration. but a sharp flint makes an excellent graving tool; and the aurignacian hunter is bent on reproducing by this means the forms of those game-animals about which he doubtless dreams night and day. his efforts in this direction, however, rather remind us of those of our infant-schools. look at this bison. his snout is drawn sideways, but the horns branch out right and left as if in a full-face view. again, our friend scamps details such as the legs. sheer want of skill, we may suspect, leads him to construct what is more like the symbol of something thought than the portrait of something seen. and so we wander farther and farther into the gloomy depths, adding ever new specimens to our pre-historic menagerie, including the rare find of a bird that looks uncommonly like the penguin. mind, by the way, that you do not fall into that round hole in the floor. it is enormously deep; and more than forty cave-bears have left their skeletons at the bottom, amongst which your skeleton would be a little out of place. next day let us move off eastwards to the little pyrenees to see another cave, niaux, high up in a valley scarred nearly up to the top by former glaciers. this cave is about a mile deep; and it will take you half a mile of awkward groping amongst boulders and stalactites, not to mention a choke in one part of the passage such as must puzzle a fat man, before the cavern becomes spacious, and you find yourself in the vast underground cathedral that pre-historic man has chosen for his picture-gallery. this was a later stock, that had in the meantime learnt how to draw to perfection. consider the bold black and white of that portrait of a wild pony, with flowing mane and tail, glossy barrel, and jolly snub-nosed face. it is four or five feet across, and not an inch of the work is out of scale. the same is true of nearly every one of the other fifty or more figures of game-animals. these artists could paint what they saw. yet they could paint up on the walls what they thought, too. there are likewise whole screeds of symbols waiting, perhaps waiting for ever, to be interpreted. the dots and lines and pothooks clearly belong to a system of picture-writing. can we make out their meaning at all? once in a way, perhaps. note these marks looking like two different kinds of throwing-club; at any rate, there are australian weapons not unlike them. to the left of them are a lot of dots in what look like patterns, amongst which we get twice over the scheme of one dot in the centre of a circle of others. then, farther still to the left, comes the painted figure of a bison; or, to be more accurate, the front half is painted, the back being a piece of protruding rock that gives the effect of low relief. the bison is rearing back on its haunches, and there is a patch of red paint, like an open wound, just over the region of its heart. let us try to read the riddle. it may well embody a charm that ran somewhat thus: "with these weapons, and by these encircling tactics, may we slay a fat bison, o ye powers of the dark!" depend upon it, the men who went half a mile into the bowels of a mountain, to paint things up on the walls, did not do so merely for fun. this is a very eerie place, and i daresay most of us would not like to spend the night there alone; though i know a pre-historian who did. in australia, as we shall see later on, rock-paintings of game-animals, not so lifelike as these of the old days, but symbolic almost beyond all recognizing, form part of solemn ceremonies whereby good hunting is held to be secured. something of the sort, then, we may suppose, took place ages ago in the cave of niaux. so, indeed, it was a cathedral after a fashion; and, having in mind the carven pillars of stalactite, the curving alcoves and side-chapels, the shining white walls, and the dim ceiling that held in scorn our powerful lamps, i venture to question whether man has ever lifted up his heart in a grander one. space would fail me if i now sought to carry you off to the cave of altamira, near santander, in the north-west of spain. here you might see at its best a still later style of rock-painting, which deserts mere black and white for colour-shading of the most free description. indeed, it is almost too free, in my judgment; for, though the control of the artist over his rude material is complete, he is inclined to turn his back on real life, forcing the animal forms into attitudes more striking than natural, and endowing their faces sometimes, as it seems to me, with almost human expressions. whatever may be thought of the likelihood of these beasts being portrayed to look like men, certain it is that in the painted caves of this period the men almost invariably have animal heads, as if they were mythological beings, half animal and half human; or else--as perhaps is more probable--masked dancers. at one place, however--namely, in the rock shelter of cogul near lerida, on the spanish side of the pyrenees, we have a picture of a group of women dancers who are not masked, but attired in the style of the hour. they wear high hats or chignons, tight waists, and bell-shaped skirts. really, considering that we thus have a contemporary fashion-plate, so to say, whilst there are likewise the numerous stencilled hands elsewhere on view, and even, as i have seen with my own eyes at niaux in the sandy floor, hardened over with stalagmite, the actual print of a foot, we are brought very near to our palaeolithic forerunners; though indefinite ages part them from us if we reckon by sheer time. * * * * * before ending this chapter, i have still to make good a promise to say something about the neolithic men of western europe. these people often, though not always, polished their stone; the palaeolithic folk did not. that is the distinguishing mark by which the world is pleased to go. it would be fatal to forget, however, that, with this trifling difference, go many others which testify more clearly to the contrast between the older and newer types of culture. thus it has still to be proved that the palaeolithic races ever used pottery, or that they domesticated animals--for instance, the fat ponies which they were so fond of eating; or that they planted crops. all these things did the neolithic peoples sooner or later; so that it would not be strange if palaeolithic man withdrew in their favour, because he could not compete. pre-history is at present almost silent concerning the manner of his passing. in a damp and draughty tunnel, however, called mas d'azil, in the south of france, where the river arize still bores its way through a mountain, some palaeolithic folk seem to have lingered on in a sad state of decay. the old sureness of touch in the matter of carving bone had left them. again, their painting was confined to the adorning of certain pebbles with spots and lines, curious objects, that perhaps are not without analogy in australia, whilst something like them crops up again in the north of scotland in what seems to be the early iron-age. had the rest of the palaeolithic men already followed the reindeer and other arctic animals towards the north-east? or did the neolithic invasion, which came from the south, wipe out the lot? or was there a commingling of stocks, and may some of us have a little dose of palaeolithic blood, as we certainly have a large dose of neolithic? to all these questions it can only be replied that we do not yet know. no more do we know half as much as we should like about fifty things relating to the small, dark, long-headed neolithic folk, with a language that has possibly left traces in the modern basque, who spread over the west till they reached great britain--it probably was an island by this time--and erected the well-known long barrows and other monuments of a megalithic (great-stone) type; though not the round barrows, which are the work of a subsequent round-headed race of the bronze-age. every day, however, the spade is adding to our knowledge. besides, most of the ruder peoples of the modern world were at the neolithic stage of culture at the time of their discovery by europeans. hence the weapons, the household utensils, the pottery, the pile-dwellings, and so on, can be compared closely; and we have a fresh instance of the way in which one branch of anthropology can aid another. in pursuance of my plan, however, of merely pitching here and there on an illustrative point, i shall conclude by an excursion to brandon, just on the suffolk side of the border between that county and norfolk. here we can stand, as it were, with one foot in neolithic times and the other in the life of to-day. when canon greenwell, in 1870, explored in this neighbourhood one of the neolithic flint-mines known as grime's graves, he had to dig out the rubbish from a former funnel-shaped pit some forty feet deep. down at this level, it appeared, the neolithic worker had found the layer of the best flint. this he quarried by means of narrow galleries in all directions. for a pick he used a red-deer's antler. in the british museum is to be seen one of these with the miner's thumb-mark stamped on a piece of clay sticking to the handle. his lamp was a cup of chalk. his ladder was probably a series of rough steps cut in the sides of the pit. as regards the use to which the material was put, a neolithic workshop was found just to the south of grime's graves. here, scattered about on all sides, were the cores, the hammer-stones that broke them up, and knives, scrapers, borers, spear-heads and arrow-heads galore, in all stages of manufacture. well, now let us hie to lingheath, not far off, and what do we find? a family of the name of dyer carry on to-day exactly the same old method of mining. their pits are of squarer shape than the neolithic ones, but otherwise similar. their one-pronged pick retains the shape of the deer's antler. their light is a candle stuck in a cup of chalk. and the ladder is just a series of ledges or, as they call them, "toes" in the wall, five feet apart and connected by foot-holes. the miner simply jerks his load, several hundredweight of flints, from ledge to ledge by the aid of his head, which he protects with something that neolithic man was probably without, namely, an old bowler hat. he even talks a language of his own. "bubber-hutching on the sosh" is the term for sinking a pit on the slant, and, for all we can tell, may have a very ancient pedigree. and what becomes of the miner's output? it is sold by the "jag"--a jag being a pile just so high that when you stand on any side you can see the bottom flint on the other--to the knappers of brandon. any one of these--for instance, my friend mr. fred snare--will, while you wait, break up a lump with a short round hammer into manageable pieces. then, placing a "quarter" with his left hand the leather pad that covers his knee, he will, with an oblong hammer, strike off flake after flake, perhaps 1,500 in a morning; and finally will work these up into sharp-edged squares to serve as gun-flints for the trade with native africa. alas! the palmy days of knapping gun-flints for the british army will never return to brandon. still, there must have been trade depression in those parts at any time from the bronze-age up to the times of brown bess; for the strike-a-lights, still to be got at a penny each, can have barely kept the wolf from the door. and mr. snare is not merely an artisan but an artist. he has chipped out a flint ring, a feat which taxed the powers of the clever neolithic knappers of pre-dynastic egypt; whilst with one of his own flint fishhooks he has taken a fine trout from the little ouse that runs by the town. thus there are things in old england that are older even than some of our friends wot. in that one county of suffolk, for instance, the good flint--so rich in colour as it is, and so responsive to the hammer, at any rate if you get down to the lower layers or "sases," for instance, the floorstone, or the black smooth-stone that is generally below water-level--has served the needs of all the palaeolithic periods, and of the neolithic age as well, and likewise of the modern englishmen who fought with flintlocks at waterloo, or still more recently took out tinder-boxes with them to the war in south africa. and what does this stand for in terms of the antiquity of man? thousands of years? we do not know exactly; but say rather hundreds of thousands of years. chapter iii race there is a story about the british sailor who was asked to state what he understood by a dago. "dagoes," he replied, "is anything wot isn't our sort of chaps." in exactly the same way would an ancient greek have explained what he meant by a "barbarian." when it takes this wholesale form we speak, not without reason, of race-prejudice. we may well wonder in the meantime how far this prejudice answers to something real. race would certainly seem to be a fact that stares one in the face. stroll down any london street: you cannot go wrong about that hindu student with features rather like ours but of a darker shade. the short dapper man with eyes a little aslant is no less unmistakably a japanese. it takes but a slightly more practised eye to pick out the german waiter, the french chauffeur, and the italian vendor of ices. lastly, when you have made yourself really good at the game, you will be scarcely more likely to confuse a small dark welshman with a broad florid yorkshireman than a retriever with a mastiff. yes, but remember that you are judging by the gross impression, not by the element of race or breed as distinguished from the rest. here, you say, come a couple of our american cousins. perhaps it is their speech that betrayeth them; or perhaps it is the general cut of their jib. if you were to go into their actual pedigrees, you would find that the one had a scotch father and a mother from out of dorset; whilst the other was partly scandinavian and partly spanish with a tincture of jew. yet to all intents and purposes they form one type. and, the more deeply you go into it, the more mixed we all of us turn out to be, when breed, and breed alone, is the subject of inquiry. yet race, in the only sense that the word has for an anthropologist, means inherited breed, and nothing more or less--inherited breed, and all that it covers, whether bodily or mental features. for race, let it not be forgotten, presumably extends to mind as well as to body. it is not merely skin-deep. contrast the stoical red indian with the vivacious negro; or the phlegmatic dutchman with the passionate italian. true, you say, but what about the influence of their various climates, or again of their different ideals of behaviour? quite so. it is immensely difficult to separate the effects of the various factors. yet surely the race-factor counts for something in the mental constitution. any breeder of horses will tell you that neither the climate of newmarket, nor careful training, nor any quantity of oats, nor anything else, will put racing mettle into cart-horse stock. in what follows, then, i shall try to show just what the problem about the race-factor is, even if i have to trespass a little way into general biology in order to do so.[2] and i shall not attempt to conceal the difficulties relating to the race-problem. i know that the ordinary reader is supposed to prefer that all the thinking should be done beforehand, and merely the results submitted to him. but i cannot believe that he would find it edifying to look at half-a-dozen books upon the races of mankind, and find half-a-dozen accounts of their relationships, having scarcely a single statement in common. far better face the fact that race still baffles us almost completely. yet, breed is there; and, in its own time and in its own way, breed will out. [footnote 2: the reader is advised to consult also the more comprehensive study on _evolution_ by professors geddes and thomson in this series.] race or breed was a moment ago described as a factor in human nature. but to break up human nature into factors is something that we can do, or try to do, in thought only. in practice we can never succeed in doing anything of the kind. a machine such as a watch we can take to bits and then put together again. even a chemical compound such as water we can resolve into oxygen and hydrogen and then reproduce out of its elements. but to dissect a living thing is to kill it once and for all. life, as was said in the first chapter, is something unique, with the unique property of being able to evolve. as life evolves, that is to say changes, by being handed on from certain forms to certain other forms, a partial rigidity marks the process together with a partial plasticity. there is a stiffening, so to speak, that keeps the life-force up to a point true to its old direction; though, short of that limit, it is free to take a new line of its own. race, then, stands for the stiffening in the evolutionary process. just up to what point it goes in any given case we probably can never quite tell. yet, if we could think our way anywhere near to that point in regard to man, i doubt not that we should eventually succeed in forging a fresh instrument for controlling the destinies of our species, an instrument perhaps more powerful than education itself--i mean, eugenics, the art of improving the human breed. to see what race means when considered apart, let us first of all take your individual self, and ask how you would proceed to separate your inherited nature from the nature which you have acquired in the course of living your life. it is not easy. suppose, however, that you had a twin brother born, if indeed that were possible, as like you as one pea is like another. an accident in childhood, however, has caused him to lose a leg. so he becomes a clerk, living a sedentary life in an office. you, on the other hand, with your two lusty legs to help you, become a postman, always on the run. well, the two of you are now very different men in looks and habits. he is pale and you are brown. you play football and he sits at home reading. nevertheless, any friend who knows you both intimately will discover fifty little things that bespeak in you the same underlying nature and bent. you are both, for instance, slightly colour-blind, and both inclined to fly into violent passions on occasion. that is your common inheritance peeping out--if, at least, your friend has really managed to make allowance for your common bringing-up, which might mainly account for the passionateness, though hardly for the colour-blindness. but now comes the great difficulty. let us further suppose that you two twins marry wives who are also twins born as like as two peas; and each pair of you has a family. which of the two batches of children will tend on the whole to have the stronger legs? your legs are strong by use; your brother's are weak by disuse. but do use and disuse make any difference to the race? that is the theoretical question which, above all others, complicates and hampers our present-day attempts to understand heredity. in technical language, this is the problem of use-inheritance, otherwise known as the inheritance of acquired characters. it is apt to seem obvious to the plain man that the effects of use and disuse are transmitted to offspring. so, too, thought lamarck, who half a century before darwin propounded a theory of the origin of species that was equally evolutionary in its way. why does the giraffe have so long a neck? lamarck thought it was because the giraffe had acquired a habit of stretching his neck out. every time there was a bad season, the giraffes must all stretch up as high as ever they could towards the leafy tops of the trees; and the one that stretched up farthest survived, and handed on the capacity for a like feat to his fortunate descendants. now darwin himself was ready to allow that use and disuse might have some influence on the offspring's inheritance; but he thought that this influence was small as compared with the influence of what, for want of a better term, he called spontaneous variation. certain of his followers, however, who call themselves neo-darwinians, are ready to go one better. led by the german biologist, weismann, they would thrust the lamarckians, with their hypothesis of use-inheritance, clean out of the field. spontaneous variation, they assert, is all that is needed to prepare the way for the selection of the tall giraffe. it happened to be born that way. in other words, its parents had it in them to breed it so. this is not a theory that tells one anything positive. it is merely a caution to look away from use and disuse to another explanation of variation that is not yet forthcoming. after all, the plain man must remember that the effects of use and disuse, which he seems to see everywhere about him, are mixed up with plenty of apparent instances to the contrary. he will smile, perhaps, when i tell him that weismann cut off the tails of endless mice, and, breeding them together, found that tails invariably decorated the race as before. i remember hearing mr. bernard shaw comment on this experiment. he was defending the lamarckianism of samuel butler, who declared that our heredity was a kind of race-memory, a lapsed intelligence. "why," said mr. shaw, "did the mice continue to grow tails? because they never wanted to have them cut off." but men-folk are wont to shave off their beards because they want to have them off; and, amongst people more conservative in their habits than ourselves, such a custom may persist through numberless generations. yet who ever observed the slightest signs of beardlessness being produced in this way? on the other hand, there are beardless as well as bearded races in the world; and, by crossing them, you could, doubtless, soon produce ups and downs in the razor-trade. only, as weismann's school would say, the required variation is in this case spontaneous, that is, comes entirely of its own accord. leaving the question of use-inheritance open, i pass on to say a word about variation as considered in itself and apart from this doubtful influence. weismann holds, that organisms resulting from the union of two cells are more variable than those produced out of a single one. on this view, variation depends largely on the laws of the interaction of the dissimilar characters brought together in cell-union. but what are these laws? the best that can be said is that we are getting to know a little more about them every day. amongst other lines of inquiry, the so-called mendelian experiments promise to clear up much that is at present dark. the development of the individual that results from such cell-union is no mere mixture or addition, but a process of selective organization. to put it very absurdly, one does not find a pair of two-legged parents having a child with legs as big as the two sets of legs together, or with four legs, two of them of one shape and two of another. in other words, of the possibilities contributed by the father and mother, some are taken and some are left in the case of any one child. further, different children will represent different selections from amongst the germinal elements. mendelism, by the way, is especially concerned to find out the law according to which the different types of organization are distributed between the offspring. each child, meanwhile, is a unique individual, a living whole with an organization of its very own. this means that its constituent elements form a system. they stand to each other in relations of mutual support. in short, life is possible because there is balance. this general state of balance, however, is able to go along with a lot of special balancings that seem largely independent of each other. it is important to remember this when we come a little later on to consider the instincts. all sorts of lesser systems prevail within the larger system represented by the individual organism. it is just as if within the state with its central government there were a number of county councils, municipal corporations, and so on, each of them enjoying a certain measure of self-government on its own account. thus we can see in a very general way how it is that so much variation is possible. the selective organization, which from amongst the germinal elements precipitates ever so many and different forms of fresh life, is so loose and elastic that a working arrangement between the parts can be reached in all sorts of directions. the lesser systems are so far self-governing that they can be trusted to get along in almost any combination; though of course some combinations are naturally stronger and more stable than the rest, and hence tend to outlast them, or, as the phrase goes, to be preserved by natural selection. it is time to take account of the principle of natural selection. we have done with the subject of variation. whether use and disuse have helped to shape the fresh forms of life, or whether these are purely spontaneous combinations that have come into being on what we are pleased to call their own account, at any rate let us take them as given. what happens now? at this point begins the work of natural selection. darwin's great achievement was to formulate this law; though it is only fair to add that it was discovered by a.r. wallace at the same moment. both of them get the first hint of it from malthus. this english clergyman, writing about half a century earlier, had shown that the growth of population is apt very considerably to outstrip the development of food-supply; whereupon natural checks such as famine or war must, he argued, ruthlessly intervene so as to redress the balance. applying these considerations to the plant and animal kingdoms at large, darwin and wallace perceived that, of the multitudinous forms of life thrust out upon the world to get a livelihood as best they could, a vast quantity must be weeded out. moreover, since they vary exceedingly in their type of organization, it seemed reasonable to suppose that, of the competitors, those who were innately fitted to make the best of the ever-changing circumstances would outlive the rest. an appeal to the facts fully bore out this hypothesis. it must not, indeed, be thought that all the weeding out which goes on favours the fittest. accidents will always happen. on the whole, however, the type that is most at home under the surrounding conditions, it may be because it is more complex, or it may be because it is of simpler organization, survives the rest. now to survive is to survive to breed. if you live to eighty, and have no children, you do not survive in the biological sense; whereas your neighbour who died at forty may survive in a numerous progeny. natural selection is always in the last resort between individuals; because individuals are alone competent to breed. at the same time, the reason for the individual's survival may lie very largely outside him. amongst the bees, for instance, a non-working type of insect survives to breed because the sterile workers do their duty by the hive. so, too, that other social animal, man, carries on the race by means of some whom others die childless in order to preserve. nevertheless, breeding being a strictly individual and personal affair, there is always a risk lest a society, through spending its best too freely, end by recruiting its numbers from those in whom the engrained capacity to render social service is weakly developed. to rear a goodly family must always be the first duty of unselfish people; for otherwise the spirit of unselfishness can hardly be kept alive the world. enough about heredity as a condition of evolution. we return, with a better chance of distinguishing them, to the consideration of the special effects that it brings about. it was said just now that heredity is the stiffening in human nature, a stiffening bound up with a more or less considerable offset of plasticity. now clearly it is in some sense true that the child's whole nature, its modicum of plasticity included, is handed on from its parents. our business in this chapter, however, is on the whole to put out of our thoughts this plastic side of the inherited life-force. the more or less rigid, definite, systematized characters--these form the hereditary factor, the race. now none of these are ever quite fixed. a certain measure of plasticity has to be counted in as part of their very nature. even in the bee, with its highly definite instincts, there is a certain flexibility bound up with each of these; so that, for instance, the inborn faculty of building up the comb regularly is modified if the hive happens to be of an awkward shape. yet, as compared with what remains over, the characters that we are able to distinguish as racial must show fixity. unfortunately, habits show fixity too. yet habits belong to the plastic side of our nature; for, in forming a habit, we are plastic at the start, though hardly so once we have let ourselves go. habits, then, must be discounted in our search for the hereditary bias in our lives. it is no use trying to disguise the difficulties attending an inquiry into race. * * * * * these difficulties notwithstanding, in the rest of this chapter let us consider a few of what are usually taken to be racial features of man. as before, the treatment must be illustrative; we cannot work through the list. further, we must be content with a very rough division into bodily and mental features. just at this point we shall find it very hard to say what is to be reckoned bodily and what mental. leaving these niceties to the philosophers, however, let us go ahead as best we can. oh for an external race-mark about which there could be no mistake! that has always been a dream of the anthropologist; but it is a dream that shows no signs of coming true. all sorts of tests of this kind have been suggested. cranium, cranial sutures, frontal process, nasal bones, eye, chin, jaws, wisdom teeth, hair, humerus, pelvis, the heart-line across the hand, calf, tibia, heel, colour, and even smell--all these external signs, as well as many more, have been thought, separately or together, to afford the crucial test of a man's pedigree. clearly i cannot here cross-examine the entire crowd of claimants, were i even competent to do so. i shall, therefore, say a few words about two, and two only, namely, head-form and colour. i believe that, if the plain man were to ask himself how, in walking down a london street, he distinguished one racial type from another, he would find that he chiefly went by colour. in a general way he knows how to make allowance for sunburn and get down to the native complexion underneath. but, if he went off presently to a museum and tried to apply his test to the pre-historic men on view there, it would fail for the simple reason that long ago they left their skins behind them. he would have to get to work, therefore, on their bony parts, and doubtless would attack the skulls for choice. by considering head-form and colour, then, we may help to cover a certain amount of the ground, vast as it is. for remember that anthropology in this department draws no line between ancient and modern, or between savage and civilized, but tries to tackle every sort of man that comes within its reach. head-shape is really a far more complicated thing to arrive at for purposes of comparison than one might suppose. since no part of the skull maintains a stable position in regard to the rest, there can be no fixed standard of measurement, but at most a judgment of likeness or unlikeness founded on an averaging of the total proportions. thus it comes about that, in the last resort, the impression of a good expert is worth in these matters a great deal more than rows of figures. moreover, rows of figures in their turn take a lot of understanding. besides, they are not always easy to get. this is especially the case if you are measuring a live subject. perhaps he is armed with a club, and may take amiss the use of an instrument that has to be poked into his ears, or what not. so, for one reason or another, we have often to put up with that very unsatisfactory single-figure description of the head-form which is known as the cranial index. you take the greatest length and greatest breadth of the skull, and write down the result obtained by dividing the former into the latter when multiplied by 100. medium-headed people have an index of anything between 75 and 80. below that figure men rank as long-headed, above it as round-headed. this test, however, as i have hinted, will not by itself carry us far. on the other hand, i believe that a good judge of head-form in all its aspects taken together will generally be able to make a pretty shrewd guess as to the people amongst whom the owner of a given skull is to be placed. unfortunately, to say people is not to say race. it may be that a given people tend to have a characteristic head-form, not so much because they are of common breed, as because they are subjected after birth, or at any rate, after conception, to one and the same environment. thus some careful observations made recently by professor boas on american immigrants from various parts of europe seem to show that the new environment does in some unexplained way modify the head-form to a remarkable extent. for example, amongst the east european jews the head of the european-born is shorter and wider than that of the american-born, the difference being even more marked in the second generation of the american-born. at the same time, other european nationalities exhibit changes of other kinds, all these changes, however, being in the direction of a convergence towards one and the same american type. how are we to explain these facts, supposing them to be corroborated by more extensive studies? it would seem that we must at any rate allow for a considerable plasticity in the head-form, whereby it is capable of undergoing decisive alteration under the influences of environment; not, of course, at any moment during life, but during those early days when the growth of the head is especially rapid. the further question whether such an acquired character can be transmitted we need not raise again. before passing on, however, let this one word to the wise be uttered. if the skull can be so affected, then what about the brain inside it? if the hereditarily long-headed can change under suitable conditions, then what about the hereditarily short-witted? it remains to say a word about the types of pre-historic men as judged by their bony remains and especially by their skulls. naturally the subject bristles with uncertainties. by itself stands the so-called pithecanthropus (ape-man) of java, a regular "missing link." the top of the skull, several teeth, and a thigh-bone, found at a certain distance from each other, are all that we have of it or him. dr. dubois, their discoverer, has made out a fairly strong case for supposing that the geological stratum in which the remains occurred is pliocene--that is to say, belongs to the tertiary epoch, to which man has not yet been traced back with any strong probability. it must remain, however, highly doubtful whether this is a proto-human being, or merely an ape of a type related to the gibbon. the intermediate character is shown especially in the head form. if an ape, pithecanthropus had an enormous brain; if a man, he must have verged on what we should consider idiocy. also standing somewhat by itself is the heidelberg man. all that we have of him is a well-preserved lower jaw with its teeth. it was found more than eighty feet below the surface of the soil, in company with animal remains that make it possible to fix its position in the scale of pre-historic periods with some accuracy. judged by this test, it is as old as the oldest of the unmistakable drift implements, the so-called chellean (from chelles in the department of seine-et-marne in france). the jaw by itself would suggest a gorilla, being both chinless and immensely powerful. the teeth, however, are human beyond question, and can be matched, or perhaps even in respect to certain marks of primitiveness out-matched, amongst ancient skulls of the neanderthal order, if not also amongst modern ones from australia. we may next consider the neanderthal group of skulls, so named after the first of that type found in 1856 in the neanderthal valley close to dusseldorf in the rhine basin. a narrow head, with low and retreating forehead, and a thick projecting brow-ridge, yet with at least twice the brain capacity of any gorilla, set the learned world disputing whether this was an ape, a normal man, or an idiot. it was unfortunate that there were no proofs to hand of the age of these relics. after a while, however, similar specimens began to come in. thus in 1866 the jaw of a woman, displaying a tendency to chinlessness combined with great strength, was found in the cave of la naulette in belgium, associated with more or less dateable remains of the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros and reindeer. a few years earlier, though its importance was not appreciated at the moment, there had been discovered, near forbes' quarry at gibraltar, the famous gibraltar skull, now to be seen in the museum of the royal college of surgeons in london. any visitor will notice at the first glance that this is no man of to-day. there are the narrow head, low crown, and prominent brow-ridge as before, supplemented by the most extraordinary eye-holes that were ever seen, vast circles widely separated from each other. and other peculiar features will reveal themselves on a close inspection; for instance, the horseshoe form in which, ape-fashion, the teeth are arranged, and the muzzle-like shape of the face due to the absence of the depressions that in our own case run down on each side from just outside the nostrils towards the corners of the mouth. and now at the present time we have twenty or more individuals of this neanderthal type to compare. the latest discoveries are perhaps the most interesting, because in two and perhaps other cases the man has been properly buried. thus at la chapelle-aux-saints, in the french department of correze, a skeleton, which in its head-form closely recalls the gibraltar example, was found in a pit dug in the floor of a low grotto. it lay on its back, head to the west, with one arm bent towards the head, the other outstretched, and the legs drawn up. some bison bones lay in the grave as if a food-offering had been made. hard by were flint implements of a well-marked mousterian type. in the shelter of le moustier itself a similar burial was discovered. the body lay on its right side, with the right arm bent so as to support the head upon a carefully arranged pillow of flints; whilst the left arm was stretched out, so that the hand might be near a magnificent oval stone-weapon chipped on both faces, evidently laid there by design. so much for these men of the neanderthal type, denizens of the mid-palaeolithic world at the very latest. ape-like they doubtless are in their head-form up to a certain point, though almost all their separate features occur here and there amongst modern australian natives. and yet they were men enough, had brains enough, to believe in a life after death. there is something to think about in that. without going outside europe, we have, however, to reckon with at least two other types of very early head-form. in one of the caves of mentone known as la grotte des enfants two skeletons from a low stratum were of a primitive type, but unlike the neanderthal, and have been thought to show affinities to the modern negro. as, however, no other proto-negroes are indisputably forthcoming either from europe or from any other part of the world, there is little at present to be made out about this interesting racial type. in the layer immediately above the negroid remains, however, as well as in other caves at mentone, were the bones of individuals of quite another order, one being positively a giant. they are known as the cro-magnon race, after a group of them discovered in a rock shelter of that name on the banks of the vezere. these particular people can be shown to be aurignacian--that is to say, to have lived just after the mousterian men of the neanderthal head-form. if, however, as has been already suggested, the galley hill individual, who shows affinities to the cro-magnon type, really goes back to the drift-period, then we can believe that from very early times there co-existed in europe at least two varieties; and these so distinct, that some authorities would trace the original divergence between them right back to the times before man and the apes had parted company, linking the neanderthal race with the gorilla and the cro-magnon race with the orang. the cro-magnon head-form is refined and highly developed. the forehead is high, and the chin shapely, whilst neither the brow-ridge nor the lower jaw protrudes as in the neanderthal type. whether this race survives in modern europe is, as was said in the last chapter, highly uncertain. in certain respects--for instance, in a certain shortness of face--these people present exceptional features; though some think they can still find men of this type in the dordogne district. perhaps the chances are, however, considering how skulls of the neolithic period prove to be anything but uniform, and suggest crossings between different stocks, that we may claim kinship to some extent with the more good-looking of the two main types of palaeolithic man--always supposing that head-form can be taken as a guide. but can it? the pygmies of the congo region have medium heads; the bushmen of south africa, usually regarded as akin in race, have long heads. the american indians, generally supposed to be all, or nearly all, of one racial type, show considerable differences of head-form; and so on. it need not be repeated that any race-mark is liable to deceive. * * * * * we have sufficiently considered the use to which the particular race-mark of head-form has been put in the attempted classification of the very early men who have left their bones behind them. let us now turn to another race-mark, namely colour; because, though it may really be less satisfactory than others, for instance hair, that is the one to which ordinary people naturally turn when they seek to classify by races the present inhabitants of the earth. when linnaeus in pre-darwinian days distinguished four varieties of man, the white european, the red american, the yellow asiatic, and the black african, he did not dream of providing the basis of anything more than an artificial classification. he probably would have agreed with buffon in saying that in every case it was one and the same kind of man, only dyed differently by the different climates. but the darwinian is searching for a natural classification. he wants to distinguish men according to their actual descent. now race and descent mean for him the same thing. hence a race-mark, if one is to be found, must stand for, by co-existing with, the whole mass of properties that form the inheritance. can colour serve for a race-mark in this profound sense? that is the only question here. first of all, what is the use of being coloured one way or the other? does it make any difference? is it something, like the heart-line of the hand, that may go along with useful qualities, but in itself seems to be a meaningless accident? well, as some unfortunate people will be able to tell you, colour is still a formidable handicap in the struggle for existence. not to consider the colour-prejudice in other aspects, there is no gainsaying the part it plays in sexual selection at this hour. the lower animals appear to be guided in the choice of a mate by externals of a striking and obvious sort. and men and women to this day marry more with their eyes than with their heads. the coloration of man, however, though it may have come to subserve the purposes of mating, does not seem in its origin to have been like the bright coloration of the male bird. it was not something wholly useless save as a means of sexual attraction, though in such a capacity useful because a mark of vital vigour. colour almost certainly developed in strict relation to climate. right away in the back ages we must place what bagehot has called the race-making epoch, when the chief bodily differences, including differences of colour, arose amongst men. in those days, we may suppose, natural selection acted largely on the body, because mind had not yet become the prime condition of survival. the rest is a question of pre-historic geography. within the tropics, the habitat of the man-like apes, and presumably of the earliest men, a black skin protects against sunlight. a white skin, on the other hand--though this is more doubtful--perhaps economizes sun-heat in colder latitudes. brown, yellow and the so-called red are intermediate tints suitable to intermediate regions. it is not hard to plot out in the pre-historic map of the world geographical provinces, or "areas of characterization," where races of different shades corresponding to differences in the climate might develop, in an isolation more or less complete, such as must tend to reinforce the process of differentiation. let it not be forgotten, however, that individual plasticity plays its part too in the determination of human colour. the anglo-indian planter is apt to return from a long sojourn in the east with his skin charged with a dark pigment which no amount of pears' soap will remove during the rest of his life. it would be interesting to conduct experiments, on the lines of those of professor boas already mentioned, with the object of discovering in what degree the same capacity for amassing protective pigment declares itself in children of european parentage born in the tropics or transplanted thither during infancy. correspondingly, the tendency of dark stocks to bleach in cold countries needs to be studied. in the background, too, lurks the question whether such effects of individual plasticity can be transmitted to offspring, and become part of the inheritance. one more remark upon the subject of colour. now-a-days civilized peoples, as well as many of the ruder races that the former govern, wear clothes. in other words they have dodged the sun, by developing, with the aid of mind, a complex society that includes the makers of white drill suits and solar helmets. but, under such conditions, the colour of one's skin becomes more or less of a luxury. protective pigment, at any rate now-a-days, counts for little as compared with capacity for social service. colour, in short, is rapidly losing its vital function. will it therefore tend to disappear? in the long run, it would seem--perhaps only in the very long run--it will become dissociated from that general fitness to survive under particular climatic conditions of which it was once the innate mark. be this as it may, race-prejudice, that is so largely founded on sheer considerations of colour, is bound to decay, if and when the races of darker colour succeed in displaying, on the average, such qualities of mind as will enable them to compete with the whites on equal terms, in a world which is coming more and more to include all climates. * * * * * thus we are led on to discuss race in its mental aspect. here, more than ever, we are all at sea, for want of a proper criterion. what is to be the test of mind? indeed, mind and plasticity are almost the same thing. race, therefore, as being the stiffening in the evolution of life, might seem by its very nature opposed to mind as a limiting or obstructing force. are we, then, going to return to the old pre-scientific notion of soul as something alien to body, and thereby simply clogged, thwarted and dragged down? that would never do. body and soul are, for the working purposes of science, to be conceived as in perfect accord, as co-helpers in the work of life, and as such subject to a common development. heredity, then, must be assumed to apply to both equally. in proportion as there is plastic mind there will be plastic body. unfortunately, the most plastic part of body is likewise the hardest to observe, at any rate whilst it is alive, namely, the brain. no certain criterion of heredity, then, is likely to be available from this quarter. you will see it stated, for instance, that the size of the brain cavity will serve to mark off one race from another. this is extremely doubtful, to put it mildly. no doubt the average european shows some advantage in this respect as compared, say, with the bushman. but then you have to write off so much for their respective types of body, a bigger body going in general with a bigger head, that in the end you find yourself comparing mere abstractions. again, the european may be the first to cry off on the ground that comparisons are odious; for some specimens of neanderthal man in sheer size of the brain cavity are said to give points to any of our modern poets and politicians. clearly, then, something is wrong with this test. nor, if the brain itself be examined after death, and the form and number of its convolutions compared, is this criterion of hereditary brain-power any more satisfactory. it might be possible in this way to detect the difference between an idiot and a person of normal intelligence, but not the difference between a fool and a genius. we cross the uncertain line that divides the bodily from the mental when we subject the same problem of hereditary mental endowment to the methods of what is known as experimental psychology. thus acuteness of sight, hearing, taste, smell and feeling are measured by various ingenious devices. seeing what stories travellers bring back with them about the hawk-like vision of hunting races, one might suppose that such comparisons would be all in their favour. the cambridge expedition to torres straits, however, of which dr. haddon was the leader, included several well-trained psychologists, who devoted special attention to this subject; and their results show that the sensory powers of these rude folk were on the average much the same as those of europeans. it is the hunter's experience only that enables him to sight the game at an immense distance. there are a great many more complicated tests of the same type designed to estimate the force of memory, attention, association, reasoning and other faculties that most people would regard as purely mental; whilst another set of such tests deals with reaction to stimulus, co-ordination between hand and eye, fatigue, tremor, and, most ingenious perhaps of all, emotional excitement as shown through the respiration--phenomena which are, as it were, mental and bodily at once and together. unfortunately, psychology cannot distinguish in such cases between the effects of heredity and those of individual experience, whether it take the form of high culture or of a dissipated life. indeed, the purely temporary condition of body and mind is apt to influence the results. a man has been up late, let us say, or has been for a long walk, or has missed a meal; obviously his reaction-times, his record for memory, and so on, will show a difference for the worse. or, again, the subject may confront the experiment in very various moods. at one moment he may be full of vanity, anxious to show what superior qualities he possesses; whilst at another time he will be bored. not to labour the point further, these methods, whatever they may become in the future, are at present unable to afford any criterion whatever of the mental ability that goes with race. they are fertile in statistics; but an interpretation of these statistics that furthers our purpose is still to seek. but surely, it will be said, we can tell an instinct when we come across it, so uniform as it is, and so independent of the rest of the system. not at all. for one thing, the idea that an instinct is apiece of mechanism, as fixed as fate, is quite out of fashion. it is now known to be highly plastic in many cases, to vary considerably in individuals, and to involve conscious processes, thought, feeling and will, at any rate of an elementary kind. again, how are you going to isolate an instinct? those few automatic responses to stimulation that appear shortly after birth, as, for instance, sucking, may perhaps be recognized, since parental training and experience in general are out of the question here. but what about the instinct or group of instincts answering to sex? this is latent until a stage of life when experience is already in full swing. indeed, psychologists are still busy discussing whether man has very few instincts or whether, on the contrary, he appears to have few because he really has so many that, in practice, they keep interfering with one another all the time. in support of the latter view, it has been recently suggested by mr. mcdougall that the best test of the instincts that we have is to be found in the specific emotions. he believes that every instinctive process consists of an afferent part or message, a central part, and an efferent part or discharge. at its two ends the process is highly plastic. message and discharge, to which thought and will correspond, are modified in their type as experience matures. the central part, on the other hand, to which emotion answers on the side of consciousness, remains for ever much the same. to fear, to wonder, to be angry, or disgusted, to be puffed up, or cast down, or to be affected with tenderness--all these feelings, argues mr. mcdougall, and various more complicated emotions arising out of their combinations with each other, are common to all men, and bespeak in them deep-seated tendencies to react on stimulation in relatively particular and definite ways. and there is much, i think, to be said in favour of this contention. yet, granting this, do we thus reach a criterion whereby the different races of men are to be distinguished? far from it. nay, on the contrary, as judged simply by his emotions, man is very much alike everywhere, from china to peru. they are all there in germ, though different customs and grades of culture tend to bring special types of feeling to the fore. indeed, a certain paradox is to be noted here. the negro, one would naturally say, is in general more emotional than the white man. yet some experiments conducted by miss kellor of chicago on negresses and white women, by means of the test of the effects of emotion on respiration, brought out the former as decidedly the more stolid of the two. and, whatever be thought of the value of such methods of proof, certain it is that the observers of rude races incline to put down most of them as apathetic, when not tuned up to concert-pitch by a dance or other social event. it may well be, then, that it is not the hereditary temperament of the negro, so much as the habit, which he shares with other peoples at the same level of culture, of living and acting in a crowd, that accounts for his apparent excitability. but after all, "mafficking" is not unknown in civilized countries. thus the quest for a race-mark of a mental kind is barren once more. * * * * * what, then, you exclaim, is the outcome of this chapter of negatives? is it driving at the universal equality and brotherhood of man? or, on the contrary, does it hint at the need of a stern system of eugenics? i offer nothing in the way of a practical suggestion. i am merely trying to show that, considered anthropologically--that is to say, in terms of pure theory--race or breed remains something which we cannot at present isolate, though we believe it to be there. practice, meanwhile, must wait on theory; mere prejudices, bad as they are, are hardly worse guides to action than premature exploitations of science. as regards the universal brotherhood of man, the most that can be said is this: the old ideas about race as something hard and fast for all time are distinctly on the decline. plasticity, or, in other words, the power of adaptation to environment, has to be admitted to a greater share in the moulding of mind, and even of body, than ever before. but how plasticity is related to race we do not yet know. it may be that use-inheritance somehow incorporates its effects in the offspring of the plastic parents. or it may be simply that plasticity increases with inter-breeding on a wider basis. these problems have still to be solved. as regards eugenics, there is no doubt that a vast and persistent elimination of lives goes on even in civilized countries. it has been calculated that, of every hundred english born alive, fifty do not survive to breed, and, of the remainder, half produce three-quarters of the next generation. but is the elimination selective? we can hardly doubt that it is to some extent. but what its results are--whether it mainly favours immunity from certain diseases, or the capacity for a sedentary life in a town atmosphere, or intelligence and capacity for social service--is largely matter of guesswork. how, then, can we say what is the type to breed from, even if we confine our attention to one country? if, on the other hand, we look farther afield, and study the results of race-mixture or "miscegenation," we but encounter fresh puzzles. that the half-breed is an unsatisfactory person may be true; and yet, until the conditions of his upbringing are somehow discounted, the race problem remains exactly where it was. or, again, it may be true that miscegenation increases human fertility, as some hold; but, until it is shown that the increase of fertility does not merely result in flooding the world with inferior types, we are no nearer to a solution. if, then, there is a practical moral to this chapter, it is merely this: to encourage anthropologists to press forward with their study of race; and in the meantime to do nothing rash. chapter iv environment when a child is born it has been subjected for some three-quarters of a year already to the influences of environment. its race, indeed, was fixed once for all at the moment of conception. yet that superadded measure of plasticity, which has to be treated as something apart from the racial factor, enables it to respond for good or for evil to the pre-natal--that is to say, maternal--environment. thus we may easily fall into the mistake of supposing our race to be degenerate, when poor feeding and exposure to unhealthy surroundings on the part of the mothers are really responsible for the crop of weaklings that we deplore. and, in so far as it turns out to be so, social reformers ought to heave a sigh of relief. why? because to improve the race by way of eugenics, though doubtless feasible within limits, remains an unrealized possibility through our want of knowledge. on the other hand, to improve the physical environment is fairly straight-ahead work, once we can awake the public conscience to the need of undertaking this task for the benefit of all classes of the community alike. if civilized man wishes to boast of being clearly superior to the rest of his kind, it must be mainly in respect to his control over the physical environment. whatever may have been the case in the past, it seems as true now-a-days to say that man makes his physical environment as that his physical environment makes him. even if this be granted, however, it remains the fact that our material circumstances in the widest sense of the term play a very decisive part in the shaping of our lives. hence the importance of geographical studies as they bear on the subject of man. from the moment that a child is conceived, it is subjected to what it is now the fashion to call a "geographic control." take the case of the child of english parents born in india. clearly several factors will conspire to determine whether it lives or dies. for simplicity's sake let us treat them as three. first of all, there is the fact that the child belongs to a particular cultural group; in other words, that it has been born with a piece of paper in its mouth representing one share in the british empire. secondly, there is its race, involving, let us say, blue eyes and light hair, and a corresponding constitution. thirdly, there is the climate and all that goes with it. though in the first of these respects the white child is likely to be superior to the native, inasmuch as it will be tended with more careful regard to the laws of health; yet such disharmony prevails between the other two factors of race and climate, that it will almost certainly die, if it is not removed at a certain age from the country. possibly the english could acclimatize themselves in india at the price of an immense toll of infant lives; but it is a price which they show no signs of being willing to pay. what, then, are the limits of the geographical control? where does its influence begin and end? situation, race and culture--to reduce it to a problem of three terms only--which of the three, if any, in the long run controls the rest? remember that the anthropologist is trying to be the historian of long perspective. history which counts by years, proto-history which counts by centuries, pre-history which counts by millenniums--he seeks to embrace them all. he sees the english in india, on the one hand, and in australia on the other. will the one invasion prove an incident, he asks, and the other an event, as judged by a history of long perspective? or, again, there are whites and blacks and redskins in the southern portion of the united states of america, having at present little in common save a common climate. different races, different cultures, a common geographical situation--what net result will these yield for the historian of patient, far-seeing anthropological outlook? clearly there is here something worth the puzzling out. but we cannot expect to puzzle it out all at once. in these days geography, in the form known as anthropo-geography, is putting forth claims to be the leading branch of anthropology. and, doubtless, a thorough grounding in geography must henceforth be part of the anthropologist's equipment.[3] the schools of ratzel in germany and le play in france are, however, fertile in generalizations that are far too pretty to be true. like other specialists, they exaggerate the importance of their particular brand of work. the full meaning of life can never be expressed in terms of its material conditions. i confess that i am not deeply moved when ratzel announces that man is a piece of the earth. or when his admirers, anxious to improve on this, after distinguishing the atmosphere or air, the hydrosphere or water, the lithosphere or crust, and the centrosphere or interior mass, proceed to add that man is the most active portion of an intermittent biosphere, or living envelope of our planet, i cannot feel that the last word has been said about him. [footnote 3: thus the reader of the present work should not fail to study also dr. marion newbigin's _geography_ in this series.] or, again, listen for a moment to m. demolins, author of a very suggestive book, _comment la route cree le type social_ ("how the road creates the social type"). "there exists," he says in his preface, "on the surface of the terrestrial globe an infinite variety of peoples. what is the cause that has created this variety? in general the reply is, race. but race explains nothing; for it remains to discover what has produced the diversity of races. race is not a cause; it is a consequence. the first and decisive cause of the diversity of peoples and of the diversity of races is the road that the peoples have followed. it is the road that creates the race, and that creates the social type." and he goes further: "if the history of humanity were to recommence, and the surface of the globe had not been transformed, this history would repeat itself in its main lines. there might well be secondary differences, for example, in certain manifestations of public life, in political revolutions, to which we assign far too great an importance; but the same roads would reproduce the same social types, and would impose on them the same essential characters." there is no contending with a pious opinion, especially when it takes the form of an unverifiable prophecy. let the level-headed anthropologist beware, however, lest he put all his eggs into one basket. let him seek to give each factor in the problem its due. race must count for something, or why do not the other animals take a leaf out of our book and build up rival civilizations on suitable sites? why do men herd cattle, instead of the cattle herding the men? we are rational beings, in other words, because we have it in us to be rational beings. again, culture, with the intelligence and choice it involves, counts for something too. it is easy to argue that, since there were the asiatic steppes with the wild horses ready to hand in them, man was bound sooner or later to tame the horse and develop the characteristic culture of the nomad type. yes, but why did man tame the horse later rather than sooner? and why did the american redskins never tame the bison, and adopt a pastoral life in their vast prairies? or why do modern black folk and white folk alike in africa fail to utilize the elephant? is it because these things cannot be done, or because man has not found out how to do them? when all allowances, however, are made for the exaggerations almost pardonable in a branch of science still engaged in pushing its way to the front, anthropo-geography remains a far-reaching method of historical study which the anthropologist has to learn how to use. to put it crudely, he must learn how to work all the time with a map of the earth at his elbow. first of all, let him imagine his world of man stationary. let him plot out in turn the distribution of heat, of moisture, of diseases, of vegetation, of food-animals, of the physical types of man, of density of population, of industries, of forms of government, of religions, of languages, and so on and so forth. how far do these different distributions bear each other out? he will find a number of things that go together in what will strike him as a natural way. for instance, all along the equator, whether in africa or south america or borneo, he will find them knocking off work in the middle of the day in order to take a siesta. on the other hand, other things will not agree so well. thus, though all will be dark-skinned, the south americans will be coppery, the africans black, and the men of borneo yellow. led on by such discrepancies, perhaps, he will want next to set his world of man in movement. he will thereupon perceive a circulation, so to speak, amongst the various peoples, suggestive of interrelations of a new type. now so long as he is dealing in descriptions of a detached kind, concerning not merely the physical environment, but likewise the social adjustments more immediately corresponding thereto, he will be working at the geographical level. directly it comes, however, to a generalized description or historical explanation, as when he seeks to show that here rather than there a civilization is likely to arise, geographical considerations proper will not suffice. distribution is merely one aspect of evolution. yet that it is a very important aspect will now be shown by a hasty survey of the world according to geographical regions. * * * * * let us begin with europe, so as to proceed gradually from the more known to the less known. lecky has spoken of "the european epoch of the human mind." what is the geographical and physical theatre of that epoch? we may distinguish--i borrow the suggestion from professor myres--three stages in its development. firstly, there was the river-phase; next, the mediterranean phase; lastly, the present-day atlantic phase. thus, to begin with, the valleys of the nile and euphrates were each the home of civilizations both magnificent and enduring. they did not spring up spontaneously, however. if the rivers helped man, man also helped the rivers by inventing systems of irrigation. next, from minoan days right on to the end of the middle ages, the mediterranean basin was the focus of all the higher life in the world, if we put out of sight the civilizations of india and china, together with the lesser cultures of peru and mexico. i will consider this second phase especially, because it is particularly instructive from the geographical standpoint. finally, since the time of the discovery of america, the sea-trade, first called into existence as a civilizing agent by mediterranean conditions, has shifted its base to the atlantic coast, and especially to that land of natural harbours, the british isles. we must give up thinking in terms of an eastern and western hemisphere. the true distinction, as applicable to modern times, is between a land-hemisphere, with the atlantic coast of europe as its centre, and a sea-hemisphere, roughly coinciding with the pacific. the pacific is truly an ocean; but the atlantic is becoming more of a "herring-pond" every day. fixing our eyes, then, on the mediterranean basin, with its black sea extension, it is easy to perceive that we have here a well-defined geographical province, capable of acting as an area of characterization as perhaps no other in the world, once its various peoples had the taste and ingenuity to intermingle freely by way of the sea. the first fact to note is the completeness of the ring-fence that shuts it in. from the pyrenees right along to ararat runs the great alpine fold, like a ridge in a crumpled table-cloth; the spanish sierras and the atlas continue the circle to the south-west; and the rest is desert. next, the configuration of the coasts makes for intercourse by sea, especially on the northern side with its peninsulas and islands, the remains of a foundered and drowned mountain-country. this same configuration, considered in connection with the flora and fauna that are favoured by the climate, goes far to explain that discontinuity of the political life which encouraged independence whilst it prevented self-sufficiency. the forest-belt, owing to the dry summer, lay towards the snow-line, and below it a scrub-belt, yielding poor hunting, drove men to grow their corn and olives and vines in the least swampy of the lowlands, scattered like mere oases amongst the hills and promontories. for a long time, then, man along the north coasts must have been oppressed rather than assisted by his environment. it made mass-movements impossible. great waves of migration from the steppe-land to the northeast, or from the forest-land to the north-west, would thunder on the long mountain barrier, only to trickle across in rivulets and form little pools of humanity here and there. petty feuds between plain, shore, and mountain, as in ancient attica, would but accentuate the prevailing division. contrariwise, on the southern side of the mediterranean, where there was open, if largely desert, country, there would be room under primitive conditions for a homogeneous race to multiply. it is in north africa that we must probably place the original hotbed of that mediterranean race, slight and dark with oval heads and faces, who during the neolithic period colonized the opposite side of the mediterranean, and threw out a wing along the warm atlantic coast as far north as scotland, as well as eastwards to the upper danube; whilst by way of south and east they certainly overran egypt, arabia, and somaliland, with probable ramifications still farther in both directions. at last, however, in the eastern mediterranean was learnt the lesson of the profits attending the sea-going life, and there began the true mediterranean phase, which is essentially an era of sea-borne commerce. then was the chance for the northern shore with its peninsular configuration. carthage on the south shore must be regarded as a bold experiment that did not answer. the moral, then, would seem to be that the mediterranean basin proved an ideal nursery for seamen; but only as soon as men were brave and clever enough to take to the sea. the geographical factor is at least partly consequence as well as cause. * * * * * now let us proceed farther north into what was for the earlier mediterranean folk the breeding-ground of barbarous outlanders, forming the chief menace to their circuit of settled civic life. it is necessary to regard northern europe and northern asia as forming one geographic province. asia minor, together with the euphrates valley and with arabia in a lesser degree, belongs to the mediterranean area. india and china, with the south-eastern corner of asia that lies between them, form another system that will be considered separately later on. the eurasian northland consists naturally, that is to say, where cultivation has not introduced changes, of four belts. first, to the southward, come the mountain ranges passing eastwards into high plateau. then, north of this line, from the lower danube, as far as china, stretches a belt of grassland or steppe-country at a lower level, a belt which during the milder periods of the ice-age and immediately after it must have reached as far as the atlantic. then we find, still farther to the north, a forest belt, well developed in the siberia of to-day. lastly, on the verge of the arctic sea stretches the tundra, the frozen soil of which is fertile in little else than the lichen known as reindeer moss, whilst to the west, as, for instance, in our islands, moors and bogs represent this zone of barren lands in a milder form. the mountain belt is throughout its entire length the home of round-headed peoples, the so-called alpine race, which is generally supposed to have originally come from the high plateau country of asia. these round-headed men in western europe appear where-ever there are hills, throwing out offshoots by way of the highlands of central france into brittany, and even reaching the british isles. here they introduced the use of bronze (an invention possibly acquired by contact with egyptians in the near east), though without leaving any marked traces of themselves amongst the permanent population. at the other end of europe they affected greece by way of a steady though limited infiltration; whilst in asia minor they issued forth from their hills as the formidable hittites, the people, by the way, to whom the jews are said to owe their characteristic, yet non-semitic, noses. but are these round-heads all of one race? professor ridgeway has put forward a rather paradoxical theory to the effect that, just as the long-faced boer horse soon evolved in the mountains of basutoland into a round-headed pony, so it is in a few generations with human mountaineers, irrespective of their breed. this is almost certainly to overrate the effects of environment. at the same time, in the present state of our knowledge, it would be premature either to affirm or deny that in the very long run round-headedness goes with a mountain life. the grassland next claims our attention. here is the paradise of the horse, and consequently of the horse-breaker. hence, therefore, came the charging multitudes of asiatic marauders who, after many repulses, broke through the mediterranean cordon, and established themselves as the modern turks; whilst at the other end of their beat they poured into china, which no great wall could avail to save, and established the manchu domination. given the steppe-country and a horse-taming people, we might seek, with the anthropo-geographers of the bolder sort, to deduce the whole way of life, the nomadism, the ample food, including the milk-diet infants need and find so hard to obtain farther south, the communal system, the patriarchal type of authority, the caravan-system that can set the whole horde moving along like a swarm of locusts, and so on. but, as has been already pointed out, the horse had to be tamed first. palaeolithic man in western europe had horse-meat in abundance. at solutre, a little north of lyons, a heap of food-refuse 100 yards long and 10 feet high largely consists of the bones of horses, most of them young and tender. this shows that the old hunters knew how to enjoy the passing hour in their improvident way, like the equally reckless bushmen, who have left similar golgothas behind them in south africa. yet apparently palaeolithic man did not tame the horse. environment, in fact, can only give the hint; and man may not be ready to take it. the forest-land of the north affords fair hunting in its way, but it is doubtful if it is fitted to rear a copious brood of men, at any rate so long as stone weapons are alone available wherewith to master the vegetation and effect clearings, whilst burning the brushwood down is precluded by the damp. where the original home may have been of the so-called nordic race, the large-limbed fair men of the teutonic world, remains something of a mystery; though it is now the fashion to place it in the north-east of europe rather than in asia, and to suppose it to have been more or less isolated from the rest of the world by formerly existing sheets of water. where-ever it was, there must have been grassland enough to permit of pastoral habits, modified, perhaps, by some hunting on the one hand, and by some primitive agriculture on the other. the mediterranean men, coming from north africa, an excellent country for the horse, may have vied with the asiatics of the steppes in introducing a varied culture to the north. at any rate, when the germans of tacitus emerge into the light of history, they are not mere foresters, but rather woodlanders, men of the glades, with many sides to their life; including an acquaintance with the sea and its ways, surpassing by far that of those early beachcombers whose miserable kitchen-middens are to be found along the coast of denmark. of the tundra it is enough to say that all depends on the reindeer. this animal is the be-all and end-all of lapp existence. when nansen, after crossing greenland, sailed home with his two lapps, he called their attention to the crowds of people assembled to welcome them at the harbour. "ah," said the elder and more thoughtful of the pair, "if they were only reindeer!" when domesticated, the reindeer yields milk as well as food, though large numbers are needed to keep the community in comfort. otherwise hunting and fishing must serve to eke out the larder. miserable indeed are the tribes or rather remnants of tribes along the siberian tundra who have no reindeer. on the other hand, if there are plenty of wild reindeer, as amongst the koryaks and some of the chukchis, hunting by itself suffices. * * * * * let us now pass on from the eurasian northland to what is, zoologically, almost its annexe, north america; its tundra, for example, where the eskimo live, being strictly continuous with the asiatic zone. though having a very different fauna and flora, south america presumably forms part of the same geographical province so far as man is concerned, though there is evidence for thinking that he reached it very early. until, however, more data are available for the pre-history of the american indian, the great moulding forces, geographical or other, must be merely guessed at. much turns on the period assigned to the first appearance of man in this region; for that he is indigenous is highly improbable, if only because no anthropoid apes are found here. the racial type, which, with the exception of the eskimo, and possibly of the salmon-fishing tribes along the north-west coast, is one for the whole continent, has a rather distant resemblance to that of the asiatic mongols. nor is there any difficulty in finding the immigrants a means of transit from northern asia. even if it be held that the land-bridge by way of what are now the aleutian islands was closed at too early a date for man to profit by it, there is always the passage over the ice by way of behring straits; which, if it bore the mammoth, as is proved by its remains in alaska, could certainly bear man. once man was across, what was the manner of his distribution? on this point geography can at present tell us little. m. demolins, it is true, describes three routes, one along the rockies, the next down the central zone of prairies, and the third and most easterly by way of the great lakes. but this is pure hypothesis. no facts are adduced. indeed, evidence bearing on distribution is very hard to obtain in this area, since the physical type is so uniform throughout. the best available criterion is the somewhat poor one of the distribution of the very various languages. some curious lines of migration are indicated by the occurrence of the same type of language in widely separated regions, the most striking example being the appearance of one linguistic stock, the so-called athapascan, away up in the north-west by the alaska boundary; at one or two points in south-western oregon and north-western california, where an absolute medley of languages prevails; and again in the southern highlands along the line of colorado and utah to the other side of the mexican frontier. does it follow from this distribution that the apaches, at the southern end of the range, have come down from alaska, by way of the rockies and the pacific slope, to their present habitat? it might be so in this particular case; but there are also those who think that the signs in general point to a northward dispersal of tribes, who before had been driven south by a period of glaciation. thus the first thing to be settled is the antiquity of the american type of man. a glance at south america must suffice. geographically it consists of three regions. westwards we have the pacific line of bracing highlands, running down from mexico as far as chile, the home of two or more cultures of a rather high order. then to the east there is the steaming equatorial forest, first covering a fan of rivers, then rising up into healthier hill-country, the whole in its wild state hampering to human enterprise. and below it occurs the grassland of the pampas, only needing the horse to bring out the powers of its native occupants. before leaving this subject of the domesticated horse, of which so much use has already been made in order to illustrate how geographic opportunity and human contrivance must help each other out, it is worth noticing how an invention can quickly revolutionize even that cultural life of the ruder races which is usually supposed to be quite hide-bound by immemorial custom. when the europeans first broke in upon the redskins of north america, they found them a people of hunters and fishers, it is true, but with agriculture as a second string everywhere east of the mississippi as well as to the south, and on the whole sedentary, with villages scattered far apart; so that in pre-conquest days they would seem to have been enjoying a large measure of security and peace. the coming of the whites soon crowded them back upon themselves, disarranging the old boundaries. at the same time the horse and the gun were introduced. with extraordinary rapidity the indian adapted himself to a new mode of existence, a grassland life, complicated by the fact that the relentless pressure of the invaders gave it a predatory turn which it might otherwise have lacked. something very similar, though neither conditions nor consequences were quite the same, occurred in the pampas of south america, where horse-indians like the patagonians, who seem at first sight the indigenous outcrop of the very soil, are really the recent by-product of an intrusive culture. * * * * * and now let us hark back to southern asia with its two reservoirs of life, india and china, and between them a jutting promontory pointing the way to the indonesian archipelago, and thence onward farther still to the wide-flung austral region with its myriad lands ranging in size from a continent to a coral-atoll. here we have a nursery of seamen on a vaster scale than in the mediterranean; for remember that from this point man spread, by way of the sea, from easter island in the eastern pacific right away to madagascar, where we find javanese immigrants, and negroes who are probably papuan, whilst the language is of a malayo-polynesian type. india and china each well-nigh deserve the status of geographical provinces on their own account. each is an area of settlement; and, once there is settlement, there is a cultural influence which co-operates with the environment to weed out immigrant forms; as we see, for example, in egypt, where a characteristic physical type, or rather pair of types, a coarser and a finer, has apparently persisted, despite the constant influx of other races, from the dawn of its long history. india, however, and china have both suffered so much invasion from the eurasian northland, and at the same time are of such great extent and comprise such diverse physical conditions, that they have, in the course of the long years, sent forth very various broods of men to seek their fortunes in the south-east. nor must we ignore the possibility of an earlier movement in the opposite direction. in indonesia, the home of the orang-utan and gibbon, not to speak of pithecanthropus, many authorities would place the original home of the human race. it will be wise to touch lightly on matters involving considerations of palaeo-geography, that most kaleidoscopic of studies. the submerged continents which it calls from the vasty deep have a habit of crumbling away again. let us therefore refrain from providing man with land-bridges (draw-bridges, they might almost be called), whether between the indonesian islands; or between new guinea, australia and tasmania; or between indonesia and africa by way of the indian ocean. let the curious facts about the present distribution of the racial types speak for themselves, the difficulties about identifying a racial type being in the meantime ever borne in mind. most striking of all is the diffusion of the negro stocks with black skin and woolly hair. their range is certainly suggestive of a breeding-ground somewhere about indonesia. to the extreme west are the negroes of africa, to the extreme east the papuasians (papuans and melanesians) extending from new guinea through the oceanic islands as far as fiji. a series of connecting links is afforded by the small negroes of the pygmy type, the so-called negritos. it is not known how far they represent a distinct and perhaps earlier experiment in negro-making, though this is the prevailing view; or whether the negro type, with its tendency to infantile characters due to the early closing of the cranial sutures, is apt to throw off dwarfed forms in an occasional way. at any rate, in africa there are several groups of pygmies in the congo region, as well as the bushmen and allied stocks in south africa. then the andaman islanders, the semang of the malay peninsula, the aket of eastern sumatra, the now extinct kalangs of java, said to have been in some respects the most ape-like of human beings, the aetas of the philippines, and the dwarfs, with a surprisingly high culture, recently reported from dutch new guinea, are like so many scattered pieces of human wreckage. finally, if we turn our gaze southward, we find that negritos until the other day inhabited tasmania; whilst in australia a strain of negrito, or negro (papuan), blood is likewise to be detected. are we here on the track of the original dispersal of man? it is impossible to say. it is not even certain, though highly probable, that man originated in one spot. if he did, he must have been hereditarily endowed, almost from the outset, with an adaptability to different climates quite unique in its way. the tiger is able to range from the hot indian jungle to the freezing siberian tundra; but man is the cosmopolitan animal beyond all others. somehow, on this theory of a single origin, he made his way to every quarter of the globe; and when he got there, though needing time, perhaps, to acquire the local colour, managed in the end to be at home. it looks as if both race and a dash of culture had a good deal to do with his exploitation of geographical opportunity. how did the australians and their negrito forerunners invade their austral world, at some period which, we cannot but suspect, was immensely remote in time? certain at least it is that they crossed a formidable barrier. what is known as wallace's line corresponds with the deep channel running between the islands of bali and lombok and continuing northwards to the west of celebes. on the eastern side the fauna are non-asiatic. yet somehow into australia with its queer monotremes and marsupials entered triumphant man--man and the dog with him. haeckel has suggested that man followed the dog, playing as it were the jackal to him. but this sounds rather absurd. it looks as if man had already acquired enough seamanship to ferry himself across the zoological divide, and to take his faithful dog with him on board his raft or dug-out. until we have facts whereon to build, however, it would be as unpardonable to lay down the law on these matters as it is permissible to fill up the blank by guesswork. it remains to round off our original survey by a word or two more about the farther extremities, west, south, and east, of this vast southern world, to which south-eastern asia furnishes a natural approach. the negroes did not have africa, that is, africa south of the sahara, all to themselves. in and near the equatorial forest-region of the west the pure type prevails, displaying agricultural pursuits such as the cultivation of the banana, and, farther north, of millet, that must have been acquired before the race was driven out of the more open country. elsewhere occur mixtures of every kind with intrusive pastoral peoples of the mediterranean type, the negro blood, however, tending to predominate; and thus we get the fulahs and similar stocks to the west along the grassland bordering on the desert; the nilotic folk amongst the swamps of the upper nile; and throughout the eastern and southern parkland the vigorous bantu peoples, who have swept the bushmen and the kindred hottentots before them down into the desert country in the extreme south-west. it may be added that africa has a rich fauna and flora, much mineral wealth, and a physical configuration that, in respect to its interior, though not to its coasts, is highly diversified; so that it may be doubted whether the natives have reached as high a pitch of indigenous culture as the resources of the environment, considered by itself, might seem to warrant. if the use of iron was invented in africa, as some believe, it would only be another proof that opportunity is nothing apart from the capacity to grasp it. of the australian aborigines something has been said already. apart from the negrito or negro strain in their blood, they are usually held to belong to that pre-dravidian stock represented by various jungle tribes in southern india and by the veddas of ceylon, connecting links between the two areas being the sakai of the malay peninsula and east sumatra, and the toala of celebes. it may be worth observing, also, that pre-historic skulls of the neanderthal type find their nearest parallels in modern australia. we are here in the presence of some very ancient dispersal, from what centre and in what direction it is hard to imagine. in australia these early colonists found pleasant, if somewhat lightly furnished, lodgings. in particular there were no dangerous beasts; so that hunting was hardly calculated to put a man on his mettle, as in more exacting climes. isolation, and the consequent absence of pressure from human intruders, is another fact in the situation. whatever the causes, the net result was that, despite a very fair environment, away from the desert regions of the interior, man on the whole stagnated. in regard to material comforts and conveniences, the rudeness of their life seems to us appalling. on the other hand, now that we are coming to know something of the inner life and mental history of the australians, a somewhat different complexion is put upon the state of their culture. with very plain living went something that approached to high thinking; and we must recognize in this case, as in others, what might be termed a differential evolution of culture, according to which some elements may advance, whilst others stand still, or even decay. to another and a very different people, namely, the polynesians, the same notion of a differential evolution may be profitably applied. they were in the stone-age when first discovered, and had no bows and arrows. on the other hand, with coco-nut, bananas and bread-fruit, they had abundant means of sustenance, and were thoroughly at home in their magnificent canoes. thus their island-life was rich in ease and variety; and, whilst rude in certain respects, they were almost civilized in others. their racial affinities are somewhat complex. what is almost certain is that they only occupied the eastern pacific during the course of the last 1500 years or so. they probably came from indonesia, mixing to a slight extent with melanesians on their way. how the proto-polynesians came into existence in indonesia is more problematic. possibly they were the result of a mixture between long-headed immigrants from eastern india, and round-headed mongols from indo-china and the rest of south-eastern asia, from whom the present malays are derived. * * * * * we have completed our very rapid regional survey of the world; and what do we find? by no means is it case after case of one region corresponding to one type of man and to one type of culture. it might be that, given persistent physical conditions of a uniform kind, and complete isolation, human life would in the end conform to these conditions, or in other words stagnate. no one can tell, and no one wants to know, because as a matter of fact no such environmental conditions occur in this world of ours. human history reveals itself as a bewildering series of interpenetrations. what excites these movements? geographical causes, say the theorists of one idea. no doubt man moves forward partly because nature kicks him behind. but in the first place some types of animal life go forward under pressure from nature, whilst others lie down and die. in the second place man has an accumulative faculty, a social memory, whereby he is able to carry on to the conquest of a new environment whatever has served him in the old. but this is as it were to compound environments--a process that ends by making the environment coextensive with the world. intelligent assimilation of the new by means of the old breaks down the provincial barriers one by one, until man, the cosmopolitan animal by reason of his hereditary constitution, develops a cosmopolitan culture; at first almost unconsciously, but later on with self-conscious intent, because he is no longer content to live, but insists on living well. as a sequel to this brief examination of the geographic control considered by itself it would be interesting, if space allowed, to append a study of the distribution of the arts and crafts of a more obviously economic and utilitarian type. if the physical environment were all in all, we ought to find the same conditions evoking the same industrial appliances everywhere, without the aid of suggestions from other quarters. indeed, so little do we know about the conditions attending the discovery of the arts of life that gave humanity its all-important start--the making of fire, the taming of animals, the sowing of plants, and so on--that it is only too easy to misread our map. we know almost nothing of those movements of peoples, in the course of which a given art was brought from one part of the world to another. hence, when we find the art duly installed in a particular place, and utilizing the local product, the bamboo in the south, let us say, or the birch in the north, as it naturally does, we easily slip into the error of supposing that the local products of themselves called the art into existence. similar needs, we say, have generated similar expedients. no doubt there is some truth in this principle; but i doubt if, on the whole, history tends to repeat itself in the case of the great useful inventions. we are all of us born imitators, but inventive genius is rare. take the case of the early palaeoliths of the drift type. from egypt, somaliland, and many other distant lands come examples which sir john evans finds "so identical in form and character with british specimens that they might have been manufactured by the same hands." and throughout the palaeolithic age in europe the very limited number and regular succession of forms testifies to the innate conservatism of man, and the slow progress of invention. and yet, as some american writers have argued--who do not find that the distinction between chipped palaeoliths and polished neoliths of an altogether later age applies equally well to the new world--it was just as easy to have got an edge by rubbing as by flaking. the fact remains that in the old world human inventiveness moved along one channel rather than another, and for an immense lapse of time no one was found to strike out a new line. there was plenty of sand and water for polishing, but it did not occur to their minds to use it. to wind up this chapter, however, i shall glance at the distribution, not of any implement connected directly and obviously with the utilization of natural products, but of a downright oddity, something that might easily be invented once only and almost immediately dropped again. and yet here it is all over the world, going back, we may conjecture, to very ancient times, and implying interpenetrations of bygone peoples, of whose wanderings perhaps we may never unfold the secret. it is called the "bull-roarer," and is simply a slat of wood on the end of a string, which when whirled round produces a rather unearthly humming sound. will the anthropo-geographer, after studying the distribution of wood and stringy substances round the globe, venture to prophesy that, if man lived his half a million years or so over again, the bull-roarer would be found spread about very much where it is to-day? "bull-roarer" is just one of our local names for what survives now-a-days as a toy in many an old-fashioned corner of the british isles, where it is also known as boomer, buzzer, whizzer, swish, and so on. without going farther afield we can get a hint of the two main functions which it seems to have fulfilled amongst ruder peoples. in scotland it is, on the one hand, sometimes used to "ca' the cattle hame." a herd-boy has been seen to swing a bull-roarer of his own making, with the result that the beasts were soon running frantically towards the byre. on the other hand, it is sometimes regarded there as a "thunner-spell," a charm against thunder, the superstition being that like cures like, and whatever makes a noise like thunder will be on good terms, so to speak, with the real thunder. as regards its uses in the rest of the world, it may be said at once that here and there, in galicia in europe, in the malay peninsula in asia, and amongst the bushmen in africa, it is used to drive or scare animals, whether tame or wild. and this, to make a mere guess, may have been its earliest use, if utilitarian contrivances can generally claim historical precedence, as is by no means certain. as long as man hunted with very inferior weapons, he must have depended a good deal on drives, that either forced the game into a pitfall, or rounded them up so as to enable a concerted attack to be made by the human pack. no wonder that the bull-roarer is sometimes used to bring luck in a mystic way to hunters. more commonly, however, at the present day, the bull-roarer serves another type of mystic purpose, its noise, which is so suggestive of thunder or wind, with a superadded touch of weirdness and general mystery, fitting it to play a leading part in rain-making ceremonies. from these not improbably have developed all sorts of other ceremonies connected with making vegetation and the crops grow, and with making the boys grow into men, as is done at the initiation rites. it is not surprising, therefore, to find a carved human face appearing on the bull-roarer in new guinea, and again away in north america, whilst in west africa it is held to contain the voice of a very god. in australia, too, all their higher notions about a benevolent deity and about religious matters in general seem to concentrate on this strange symbol, outwardly the frailest of toys, yet to the spiritual eye of these simple folk a veritable holy of holies. and now for the merest sketch of its distribution, the details of which are to be learnt from dr. haddon's valuable paper in _the study of man_. england, scotland, ireland and wales have it. it can be tracked along central europe through switzerland, germany, and poland beyond the carpathians, whereupon ancient greece with its dionysiac mysteries takes up the tale. in america it is found amongst the eskimo, is scattered over the northern part of the continent down to the mexican frontier, and then turns up afresh in central brazil. again, from the malay peninsula and sumatra it extends over the great fan of darker peoples, from africa, west and south, to new guinea, melanesia, and australia, together with new zealand alone of polynesian islands--a fact possibly showing it to have belonged to some earlier race of colonists. thus in all of the great geographical areas the bull-roarer is found, and that without reckoning in analogous implements like the so-called "buzz," which cover further ground, for instance, the eastern coastlands of asia. are we to postulate many independent origins, or else far-reaching transportations by migratory peoples, by the american indians and the negroes, for example? no attempt can be made here to answer these questions. it is enough to have shown by the use of a single illustration how the study of the geographical distribution of inventions raises as many difficulties as it solves. our conclusion, then, must be that the anthropologist, whilst constantly consulting his physical map of the world, must not suppose that by so doing he will be saved all further trouble. geographical facts represent a passive condition, which life, something by its very nature active, obeys, yet in obeying conquers. we cannot get away from the fact that we are physically determined. yet, physical determinations have been surmounted by human nature in a way to which the rest of the animal world affords no parallel. thus man, as the old saying has it, makes love all the year round. seasonal changes of course affect him, yet he is no slave of the seasons. and so it is with the many other elements involved in the "geographic control." the "road," for instance--that is to say, any natural avenue of migration or communication, whether by land over bridges and through passes, or by sea between harbours and with trade-winds to swell the sails--takes a hand in the game of life, and one that holds many trumps; but so again does the non-geographical fact that your travelling-machine may be your pair of legs, or a horse, or a boat, or a railway, or an airship. let us be moderate in all things, then, even in our references to the force of circumstances. circumstances can unmake; but of themselves they never yet made man, nor any other form of life. chapter v language the differentia of man--the quality that marks him off from the other animal kinds--is undoubtedly the power of articulate speech. thereby his mind itself becomes articulate. if language is ultimately a creation of the intellect, yet hardly less fundamentally is the intellect a creation of language. as flesh depends on bone, so does the living tissue of our spiritual life depend on its supporting framework of steadfast verbal forms. the genius, the heaven-born benefactor of humanity, is essentially he who wrestles with "thoughts too deep for words," until at last he assimilates them to the scheme of meanings embodied in his mother-tongue, and thus raises them definitely above the threshold of the common consciousness, which is likewise the threshold of the common culture. there is good reason, then, for prefixing a short chapter on language to an account of those factors in the life of man that together stand on the whole for the principle of freedom--of rational self-direction. heredity and environment do not, indeed, lie utterly beyond the range of our control. as they are viewed from the standpoint of human history as a whole, they show each in its own fashion a certain capacity to meet the needs and purposes of the life-force halfway. regarded abstractly, however, they may conveniently be treated as purely passive and limiting conditions. here we are with a constitution not of our choosing, and in a world not of our choosing. given this inheritance, and this environment, how are we, by taking thought and taking risks, to achieve the best-under-the-circumstances? such is the vital problem as it presents itself to any particular generation of men. the environment is as it were the enemy. we are out to conquer and enslave it. our inheritance, on the other hand, is the impelling force we obey in setting forth to fight; it tingles in our blood, and nerves the muscles of our arm. this force of heredity, however, abstractly considered, is blind. yet, corporately and individually, we fight with eyes that see. this supervening faculty, then, of utilizing the light of experience represents a third element in the situation; and, from the standpoint of man's desire to know himself, the supreme element. the environment, inasmuch as under this conception are included all other forms of life except man, can muster on its side a certain amount of intelligence of a low order. but man's prerogative is to dominate his world by the aid of intelligence of a high order. when he defied the ice-age by the use of fire, when he outfaced and outlived the mammoth and the cave bear, he was already the rational animal, _homo sapiens_. in his way he thought, even in those far-off days. and therefore we may assume, until direct evidence is forthcoming to the contrary, that he likewise had language of an articulate kind. he tried to make a speech, we may almost say, as soon as he had learned to stand up on his hind legs. unfortunately, we entirely lack the means of carrying back the history of human speech to its first beginnings. in the latter half of the last century, whilst the ferment of darwinism was freshly seething, all sorts of speculations were rife concerning the origin of language. one school sought the source of the earliest words in imitative sounds of the type of bow-wow; another in interjectional expressions of the type of tut-tut. or, again, as was natural in europe, where, with the exception of basque in a corner of the west, and of certain asiatic languages, turkish, hungarian and finnish, on the eastern border, all spoken tongues present certain obvious affinities, the comparative philologist undertook to construct sundry great families of speech; and it was hoped that sooner or later, by working back to some linguistic parting of the ways, the central problem would be solved of the dispersal of the world's races. these painted bubbles have burst. the further examination of the forms of speech current amongst peoples of rude culture has not revealed a conspicuous wealth either of imitative or of interjectional sounds. on the other hand, the comparative study of the european, or, as they must be termed in virtue of the branch stretching through persia into india, the indo-european stock of languages, carries us back three or four thousand years at most--a mere nothing in terms of anthropological time. moreover, a more extended search through the world, which in many of its less cultured parts furnishes no literary remains that may serve to illustrate linguistic evolution, shows endless diversity of tongues in place of the hoped-for system of a few families; so that half a hundred apparently independent types must be distinguished in north america alone. for the rest, it has become increasingly clear that race and language need not go together at all. what philologist, for instance, could ever discover, if he had no history to help him, but must rely wholly on the examination of modern french, that the bulk of the population of france is connected by way of blood with ancient gauls who spoke celtic, until the roman conquest caused them to adopt a vulgar form of latin in its place. the celtic tongue, in its turn, had, doubtless not so very long before, ousted some earlier type of language, perhaps one allied to the still surviving basque; though it is not in the least necessary, therefore, to suppose that the celtic-speaking invaders wiped out the previous inhabitants of the land to a corresponding extent. races, in short, mix readily; languages, except in very special circumstances, hardly at all. disappointed in its hope of presiding over the reconstruction of the distant past of man, the study of language has in recent years tended somewhat to renounce the historical--that is to say, anthropological--method altogether. the alternative is a purely formal treatment of the subject. thus, whereas vocabularies seem hopelessly divergent in their special contents, the general apparatus of vocal expression is broadly the same everywhere. that all men alike communicate by talking, other symbols and codes into which thoughts can be translated, such as gestures, the various kinds of writing, drum-taps, smoke signals, and so on, being in the main but secondary and derivative, is a fact of which the very universality may easily blind us to its profound significance. meanwhile, the science of phonetics--having lost that "guid conceit of itself" which once led it to discuss at large whether the art of talking evolved at a single geographical centre, or at many centres owing to similar capacities of body and mind--contents itself now-a-days for the most part with conducting an analytic survey of the modes of vocal expression as correlated with the observed tendencies of the human speech-organs. and what is true of phonetics in particular is hardly less true of comparative philology as a whole. its present procedure is in the main analytic or formal. thus its fundamental distinction between isolating, agglutinative and inflectional languages is arrived at simply by contrasting the different ways in which words are affected by being put together into a sentence. no attempt is made to show that one type of arrangement normally precedes another in time, or that it is in any way more rudimentary--that is to say, less adapted to the needs of human intercourse. it is not even pretended that a given language is bound to exemplify one, and one alone, of these three types; though the process known as analogy--that is, the regularizing of exceptions by treating the unlike as if it were like--will always be apt to establish one system at the expense of the rest. if, then, the study of language is to recover its old pre-eminence amongst anthropological studies, it looks as if a new direction must be given to its inquiries. and there is much to be said for any change that would bring about this result. without constant help from the philologist, anthropology is bound to languish. to thoroughly understand the speech of the people under investigation is the field-worker's master-key; so much so, that the critic's first question in determining the value of an ethnographical work must always be, could the author talk freely with the natives in their own tongue? but how is the study of particular languages to be pursued successfully, if it lack the stimulus and inspiration which only the search for general principles can impart to any branch of science? to relieve the hack-work of compiling vocabularies and grammars, there must be present a sense of wider issues involved, and such issues as may directly interest a student devoted to language for its own sake. the formal method of investigating language, in the meantime, can hardly supply the needed spur. analysis is all very well so long as its ultimate purpose is to subserve genesis--that is to say, evolutionary history. if, however, it tries to set up on its own account, it is in danger of degenerating into sheer futility. out of time and history is, in the long run, out of meaning and use. the philologist, then, if he is to help anthropology, must himself be an anthropologist, with a full appreciation of the importance of the historical method. he must be able to set each language or group of languages that he studies in its historical setting. he must seek to show how it has evolved in relation to the needs of a given time. in short, he must correlate words with thoughts; must treat language as a function of the social life. * * * * * here, however, it is not possible to attempt any but the most general characterization of primitive language as it throws light on the workings of the primitive intelligence. for one reason, the subject is highly technical; for another reason, our knowledge about most types of savage speech is backward in the extreme; whilst, for a third and most far-reaching reason of all, many peoples, as we have seen, are not speaking the language truly native to their powers and habits of mind, but are expressing themselves in terms imported from another stock, whose spiritual evolution has been largely different. thus it is at most possible to contrast very broadly and generally the more rudimentary with the more advanced methods that mankind employs for the purpose of putting its experience into words. happily the careful attention devoted by american philologists to the aboriginal languages of their continent has resulted in the discovery of certain principles which the rest of our evidence, so far as it goes, would seem to stamp as of world-wide application. the reader is advised to study the most stimulating, if perhaps somewhat speculative, pages on language in the second volume of e.j. payne's _history of the new world called america_; or, if he can wrestle with the french tongue, to compare the conclusions here reached with those to which professor levy-bruhl is led, largely by the consideration of this same american group of languages, in his recent work, _les fonctions mentales dans les societes inferieures_ ("mental functions in the lower societies"). if the average man who had not looked into the matter at all were asked to say what sort of language he imagined a savage to have, he would be pretty sure to reply that in the first place the vocabulary would be very small, and in the second place that it would consist of very short, comprehensive terms--roots, in fact--such as "man," "bear," "eat," "kill," and so on. nothing of the sort is actually the case. take the inhabitants of that cheerless spot, tierra del fuego, whose culture is as rude as that of any people on earth. a scholar who tried to put together a dictionary of their language found that he had got to reckon with more than thirty thousand words, even after suppressing a large number of forms of lesser importance. and no wonder that the tally mounted up. for the fuegians had more than twenty words, some containing four syllables, to express what for us would be either "he" or "she"; then they had two names for the sun, two for the moon, and two more for the full moon, each of the last-named containing four syllables and having no element in common. sounds, in fact, are with them as copious as ideas are rare. impressions, on the other hand, are, of course, infinite in number. by means of more or less significant sounds, then, fuegian society compounds impressions, and that somewhat imperfectly, rather than exchanges ideas, which alone are the currency of true thought. for instance, i-cut-bear's-leg-at-the-joint-with-a-flint-now corresponds fairly well with the total impression produced by the particular act; though, even so, i have doubtless selectively reduced the notion to something i can comfortably take in, by leaving out a lot of unnecessary detail--for instance, that i was hungry, in a hurry, doing it for the benefit of others as well as myself, and so on. well, american languages of the ruder sort, by running a great number of sounds or syllables together, manage to utter a portmanteau word--"holophrase" is the technical name for it--into which is packed away enough suggestions to reproduce the situation in all its detail, the cutting, the fact that i did it, the object, the instrument, the time of the cutting, and who knows what besides. amusing examples of such portmanteau words meet one in all the text-books. to go back to the fuegians, their expression _mamihlapinatapai_ is said to mean "to look at each other hoping that either will offer to do something which both parties desire but are unwilling to do." now, since exactly the same situation never recurs, but is partly the same and partly different, it is clear that, if the holophrase really tried to hit off in each case the whole outstanding impression that a given situation provoked, then the same combination of sounds would never recur either; one could never open one's mouth without coining a new word. ridiculous as this notion sounds, it may serve to mark a downward limit from which the rudest types of human speech are not so very far removed. their well-known tendency to alter their whole character in twenty years or less is due largely to the fluid nature of primitive utterance; it being found hard to detach portions, capable of repeated use in an unchanged form, from the composite vocables wherein they register their highly concrete experiences. thus in the old huron-iroquois language _eschoirhon_ means "i-have-been-to-the-water," _setsanha_ "go-to-the-water," _ondequoha_ "there-is-water-in-the-bucket," _daustantewacharet_ "there-is-water-in-the-pot." in this case there is said to have been a common word for "water," _awen_, which, moreover, is somehow suggested to an aboriginal ear as an element contained in each of these longer forms. in many other cases the difficulty of isolating the common meaning, and fixing it by a common term, has proved too much altogether for a primitive language. you can express twenty different kinds of cutting; but you simply cannot say "cut" at all. no wonder that a large vocabulary is found necessary, when, as in zulu, "my father," "thy father," "his-or-her-father," are separate polysyllables without any element in common. the evolution of language, then, on this view, may be regarded as a movement out of, and away from, the holophrastic in the direction of the analytic. when every piece in your play-box of verbal bricks can be dealt with separately, because it is not joined on in all sorts of ways to the other pieces, then only can you compose new constructions to your liking. order and emphasis, as is shown by english, and still more conspicuously by chinese, suffice for sentence-building. ideally, words should be individual and atomic. every modification they suffer by internal change of sound, or by having prefixes or suffixes tacked on to them, involves a curtailment of their free use and a sacrifice of distinctness. it is quite easy, of course, to think confusedly, even whilst employing the clearest type of language; though in such a case it is very hard to do so without being quickly brought to book. on the other hand, it is not feasible to attain to a high degree of clear thinking, when the only method of speech available is one that tends towards wordlessness--that is to say, is relatively deficient in verbal forms that preserve their identity in all contexts. wordless thinking is not in the strictest sense impossible; but its somewhat restricted opportunities lie almost wholly on the farther side, as it were, of a clean-cut vocabulary. for the very fact that the words are crystallized into permanent shape invests them with a suggestion of interrupted continuity, an overtone of un-utilized significance, that of itself invites the mind to play with the corresponding fringe of meaning attaching to the concepts that the words embody. it would prove an endless task if i were to try here to illustrate at all extensively the stickiness, as one might almost call it, of primitive modes of speech. person, number, case, tense, mood and gender--all these, even in the relatively analytical phraseology of the most cultured peoples, are apt to impress themselves on the very body of the words of which they qualify the sense. but the meagre list of determinations thus produced in an evolved type of language can yield one no idea of the vast medley of complicated forms that serve the same ends at the lower levels of human experience. moreover, there are many other shades of secondary and circumstantial meaning which in advanced languages are invariably represented by distinct words, so that when not wanted they can be left out, but in a more primitive tongue are apt to run right through the very grammar of the sentence, thus mixing themselves up inextricably with the really substantial elements in the thought to be conveyed. for instance, in some american languages, things are either animate or inanimate, and must be distinguished accordingly by accompanying particles. or, again, they are classed by similar means as rational or irrational; women, by the bye, being designated amongst the chiquitos by the irrational sign. reverential particles, again, are used to distinguish what is high or low in the tribal estimation; and we get in this connection such oddities as the tamil practice of restricting the privilege of having a plural to high-caste names, such as those applied to gods and human beings, as distinguished from the beasts, which are mere casteless "things." or, once more, my transferable belongings, "my-spear," or "my-canoe," undergo verbal modifications which are denied to non-transferable possessions such as "my-hand"; "my-child," be it observed, falling within the latter class. most interesting of all are distinctions of person. these cannot but bite into the forms of speech, since the native mind is taken up mostly with the personal aspect of things, attaining to the conception of a bloodless system of "its" with the greatest difficulty, if at all. even the third person, which is naturally the most colourless, because excluded from a direct part of the conversational game, undergoes multitudinous leavening in the light of conditions which the primitive mind regards as highly important, whereas we should banish them from our thoughts as so much irrelevant "accident." thus the abipones in the first place distinguished "he-present," _eneha_, and "she-present," _anaha_, from "he-absent" and "she-absent." but presence by itself gave too little of the speaker's impression. so, if "he" or "she" were sitting, it was necessary to say _hiniha_ and _haneha_; if they were walking and in sight _ehaha_ and _ahaha_, but, if walking and out of sight, _ekaha_ and _akaha_; if they were lying down, _hiriha_ and _haraha_, and so on. moreover, these were all "collective" forms, implying that there were others involved as well. if "he" or "she" were alone in the matter, an entirely different set of words was needed, "he-sitting (alone)" becoming _ynitara_, and so forth. the modest requirements of fuegian intercourse have called more than twenty such separate pronouns into being. without attempting to go thoroughly into the efforts of primitive speech to curtail its interest in the personnel of its world by gradually acquiring a stock of de-individualized words, let us glance at another aspect of the subject, because it helps to bring out the fundamental fact that language is a social product, a means of intersubjective intercourse developed within a society that hands on to a new generation the verbal experiments that are found to succeed best. payne shows reason for believing that the collective "we" precedes "i" in the order of linguistic evolution. to begin with, in america and elsewhere, "we" may be inclusive and mean "all-of-us," or selective, meaning "some-of-us-only." hence, we are told, a missionary must be very careful, and, if he is preaching, must use the inclusive "we" in saying "we have sinned," lest the congregation assume that only the clergy have sinned; whereas, in praying, he must use the selective "we," or god would be included in the list of sinners. similarly, "i" has a collective form amongst some american languages, and this is ordinarily employed, whereas the corresponding selective form is used only in special cases. thus if the question be "who will help?" the apache will reply "i-amongst-others," "i-for-one"; but, if he were recounting his own personal exploits, he says _sheedah_, "i-by-myself," to show that they were wholly his own. here we seem to have group-consciousness holding its own against individual self-consciousness, as being for primitive folk on the whole the more normal attitude of mind. another illustration of the sociality engrained in primitive speech is to be found in the terms employed to denote relationship. "my-mother," to the child of nature, is something more than an ordinary mother like yours. thus, as we have already seen, there may be a special particle applying to blood-relations as non-transferable possessions. or, again, one australian language has special duals, "we-two," one to be used between relations generally, another between father and child only. or an american language supplies one kind of plural suffix for blood-relations, another for the rest of human beings. these linguistic concretions are enough to show how hard it is for primitive thought to disjoin what is joined fast in the world of everyday experience. no wonder that it is usually found impracticable by the european traveller who lacks an anthropological training to extract from natives any coherent account of their system of relationships; for his questions are apt to take the form of "can a man marry his deceased wife's sister?" or what not. such generalities do not enter at all into the highly concrete scheme of viewing the customs of his tribe imposed on the savage alike by his manner of life and by the very forms of his speech. the so-called "genealogical method" initiated by dr. rivers, which the scientific explorer now invariably employs, rests mainly on the use of a concrete type of procedure corresponding to the mental habits of the simple folk under investigation. john, whom you address here, can tell you exactly whether he may, or may not, marry mary anne over there; also he can point out his mother, and tell you her name, and the names of his brothers and sisters. you work round the whole group--it very possibly contains no more than a few hundred members at most--and interrogate them one and all about their relationships to this and that individual whom you name. in course of time you have a scheme which you can treat in your own analytic way to your heart's content; whilst against your system of reckoning affinity you can set up by way of contrast the native system; which can always be obtained by asking each informant what relationship-terms he would apply to the different members of his pedigree, and, reciprocally, what terms they would each apply to him. * * * * * before closing this altogether inadequate sketch of a vast and intricate subject, i would say just one word about the expression of ideas of number. it is quite a mistake to suppose that savages have no sense of number, because the simple-minded european traveller, compiling a short vocabulary in the usual way, can get no equivalent for our numerals, say from 5 to 10. the fact is that the numerical interest has taken a different turn, incorporating itself with other interests of a more concrete kind in linguistic forms to which our own type of language affords no key at all. thus in the island of kiwai, at the mouth of the fly river in new guinea, the cambridge expedition found a whole set of phrases in vogue, whereby the number of subjects acting on the number of objects at a given moment could be concretely specified. to indicate the action of two on many in the past, they said _rudo_, in the present _durudo_; of many on many in the past _rumo_, in the present _durumo_; of two on two in the past, _amarudo_, in the present _amadurudo_; of many on two in the past _amarumo_; of many on three in the past _ibidurumo_, of many on three in the present _ibidurudo_; of three on two in the present, _amabidurumo_, of three on two in the past, _amabirumo_, and so on. meanwhile, words to serve the purpose of pure counting are all the scarcer because hands and feet supply in themselves an excellent means not only of calculating, but likewise of communicating, a number. it is the one case in which gesture-language can claim something like an independent status by the side of speech. for the rest, it does not follow that the mind fails to appreciate numerical relations, because the tongue halts in the matter of symbolizing them abstractly. a certain high official, when presiding over the indian census, was informed by a subordinate that it was impossible to elicit from a certain jungle tribe any account of the number of their huts, for the simple and sufficient reason that they could not count above three. the director, who happened to be a man of keen anthropological insight, had therefore himself to come to the rescue. assembling the tribal elders, he placed a stone on the ground, saying to one "this is your hut," and to another "this is your hut," as he placed a second stone a little way from the first. "and now where is yours?" he asked a third. the natives at once entered into the spirit of the game, and in a short time there was plotted out a plan of the whole settlement, which subsequent verification proved to be both geographically and numerically correct and complete. this story may serve to show how nature supplies man with a ready reckoner in his faculty of perception, which suffices well enough for the affairs of the simpler sort of life. one knows how a shepherd can take in the numbers of a flock at a glance. for the higher flights of experience, however, especially when the unseen and merely possible has to be dealt with, percepts must give way to concepts; massive consciousness must give way to thinking by means of representations pieced together out of elements rendered distinct by previous dissection of the total impression; in short, a concrete must give way to an analytic way of grasping the meaning of things. moreover, since thinking is little more or less than, as plato put it, a silent conversation with oneself, to possess an analytic language is to be more than half-way on the road to the analytic mode of intelligence--the mode of thinking by distinct concepts. if there is a moral to this chapter, it must be that, whereas it is the duty of the civilized overlords of primitive folk to leave them their old institutions so far as they are not directly prejudicial to their gradual advancement in culture, since to lose touch with one's home-world is for the savage to lose heart altogether and die; yet this consideration hardly applies at all to the native language. if the tongue of an advanced people can be substituted, it is for the good of all concerned. it is rather the fashion now-a-days amongst anthropologists to lay it down as an axiom that the typical savage and the typical peasant of europe stand exactly on a par in respect to their power of general intelligence. if by power we are to understand sheer potentiality, i know of no sufficient evidence that enables us to say whether, under ideal conditions, the average degree of mental capacity would in the two cases prove the same or different. but i am sure that the ordinary peasant of europe, whose society provides him, in the shape of an analytic language, with a ready-made instrument for all the purposes of clear thinking, starts at an immense advantage, as compared with a savage whose traditional speech is holophrastic. whatever be his mental power, the former has a much better chance of making the most of it under the given circumstances. "give them the words so that the ideas may come," is a maxim that will carry us far, alike in the education of children, and in that of the peoples of lower culture, of whom we have charge. chapter vi social organization if an explorer visits a savage tribe with intent to get at the true meaning of their life, his first duty, as every anthropologist will tell him, is to acquaint himself thoroughly with the social organization in all its forms. the reason for this is simply that only by studying the outsides of other people can we hope to arrive at what is going on inside them. "institutions" will be found a convenient word to express all the externals of the life of man in society, so far as they reflect intelligence and purpose. similarly, the internal or subjective states thereto corresponding may be collectively described as "beliefs." thus, the field-worker's cardinal maxim can be phrased as follows: work up to the beliefs by way of the institutions. further, there are two ways in which a given set of institutions can be investigated, and of these one, so far as it is practicable, should precede the other. first, the institutions should be examined as so many wheels in a social machine that is taken as if it were standing still. you simply note the characteristic make of each, and how it is placed in relation to the rest. regarded in this static way, the institutions appear as "forms of social organization." afterwards, the machine is supposed to be set going, and you contemplate the parts in movement. regarded thus dynamically, the institutions appear as "customs." in this chapter, then, something will be said about the forms of social organization prevailing amongst peoples of the lower culture. our interest will be confined to the social morphology. in subsequent chapters we shall go on to what might be called, by way of contrast, the physiology of social life. in other words, we shall briefly consider the legal and religious customs, together with the associated beliefs. how do the forms of social organization come into being? does some one invent them? does the very notion of organization imply an organizer? or, like topsy, do they simply grow? are they natural crystallizations that take place when people are thrown together? for my own part, i think that, so long as we are pursuing anthropology and not philosophy--in other words, are piecing together events historically according as they appear to follow one another, and are not discussing the ultimate question of the relation of mind to matter, and which of the two in the long run governs which--we must be prepared to recognize both physical necessity and spiritual freedom as interpenetrating factors in human life. in the meantime, when considering the subject of social organization, we shall do well, i think, to keep asking ourselves all along, how far does force of circumstances, and how far does the force of intelligent purpose, account for such and such a net result? if i were called upon to exhibit the chief determinants of human life as a single chain of causes and effects--a simplification of the historical problem, i may say at once, which i should never dream of putting forward except as a convenient fiction, a device for making research easier by providing it with a central line--i should do it thus. working backwards, i should say that culture depends on social organization; social organization on numbers; numbers on food; and food on invention. here both ends of the series are represented by spiritual factors--namely, culture at the one end, and invention at the other. amongst the intermediate links, food and numbers may be reckoned as physical factors. social organization, however, seems to face in both directions at once, and to be something half-way between a spiritual and a physical manifestation. in placing invention at the bottom of the scale of conditions, i definitely break with the opinion that human evolution is throughout a purely "natural" process. of course, you can use the word "natural" so widely and vaguely as to cover everything that was, or is, or could be. if it be used, however, so as to exclude the "artificial," then i am prepared to say that human life is preeminently an artificial construction, or, in other words, a work of art; the distinguishing mark of man consisting precisely in the fact that he alone of the animals is capable of art. it is well known how the invention of machinery in the middle of the eighteenth century brought about that industrial revolution, the social and political effects of which are still developing at this hour. well, i venture to put it forward as a proposition which applies to human evolution, so far back as our evidence goes, that history is the history of great inventions. of course, it is true that climate and geographical conditions in general help to determine the nature and quantity of the food-supply; so that, for instance, however much versed you may be in the art of agriculture, you cannot get corn to grow on the shores of the arctic sea. but, given the needful inventions, superior weapons for instance, you need never allow yourselves to be shoved away into such an inhospitable region; to which you presumably do not retire voluntarily, unless, indeed, the state of your arts--for instance, your skill in hunting or taming the reindeer--inclines you to make a paradise of the tundra. suppose it granted, then, that a given people's arts and inventions, whether directly or indirectly productive, are capable of a certain average yield of food, it is certain, as malthus and darwin would remind us, that human fertility can be reckoned on to bring the numbers up to a limit bearing a more or less constant ratio to the means of subsistence. at length we reach our more immediate subject--namely, social organization. in what sense, if any, is social organization dependent on numbers? unfortunately, it is too large a question to thrash out here. i may, however, refer the reader to the ingenious classification of the peoples of the world, by reference to the degree of their social organization and culture, which is attempted by mr. sutherland in his _origin and growth of the moral instinct_. he there tries to show that a certain size of population can be correlated with each grade in the scale of human evolution--at any rate up to the point at which full-blown civilization is reached, when cases like that of athens under pericles, or florence under the medici, would probably cause him some trouble. for instance, he makes out that the lowest savages, veddas, pygmies, and so on, form groups of from ten to forty; whereas those who are but one degree less backward, such as the australian natives, average from fifty to two hundred; whilst most of the north american tribes, who represent the next stage of general advance, run from a hundred up to five hundred. at this point he takes leave of the peoples he would class as "savage," their leading characteristic from the economic point of view being that they lead the more or less wandering life of hunters or of mere "gatherers." he then goes on to arrange similarly, in an ascending series of three divisions, the peoples that he terms "barbarian." economically they are either sedentary, with a more or less developed agriculture, or, if nomad, pursue the pastoral mode of life. his lowest type of group, which includes the iroquois, maoris, and so forth, ranges from one thousand to five thousand; next come loosely organized states, such as dahomey or ashanti, where the numbers may reach one hundred thousand; whilst he makes barbarism culminate in more firmly compacted communities, such as are to be found, for example, in abyssinia or madagascar, the population of which he places at about half a million. now i am very sceptical about mr. sutherland's statistics, and regard his bold attempt to assign the world's peoples each to their own rung on the ladder of universal culture as, in the present state of our knowledge, no more than a clever hypothesis; which some keen anthropologist of the future might find it well worth his while to put thoroughly to the test. at a guess, however, i am disposed to accept his general principle that, on the whole and in the long run, during the earlier stages of human evolution, the complexity and coherence of the social order follow upon the size of the group; which, since its size, in turn, follows upon the mode of the economic life, may be described as the food-group. besides food, however, there is a second elemental condition which vitally affects the human race; and that is sex. social organization thus comes to have a twofold aspect. on the one hand, and perhaps primarily, it is an organization of the food-quest. on the other hand, hardly less fundamentally, it is an organization of marriage. in what follows, the two aspects will be considered more or less together, as to a large extent they overlap. primitive men, like other social animals, hang together naturally in the hunting pack, and no less naturally in the family; and at a very rudimentary stage of evolution there probably is very little distinction between the two. when, however, for some reason or other which anthropologists have still to discover, man takes to the institution of exogamy, the law of marrying-out, which forces men and women to unite who are members of more or less distinct food-groups, then, as we shall presently see, the matrimonial aspect of social organization tends to overshadow the politico-economic; if only because the latter can usually take care of itself, whereas to marry a perfect stranger is an embarrassing operation that might be expected to require a certain amount of arrangement on both sides. * * * * * to illustrate the pre-exogamic stage of human society is not so easy as it may seem; for, though it is possible to find examples, especially amongst negritos such as the andamanese or bushmen, of peoples of the rudest culture, and living in very small communities, who apparently know neither exogamy nor what so often accompanies it, namely, totemism, we can never be certain whether we are dealing in such a case with the genuinely primitive, or merely with the degenerate. for instance, the chapter on the forms of social organization in professor hobhouse's _morals in evolution_ starts off with an account of the system in vogue amongst the veddas of the ceylon jungle, his description being founded on the excellent observations of the brothers sarasin. now it is perfectly true that some of the veddas appear to afford a perfect instance of what is sometimes called "the natural family." a tract of a few miles square forms the beat of a small group of families, four or five at most, which, for the most part, singly or in pairs, wander round hunting, fishing, gathering honey and digging up the wild yams; whilst they likewise take shelter together in shallow caves, where a roof, a piece of skin to lie on--though this is not essential--and, that most precious luxury of all, a fire, represent, apart from food, the sum total of their creature comforts. now, under these circumstances, it is not, perhaps, wonderful that the relationships within a group should be decidedly close. indeed, the correct thing is for the children of a brother and sister to marry; though not, it would seem, for the children of two brothers or of two sisters. and yet there is no approach to promiscuity, but, on the contrary, a very strict monogamy, infidelities being as rare as they are deeply resented. that they had clans of some sort was, indeed, known to professor hobhouse and to the authorities whom he follows; but these clans are dismissed as having but the slightest organization and very few functions. an entirely new light, however, has been thrown on the meaning of this clan-system by the recent researches of dr. and mrs. seligmann. it now turns out that some of the veddas are exogamous--that is to say, are obliged by custom to marry outside their own clan--though others are not. the question then arises, which, for the veddas, is the older system, marrying-out or marrying-in? seeing what a miserable remnant the veddas are, i cannot but believe that we have here the case of a formerly exogamous people, groups of which have been forced to marry-in, simply because the alternative was not to marry at all. of course, it is possible to argue that in so doing they merely reverted to what was once everywhere the primeval condition of man. but at this point historical science tails off into mere guesswork. * * * * * we reach relatively firm ground, on the other hand, when we pass on to consider the social organization of such exogamous and totemic peoples as the natives of australia. the only trouble here is that the subject is too vast and complicated to permit of a handling at once summary and simple. perhaps the most useful thing that can be done for the reader in a short space is to provide him with a few elementary distinctions, applying not only to the australians, but more or less to totemic societies in general. with the help of these he may proceed to grapple for himself with the mass of highly interesting but bewildering details concerning social organization to be found in any of the leading first-hand authorities. for instance, for australia he can do no better than consult the two fascinating works of messrs. spencer and gillen on the central tribes, or the no less illuminating volume of howitt on the natives of the south-eastern region; whilst for north america there are many excellent monographs to choose from amongst those issued by the bureau of ethnology of the smithsonian institution. or, if he is content to allow some one else to collect the material for him, his best plan will be to consult dr. frazer's monumental treatise, _totemism and exogamy_, which epitomizes the known facts for the whole wide world, as surveyed region by region. the first thing to grasp is that, for peoples of this type, social organization is, primarily and on the face of it, identical with kinship-organization. before proceeding further, let us see what kinship means. distinguish kinship from consanguinity. consanguinity is a physical fact. it depends on birth, and covers all one's real blood-relationships, whether recognized by society or not. kinship, on the other hand, is a sociological fact. it depends on the conventional system of counting descent. thus it may exclude real relationships; whilst, contrariwise, it may include such as are purely fictitious, as when some one is allowed by law to adopt a child as if it were his own. now, under civilized conditions, though there is, as we have just seen, such an institution as adoption, whilst, again, there is the case of the illegitimate child, who can claim consanguinity, but can never, in english law at least, attain to kinship, yet, on the whole, we are hardly conscious of the difference between the genuine blood-tie and the social institution that is modelled more or less closely upon it. in primitive society, however, consanguinity tends to be wider than kinship by as much again. in other words, in the recognition of kinship one entire side of the family is usually left clean out of account. a man's kin comprises either his mother's people or his father's people, but not both. remember that by the law of exogamy, the father and mother are strangers to each other. hence, primitive society, as it were, issues a judgment of solomon to the effect that, since they are not prepared to halve their child, it must belong body and soul either to one party or to the other. we may now go on to analyse this one-sided type of kinship-organization a little more fully. there are three elementary principles that combine to produce it. they are exogamy, lineage and totemism. a word must be said about each in turn. exogamy presents no difficulty until you try to account for its origin. it simply means marrying-out, in contrast to endogamy, or marrying-in. suppose there were a village composed entirely of mcintyres and mcintoshes, and suppose that fashion compelled every mcintyre to marry a mcintosh, and every mcintosh a mcintyre, whilst to marry an outsider, say a mcbean, was bad form for mcintyres and mcintoshes alike; then the two clans would be exogamous in respect to each other, whereas the village as a whole would be endogamous. lineage is the principle of reckoning descent along one or other of two lines--namely, the mother's line or the father's. the former method is termed matrilineal, the latter patrilineal. it sometimes, but by no means invariably, happens, when descent is counted matrilineally, that the wife stays with her people, and the husband has the status of a mere visitor and alien. in such a case the marriage is called matrilocal; otherwise it is patrilocal. again, when the matrilocal type of marriage prevails, as likewise often when it does not, the wife and her people, rather than the father and his people, exercise supreme authority over the children. this is known as the matripotestal, as contrasted with the patripotestal, type of family. when the matrilineal, matrilocal and matripotestal conditions are found together, we have mother-right at its fullest and strongest. where we get only two out of the three, or merely the first by itself, most authorities would still speak of mother-right; though it may be questioned how far the word mother-right, or the corresponding, now almost discarded, expression, "the matriarchate," can be safely used without further explanation, since it tends to imply a right (in the legal sense) and an authority, which in these circumstances is often no more than nominal. totemism, in the specific form that has to do with kinship, means that a social group depends for its identity on a certain intimate and exclusive relation in which it stands towards an animal-kind, or a plant-kind, or, more rarely, a class of inanimate objects, or, very rarely, something that is individual and not a kind or class at all. such a totem, in the first place, normally provides the social group with its name. (the boy scouts, who call themselves foxes, peewits, and so on, according to their different patrols, have thus reverted to a very ancient usage.) in the second place, this name tends to be the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace that, somehow flowing from the totem to the totemites, sanctifies their communion. they are "all-one-flesh" with one another, as certain of the australians phrase it, because they are "all-one-flesh" with the totem. or, again, a man whose totem was _ngaui_, the sun, said that his name was _ngaui_ and he "was" _ngaui_; though he was equally ready to put it in another way, explaining that _ngaui_ "owned" him. if we wish to express the matter comprehensively, and at the same time to avoid language suggestive of a more advanced mysticism, we may perhaps describe the totem as, from this point of view, the totemite's "luck." there is considerable variation, however, to be found in the practices and beliefs of a more or less religious kind that are associated with this form of totemism; though almost always there are some. sometimes the totem is thought of as an ancestor, or as the common fund of life out of which the totemites are born and into which they go back when they die. sometimes the totem is held to be a very present help in time of trouble, as when a kangaroo, by hopping along in a special way, warns the kangaroo-man of impending danger. sometimes, on the other hand, the kangaroo-man thinks of himself mainly as the helper of the kangaroo, holding ceremonies in order that the kangaroos may wax fat and multiply. again, almost invariably the totemite shows some respect towards his totem, refraining, for instance, from slaying and eating the totem-animal, unless it be in some specially solemn and sacramental way. the upshot of these considerations is that if the totem is, on the face of it, a name, the savage answers the question, "what's in a name?" by finding in the name that makes him one with his brethren a wealth of mystic meaning, such as deepens for him the feeling of social solidarity to an extent that it takes a great effort on our part to appreciate. having separately examined the three principles of exogamy, lineage and totemism, we must now try to see how they work together. generalization in regard to these matters is extremely risky, not to say rash; nevertheless, the following broad statements may serve the reader as working hypotheses, that he can go on to test for himself by looking into the facts. firstly, exogamy and totemism, whether they be in origin distinct or not, tend in practice to go pretty closely together. secondly, lineage, or the one-sided system of reckoning descent, is more or less independent of the other two principles.[4] [footnote 4: that is to say, either mother-right or father-right in any of their forms may exist in conjunction with exogamy and totemism. it is certainly not the fact that, wherever totemism is in a state of vigour, mother-right is regularly found. at most it may be urged in favour of the priority of mother-right that, if there is change, it is invariably from mother-right to father-right, and never the other way about.] if, instead of consulting the evidence that is to hand about the savage world as it exists to-day, you read some book crammed full with theories about social origins, you probably come away with the impression that totemic society is entirely an affair of clans. some such notion as the following is precipitated in your mind. you figure to yourself two small food-groups, whose respective beats are, let us say, on each side of a river. for some unknown reason they are totemic, one group calling itself cockatoo, the other calling itself crow, whilst each feels in consequence that its members are "all-one-flesh" in some mysterious and moving sense. again, for some unknown reason each is exogamous, so that matrimonial alliances are bound to take place across the river. lastly, each has mother-right of the full-blown kind. the cockatoo-girls and the crow-girls abide each on their own side of the river, where they are visited by partners from across the water; who, whether they tend to stay and make themselves useful, or are merely intermittent in their attentions, remain outsiders from the totemic point of view and are treated as such. the children, meanwhile, grow up in the cockatoo and crow quarters respectively as little cockatoos or crows. if they need to be chastised, a cockatoo hand, not necessarily the mother's, but perhaps her brother's--never the father's, however--administers the slap. when they grow up, they take their chances for better and worse with the mother's people; fighting when they fight, though it be against the father's people; sharing in the toils and the spoils of the chase; inheriting the weapons and any other property that is handed on from one generation to another; and, last but not least, taking part in the totemic mysteries that disclose to the elect the inner meaning of being a cockatoo or a crow, as the case may be. now such a picture of the original clan and of the original inter-clan organization is very pretty and easy to keep in one's head. and when one is simply guessing about the first beginnings of things, there is something to be said for starting from some highly abstract and simple concept, which is afterwards elaborated by additions and qualifications until the developed notion comes near to matching the complexity of the real facts. such speculations, then, are quite permissible and even necessary in their place. to do justice, however, to the facts about totemic society, as known to us by actual observation, it remains to note that the clan is by no means the only form of social organization that it displays. the clan, it is true, whether matrilineal or patrilineal, tends at the totemic level of society to eclipse the family. the natural family, of course--that is to say, the more or less permanent association of father, mother and children, is always there in some shape and to some extent. but, so long as the one-sided method of counting descent prevails, and is reinforced by totemism, the family cannot attain to the dignity of a formally recognized institution. on the other hand, the totemic clan, of all the formally recognized groupings of society to which an individual belongs in virtue of his birth and kinship, is, so to speak, the most specific. as the australian puts it, it makes him what he "is." his social essence is to be a cockatoo or a crow. consequently his first duty is towards his clan and its members, human and not-human. wherever there are clans, and so long as there is any totemism worthy of the name, this would seem to be the general law. besides the specific unity, however, provided by the clan, there are wider, and, as it were, more generic unities into which a man is born, in totemic society of the complex type that is found in the actual world of to-day. first, he belongs to a phratry. in australia the tribe--a term to be defined presently--is nearly always split up into two exogamous divisions, which it is usual to call phratries.[5] then, in some of the australian tribes, the phratry is subdivided into two, and, in others, into four portions, between which exogamy takes place according to a curious criss-cross scheme. these exogamous subdivisions, which are peculiar to australia, are known as matrimonial classes. dr. frazer thinks that they are the result of deliberate arrangement on the part of native statesmen; and certainly he is right in his contention that there is an artificial and man-made look about them. the system of phratries, on the other hand, whether it carves up the tribe into two, or, as sometimes in north america and elsewhere, into more than two primary divisions, under which the clans tend to group themselves in a more or less orderly way, has all the appearance of a natural development out of the clan-system. thus, to revert to the imaginary case of the cockatoos and crows practising exogamy across the river, it seems easy to understand how the numbers on both sides might increase until, whilst remaining cockatoos and crows for cross-river purposes, they would find it necessary to adopt among themselves subordinate distinctions; such as would be sure to model themselves on the old cockatoo-crow principle of separate totemic badges. but we must not wander off into questions of origin. it is enough for our present purpose to have noted the fact that, within the tribe, there are normally other forms of social grouping into which a man is born, as well as the clan. [footnote 5: from a greek word meaning "brotherhood," which was applied to a very similar institution.] now we come to the tribe. this may be described as the political unit. its constitution tends to be lax and its functions vague. one way of seizing its nature is to think of it as the social union within which exogamy takes place. the intermarrying groups naturally hang together, and are thus in their entirety endogamous, in the sense that marriage with pure outsiders is disallowed by custom. moreover, by mingling in this way, they are likely to attain to the use of a common dialect, and a common name, speaking of themselves, for instance, as "the men," and lumping the rest of humanity together as "foreigners." to act together, however, as, for instance, in war, in order to repel incursions on the part of the said foreigners, is not easy without some definite organization. in australia, where there is very little war, this organization is mostly wanting. in north america, on the other hand, amongst the more advanced and warlike tribes, we find regular tribal officers, and some approach to a political constitution. yet in australia there is at least one occasion when a sort of tribal gathering takes place--namely, when their elaborate ceremonies for the initiation of the youths is being held. it would seem, however, that these ceremonies are, as often as not, intertribal rather than tribal. so similar are the customs and beliefs over wide areas, that groups with apparently little or nothing else in common will assemble together, and take part in proceedings that are something like a pan-anglican congress and a world's fair rolled into one. to this indefinite type of intertribal association the term "nation" is sometimes applied. only when there is definite organization, as never in australia, and only occasionally in north america, as amongst the iroquois, can we venture to describe it as a genuine "confederacy." no doubt the reader's head is already in a whirl, though i have perpetrated endless sins of omission and, i doubt not, of commission as well, in order to simplify the glorious confusion of the subject of the social organization prevailing in what is conveniently but loosely lumped together as totemic society. thus, i have omitted to mention that sometimes the totems seem to have nothing to do at all with the social organization; as, for example, amongst the famous arunta of central australia, whom messrs. spencer and gillen have so carefully described. i have, again, refrained from pointing out that sometimes there are exogamous divisions--some would call them moieties to distinguish them from phratries--which have no clans grouped under them, and, on the other hand, have themselves little or no resemblance to totemic clans. these, and ever so many other exceptional cases, i have simply passed by. an even more serious kind of omission is the following. i have throughout identified the social organization with the kinship organization--namely, that into which a man is born in consequence of the marriage laws and the system of reckoning descent. but there are other secondary features of what can only be classed as social organization, which have nothing to do with kinship. sex, for instance, has a direct bearing on social status. the men and the women often form markedly distinct groups; so that we are almost reminded of the way in which the male and the female linnets go about in separate flocks as soon as the pairing season is over. of course, disparity of occupation has something to do with it. but, for the native mind, the difference evidently goes far deeper than that. in some parts of australia there are actually sex-totems, signifying that each sex is all-one-flesh, a mystic corporation. and, all the savage world over, there is a feeling that woman is uncanny, a thing apart, which feeling is probably responsible for most of the special disabilities--and the special privileges--that are the lot of woman at the present day. again, age likewise has considerable influence on social status. it is not merely a case of being graded as a youth until once for all you legally "come of age," and are enrolled, amongst the men. the grading of ages is frequently most elaborate, and each batch mounts the social ladder step by step. just as, at the university, each year has apportioned to it by public opinion the things it may do and the things it may not do, whilst, later on, the bachelor, the master, and the doctor stand each a degree higher in respect of academic rank; so in darkest australia, from youth up to middle age at least, a man will normally undergo a progressive initiation into the secrets of life, accompanied by a steady widening in the sphere of his social duties and rights. lastly, locality affects status, and increasingly as the wandering life gives way to stable occupation. amongst a few hundred people who are never out of touch with each other, the forms of natal association hold their own against any that local association is likely to suggest in their place. according to natal grouping, therefore, in the broad sense that includes sex and age no less than kinship, the members of the tribe camp, fight, perform magical ceremonies, play games, are initiated, are married, and are buried. but let the tribe increase in numbers, and spread through a considerable area, over the face of which communications are difficult and proportionately rare. instantly the local group tends to become all in all. authority and initiative must always rest with the men on the spot; and the old natal combinations, weakened by inevitable absenteeism, at last cease to represent the true framework of the social order. they tend to linger on, of course, in the shape of subordinate institutions. for instance, the totemic groups cease to have direct connection with the marriage system, and, on the strength of the ceremonies associated with them, develop into what are known as secret societies. or, again, the clan is gradually overshadowed by the family, so that kinship, with its rights and duties, becomes practically limited to the nearer blood-relations; who, moreover, begin to be treated for practical purposes as kinsmen, even when they are on the side of the family which lineage does not officially recognize. thus the forms of natal association no longer constitute the backbone of the body politic. their public importance has gone. henceforward, the social unit is the local group. the territorial principle comes more and more to determine affinities and functions. kinship has dethroned itself by its very success. thanks to the organizing power of kinship, primitive society has grown, and by growing has stretched the birth-tie until it snaps. some relationships become distant in a local and territorial sense, and thereupon they cease to count. my duty towards my kin passes into my duty towards my neighbour. * * * * * reasons of space make it impossible to survey the further developments to which social organization is subject under the sway of locality. it is, perhaps, less essential to insist on them here, because, whereas totemic society is a thing which we civilized folk have the very greatest difficulty in understanding, we all have direct insight into the meaning of a territorial arrangement; since, from the village community up to the modern state, the same fundamental type of social structure obtains throughout. besides local contiguity, however, there is a second principle which greatly helps to shape the social order, as soon as society is sufficiently advanced in its arts and industries to have taken firm root, so to speak, on the earth's surface. this is the principle of private property, and especially of private property in land. the most fundamental of class distinctions is that between rich and poor. that between free and slave, in communities that have slavery, is not at first sight strictly parallel, since there may be a class of poor freemen intermediate between the nobles and the slaves; but it is obvious that in this case, too, private property is really responsible for the mode of grading. or sometimes social position may seem to depend primarily on industrial occupation, the indian caste-system providing an instance in point. since, however, the most honourable occupations in the long run coincide with those that pay best, we come back once again to private property as the ultimate source of social rank, under an economic system of the more developed kind. in this brief sketch it has been impossible to do more than hint how social organization is relative to numbers, which in their turn are relative to the skill with which the food-quest is carried on. but if, up to a certain point, it be true that the structure of society depends on its mass in a more or less physical way, there is to be borne in mind another aspect of the matter, which also has been hinted at as we went rapidly along. a good deal of intelligence has throughout helped towards the establishing of the social order. if social organization is in part a natural result of the expansion of the population, it is partly also, in the best sense of the word, an artificial creation of the human mind, which has exerted itself to devise modes of grouping whereby men might be enabled to work together in larger and ever larger wholes. regarded, however, in the purely external way which a study of its mere structure involves, society appears as a machine--that is to say, appears as the work of intelligence indeed, but not as itself instinct with intelligence. in what follows we shall set the social machine moving. we shall then have a better chance of obtaining an inner view of the driving power. we shall find that we have to abandon the notion that society is a machine. it is more, even, than an organism. it is a communion of souls--souls that, as so many independent, yet interdependent, manifestations of the life-force, are pressing forward in the search for individuality and freedom. chapter vii law the general plan of this little book being to start from the influences that determine man's destiny in a physical, external, necessary sort of way, and to work up gradually to the spiritual, internal, voluntary factors in human nature--that strange "compound of clay and flame"--it seems advisable to consider law before religion, and religion before morality, whether in its collective or individual aspect, for the following reason. there is more sheer constraint to be discerned in law than in religion, whilst religion, in the historical sense which identifies it with organized cult, is more coercive in its mode of regulating life than the moral reason, which compels by force of persuasion. to one who lives under civilized conditions the phrase "the strong arm of the law" inevitably suggests the policeman. apart from policemen, magistrates, and the soldiers who in the last resort must be called out to enforce the decrees of the community, it might appear that law could not exist. and certainly it is hard to admit that what is known as mob-law is any law at all. for historical purposes, however, we must be prepared to use the expression "law" rather widely. we must be ready to say that there is law wherever there is punishment on the part of a human society, whether acting in the mass, or through its representatives. punishment means the infliction of pain on one who is judged to have broken a social rule. conversely, then, a law is any social rule to the infringement of which punishment is by usage attached. so long as it is recognized that a man breaks a social rule at the risk of pain, and that it is the business of everybody, or of somebody armed with the common authority, to make that risk a reality for the offender, there is law within the meaning of the term as it exists for anthropology. punishment, however, is by its very nature an exceptional measure. it is only because the majority are content to follow a social rule, that law and punishment are possible at all. if, again, every one habitually obeys the social rules, law ceases to exist, because it is unnecessary. now, one reason why it is hard to find any law in primitive society is because, in a general way of speaking, no one dreams of breaking the social rules. custom is king, nay tyrant, in primitive society. when captain cook asked the chiefs of tahiti why they ate apart and alone, they simply replied, "because it is right." and so it always is with the ruder peoples. "'tis the custom, and there's an end on't" is their notion of a sufficient reason in politics and ethics alike. now that way lies a rigid conservatism. in the chapter on morality we shall try to discover its inner springs, its psychological conditions. for the present, we may be content to regard custom from the outside, as the social habit of conserving all traditional practices for their own sake and regardless of consequences. of course, changes are bound to occur, and do occur. but they are not supposed to occur. in theory, the social rules of primitive society are like "the law of the medes and persians which altereth not." this absolute respect for custom has its good and its bad sides. on the one hand, it supplies the element of discipline; without which any society is bound soon to fall to pieces. we are apt to think of the savage as a freakish creature, all moods--at one moment a friend, at the next moment a fiend. so he might be, if it were not for the social drill imposed by his customs. so he is, if you destroy his customs, and expect him nevertheless to behave as an educated and reasonable being. given, then, a primitive society in a healthy and uncontaminated condition, its members will invariably be found to be on the average more law-abiding, as judged from the standpoint of their own law, than is the case any civilized state. but now we come to the bad side of custom. its conserving influence extends to all traditional practices, however unreasonable or perverted. in that amber any fly is apt to be enclosed. hence the whimsicalities of savage custom. in _primitive culture_ dr. tylor tells a good story about the dyaks of borneo. the white man's way of chopping down a tree by notching out v-shaped cuts was not according to dyak custom. hence, any dyak caught imitating the european fashion was punished by a fine. and yet so well aware were they that this method was an improvement on their own that, when they could trust each other not to tell, they would surreptitiously use it. these same dyaks, it may be added, are, according to mr. a.r. wallace, the best of observers, "among the most pleasing of savages." they are good-natured, mild, and by no means bloodthirsty in the ordinary relations of life. yet they are well known to be addicted to the horrid practice of head-hunting. "it was a custom," mr. wallace explains, "and as a custom was observed, but it did not imply any extraordinary barbarism or moral delinquency." the drawback, then, to a reign of pure custom is this: meaningless injunctions abound, since the value of a traditional practice does not depend on its consequences, but simply on the fact that it is the practice; and this element of irrationality is enough to perplex, till it utterly confounds, the mind capable of rising above routine and reflecting on the true aims and ends of the social life. how to break through "the cake of custom," as bagehot has called it, is the hardest lesson that humanity has ever had to learn. customs have often been broken up by the clashing of different societies; but in that case they merely crystallize again into new shapes. but to break through custom by the sheer force of reflection, and so to make rational progress possible, was the intellectual feat of one people, the ancient greeks; and it is at least highly doubtful if, without their leadership, a progressive civilization would have existed to-day. it may be added in parenthesis that customs may linger on indefinitely, after losing, through one cause or another, their place amongst the vital interests of the community. they are, or at any rate seem, harmless; their function is spent. hence, whilst perhaps the humbler folk still take them more or less seriously, the leaders of society are not at pains to suppress them. nor would they always find it easy to do so. something of the primeval man lurks in us all; and these "survivals," as they are termed by the anthropologist, may often in large part correspond to impulses that are by no means dead in us, but rather sleep; and are hence liable to be reawakened, if the environment happens to supply the appropriate stimulus. witness the fact that survivals, especially when the whirligig of social change brings the uneducated temporarily to the fore, have a way of blossoming forth into revivals; and the state may in consequence have to undergo something equivalent to an operation for appendicitis. the study of so-called survivals, therefore, is a most important branch of anthropology, which cannot unfortunately in this hasty sketch be given its due. it would seem to coincide with the central interest of what is known as folk-lore. folk-lore, however, tends to broaden out till it becomes almost indistinguishable from general anthropology. there are at least two reasons for this. firstly, the survivals of custom amongst advanced nations, such as the ancient greeks or the modern british, are to be interpreted mainly by comparison with the similar institutions still flourishing amongst ruder peoples. secondly, all these ruder peoples themselves, without exception, have their survivals too. their customs fall as it were into two layers. on top is the live part of the fire. underneath are smouldering ashes, which, though dying out on the whole, are yet liable here and there to rekindle into flame. so much for custom as something on the face of it distinct from law, inasmuch as it seems to dispense with punishment. it remains to note, however, that brute force lurks behind custom, in the form of what bagehot has called "the persecuting tendency." just a boy at school who happens to offend against the unwritten code has his life made a burden by the rest of his mates, so in the primitive community the fear of a rough handling causes "i must not" to wait upon "i dare not." one has only to read mr. andrew lang's instructive story of the fate of "why why, the first radical," to realize how amongst savages--and is it so very different amongst ourselves?--it pays much better to be respectable than to play the moral hero. * * * * * let us pass on to examine the beginnings of punitive law. after all, even under the sway of custom, casual outbreaks are liable to occur. some one's passions will prove too much for him, and there will be an accident. what happens then in the primitive society? let us first consider one of the very unorganized communities at the bottom of the evolutionary scale; as, for example, the little negritos of the andaman islands. their justice, explains mr. man, in his excellent account of these people, is administered by the simple method of allowing the aggrieved party to take the law into his own hands. this he usually does by flinging a burning faggot at the offender, or by discharging an arrow at him, though more frequently near him. meanwhile all others who may be present are apt to beat a speedy retreat, carrying off as much of their property as their haste will allow, and remaining hid in the jungle until sufficient time has elapsed for the quarrel to have blown over. sometimes, however, friends interpose, and seek to deprive the disputants of their weapons. should, however, one of them kill the other, nothing is necessarily said or done to him by the rest. yet conscience makes cowards of us all; so that the murderer, from prudential motives, will not uncommonly absent himself until he judges that the indignation of the victim's friends has sufficiently abated. now here we seem to find want of social structure and want of law going together as cause and effect. the "friends" of whom we hear need to be organized into a police force. if we now turn to totemic society, with its elaborate clan-system, it is quite another story. blood-revenge ranks amongst the foremost of the clansman's social obligations. over the whole world it stands out by itself as the type of all that law means for the savage. within the clan, indeed, the maxim of blood for blood does not hold; though there may be another kind of punitive law put into force by the totemites against an erring brother, as, for instance, if they slay one of their number for disregarding the exogamic rule and consorting with a woman who is all-one-flesh with him. but, between clans of the same tribe, the system of blood-revenge requires strict reprisals, according to the principle that some one on the other side, though not necessarily the actual murderer, must die the death. this is known as the principle of collective responsibility; and one of the most interesting problems relating to the evolution of early law is to work out how individual responsibility gradually develops out of collective, until at length, even as each man does, so likewise he suffers. the collective method of settling one's grievances is natural enough, when men are united into groups bound together by the closest of sentimental ties, and on the other hand there is no central and impartial authority to arbitrate between the parties. one of our crew has been killed by one of your crew. so a stand-up fight takes place. of course we should like to get at the right man if we could; but, failing that, we are out to kill some one in return, just to teach your crew a lesson. comparatively early in the day, however, it strikes the savage mind that there are degrees of responsibility. for instance, some one has to call the avenging party together, and to lead it. he will tend to be a real blood-relation, son, father, or brother. thus he stands out as champion, whilst the rest are in the position of mere seconds. correspondingly, the other side will tend to thrust forward the actual offender into the office of counter-champion. there is direct evidence to show that, amongst australians, eskimo, and so on, whole groups at one time met in battle, but later on were represented by chosen individuals, in the persons of those who were principals in the affair. thus we arrive at the duel. the transition is seen in such a custom as that of the port lincoln black-fellows. the brother of the murdered man must engage the murderer; but any one on either side who might care to join in the fray was at liberty to do so. hence it is but a step to the formal duel, as found, for instance, amongst the apaches of north america. now the legal duel is an advance on the collective bear-fight, if only because it brings home to the individual perpetrator of the crime that he will have to answer for it. cranz, the great authority on the eskimo of greenland, naively remarks that a greenlander dare not murder or otherwise wrong another, since it might possibly cost him the life of his best friend. did the greenlander know that it would probably cost him his own life, his sense of responsibility, we may surmise, might be somewhat quickened. on the other hand, duelling is not a satisfactory way of redressing the balance, since it merely gives the powerful bully an opportunity of adding a second murder to the first. hence the ordeal marks an advance in legal evolution. a good many australian peoples, for example, have reached the stage of requiring the murderer to submit to a shower of spears or boomerangs at the hands of the aggrieved group, on the mutual understanding that the blood-revenge ends here. luckily, however, for the murderer, it often takes time to bring him to book; and angry passions are apt in the meanwhile to subside. the ruder savages are not so bloodthirsty as we are apt to imagine. war has evolved like everything else; and with it has evolved the man who likes fighting for its own sake. so, in place of a life for a life, compensation--"pacation," as it is technically termed--comes to be recognized as a reasonable _quid pro quo_. constantly we find custom at the half-way stage. if the murderer is caught soon, he is killed; but if he can stave off the day of justice, he escapes with a fine. when private property has developed, the system of blood-fines becomes most elaborate. amongst the iroquois the manslayer must redeem himself from death by means of no less than sixty presents to the injured kin; one to draw the axe out of the wound, a second to wipe the blood away, a third to restore peace to the land, and so forth. according to the collective principle, the clansmen on one side share the price of atonement, and on the other side must tax themselves in order to make it up. shares are on a scale proportionate to degrees of relationship. or, again, further nice calculations are required, if it is sought to adjust the gross amount of the payment to the degree of guilt. hence it is not surprising that, when a more or less barbarous people, such as the anglo-saxons, came to require a written law, it should be almost entirely taken up by regulations about blood-fines, that had become too complicated for the people any longer to keep in their heads. so far we have been considering the law of blood-revenge as purely an affair between the clans concerned; the rest of the tribal public keeping aloof, very much in the style of the andamanese bystanders who retire into the jungle when there is a prospect of a row. but with the development of a central authority, whether in the shape of the rule of many or of one, the public control of the blood-feud begins to assert itself; for the good reason that endless vendetta is a dissolving force, which the larger and more stable type of society cannot afford to tolerate if it is to survive. the following are a few instances illustrative of the transition from private to public jurisdiction. in north america, africa, and elsewhere, we find the chief or chiefs pronouncing sentence, but the clan or family left to carry it out as best they can. again, the kin may be entrusted with the function of punishment, but obliged to carry it out in the way prescribed by the authorities; as, for instance, in abyssinia, where the nearest relation executes the manslayer in the presence of the king, using exactly the same kind of weapon as that with which the murder was committed. or the right of the kin to punish dwindles to a mere form. thus in afghanistan the elders make a show of handing over the criminal to his accusers, who must, however, comply strictly with the wishes of the assembly; whilst in samoa the offender was bound and deposited before the family "as if to signify that he lay at their mercy," and the chief saw to the rest. finally, the state, in the person of its executive officers, both convicts and executes. when the state is represented by a single ruler, crime tends to become an offence against "the king's peace"--or, in the language of roman law, against his "majesty." henceforward, the easy-going system of getting off with a fine is at an end, and murder is punished with the utmost sternness. in such a state as dahomey, in the old days of independence, there may have been a good deal of barbarity displayed in the administration of justice, but at any rate human life was no less effectively protected by the law than it was, say, in mediaeval europe. * * * * * the evolution of the punishment of murder affords the typical instance of the development of a legal sanction in primitive society. other forms, however, of the forcible repression of wrong-doing deserve a more or less passing notice. adultery is, even amongst the ruder peoples, a transgression that is reckoned only a degree less grave than manslaughter; especially as manslaughter is a usual consequence of it, quarrels about women constituting one of the chief sources of trouble in the savage world. with a single interesting exception, the stages in the development of the law against adultery are exactly the same as in the case already examined. whole kins fight about it. then duelling is substituted. then duelling gives way to the ordeal. then, after the penalty has long wavered between death and a fine, fines become the rule, so long as the kins are allowed to settle the matter. if, however, the community comes to take cognizance of the offence, severer measures ensue. the one noticeable difference in the two developments is the following. whereas murder is an offence against the chief's "majesty," and as such a criminal offence, adultery, like theft, with which primitive law is wont to associate it as an offence against property, tends to remain a purely civil affair. kafir law, for example, according to maclean, draws this distinction very clearly. it remains to add as regards adultery that, so far, we have only been considering the punishment that falls on the guilty man. the guilty woman's fate is a matter relating to a distinct department of primitive law. family jurisdiction, as we find it, for instance, in an advanced community such as ancient rome, meant the right of the _pater familias_, the head of the house, to subject his _familia_, or household, which included his wife, his children (up to a certain age), and his slaves, to such domestic discipline as he saw fit. such family jurisdiction was more or less completely independent of state jurisdiction; and, indeed, has remained so in europe until comparatively recent times. what light, then, does the study of primitive society throw on the first beginnings of family law as administered by the house-father? to answer this question at all adequately would involve the writing of many pages on the evolution of the family. for our present purpose, all turns on the distinction between the matripotestal and the patripotestal family. if the man and the woman were left to fight it out alone, the latter, despite the "shrewish sanction" that she possesses in her tongue, must inevitably bow to the principle that might is right. but, as long as marriage is matrilocal--that is to say, allows the wife to remain at home amongst male defenders of her own clan--she can safely lord it over her stranger husband; and there can scarcely be adultery on her part, since she can always obtain divorce by simply saying, go! things grow more complicated when the wife lives amongst her husband's people, and, nevertheless, the system of counting descent favours her side of the family and not his. does the mere fact that descent is matrilineal tend to imply on the whole that the mother's kin take a more active interest in her, and are more effective in protecting her from hurt, whether undeserved or deserved? it is no easy problem to settle. dr. steinmetz, however, in his important work on _the evolution of punishment_ (in german), seeks to show that under mother-right, in all its forms taken together, the adulteress is more likely to escape with a light penalty, or with none at all, than under father-right. whatever be the value of the statistical method that he employs, at any rate it makes out the death penalty to be inflicted in only a third of his cases under the former system, but in about half under the latter. * * * * * we must be content with a mere glance at other types of wrong-doing which, whilst sooner or later recognized by the law of the community, affect its members in their individual capacity. theft and slander are cases in point. amongst the ruder savages there cannot be much stealing, because there is next to nothing to steal. nevertheless, groups are apt to quarrel over hunting and fishing claims; whilst the division of the spoils of the chase may give rise to disputes, which call for the interposition of leading men. we even occasionally find amongst australians the formal duel employed to decide cases of the violation of property-rights. not, however, until the arts of life have advanced, and wealth has created the two classes of "haves" and "have-nots," does theft become an offence of the first magnitude, which the central authority punishes with corresponding severity. as regards slander, though it might seem a slight matter, it must be remembered that the savage cannot stand up for a moment again an adverse public opinion; so that to rob him of his good name is to take away all that makes life worth living. to shout out, long-nose! sunken-eyes! or skin-and-bone! usually leads to a fight in andamanese circles, as mr. man informs us. nor, again, is it conducive to peace in australian society to sing as follows about the staying-powers of a fellow-tribesman temporarily overtaken by european liquor: "spirit like emu--as a whirlwind--pursues--lays violent hold on travelling--uncle of mine (this being particularly derisive)--tired out with fatigue--throws himself down helpless." amongst more advanced peoples, therefore, slander and abuse are sternly checked. they constitute a ground for a civil action in kafir law; whilst we even hear of an african tribe, the ba-ngindo, who rejoice in the special institution of a peace-maker, whose business is to compose troubles arising from this vexatious source. * * * * * let us now turn to another class of offences, such as, from the first, are regarded as so prejudicial to the public interest that the community as a whole must forcibly put them down. cases of what may be termed military discipline fall under this head. even when the functions of the commander are undeveloped, and war is still "an affair of armed mobs," shirking--a form of crime which, to do justice to primitive society, is rare--is promptly and effectively resented by the host. amongst american tribes the coward's arms are taken away from him; he is made to eat with the dogs; or perhaps a shower of arrows causes him to "run the gauntlet." the traitor, on the other hand, is inevitably slain without mercy--tied to a tree and shot, or, it may be, literally hacked to pieces. naturally, with the evolution of war, these spontaneous outbursts of wrath and disgust give way to a more formal system of penalties. to trace out this development fully, however, would entail a lengthy disquisition on the growth of kingship in one of its most important aspects. if constant fighting turns the tribe into something like a standing army, the position of war-lord, as, for instance, amongst the zulus, is bound to become both permanent and of all-embracing authority. there is, however, another side to the history of kingship, as the following considerations will help to make clear. public safety is construed by the ruder type of man not so much in terms of freedom from physical danger--unless such a danger, the onset of another tribe, for instance, is actually imminent--as in terms of freedom from spiritual, or mystic, danger. the fear of ill-luck, in other words, is the bogy that haunts him night and day. hence his life is enmeshed, as dr. frazer puts it, in a network of taboos. a taboo is anything that one must not do lest ill-luck befall. and ill-luck is catching, like an infectious disease. if my next-door neighbour breaks a taboo, and brings down a visitation on himself, depend upon it some of its unpleasant consequences will be passed on to me and mine. hence, if some one has committed an act that is not merely a crime but a sin, it is every one's concern to wipe out that sin; which is usually done by wiping out the sinner. mobbish feeling always inclines to violence. in the mob, as a french psychologist has said, ideas neutralize each other, but emotions aggrandize each other. now war-feeling is a mobbish experience that, i daresay, some of my readers have tasted; and we have seen how it leads the unorganized levy of a savage tribe to make short work of the coward and traitor. but war-fever is a mild variety of mobbish experience as compared with panic in any form, and with superstitious panic most of all. being attacked in the dark, as it were, causes the strongest to lose their heads. hence it is not hard to understand how it comes about that the violator of a taboo is the central object of communal vengeance in primitive society. the most striking instance of such a taboo-breaker is the man or woman who disregards the prohibition against marriage within the kin--in other words, violates the law of exogamy. to be thus guilty of incest is to incite in the community at large a horror which, venting itself in what bagehot calls a "wild spasm of wild justice," involves certain death for the offender. to interfere with a grave, to pry into forbidden mysteries, to eat forbidden meats, and so on, are further examples of transgressions liable to be thus punished. falling under the same general category of sin, though distinct from the violation of taboo, is witchcraft. this consists in trafficking, or at any rate in being supposed to traffic, with powers of evil for sinister and anti-social ends. we have only to remember how england, in the seventeenth century, could work itself up into a frenzy on this account to realize how, in an african society even of the better sort, the "smelling-out" and destroying of a witch may easily become a general panacea for quieting the public nerves. when crimes and sins, affairs of state and affairs of church thus overlap and commingle in primitive jurisprudence, it is no wonder if the functions of those who administer the law should tend to display a similar fusion of aspects. the chief, or king, has a "divine right," and is himself in one or another sense divine, even whilst he takes the lead in regard to all such matters as are primarily secular. the earliest written codes, such as the mosaic books of the law, with their strange medley of injunctions concerning things profane and sacred, accurately reflect the politico-religious character of all primitive authority. indeed, it is only by an effort of abstraction that the present chapter has been confined to the subject of law, as distinguished from the subject of the following chapter, namely, religion. any crime, as notably murder, and even under certain circumstances theft, is apt to be viewed by the ruder peoples either as a violation of taboo, or as some closely related form of sin. nay, within the limits of the clan, legal punishment can scarcely be said to be in theory possible; the sacredness of the blood-tie lending to any chastisement that may be inflicted on an erring kinsman the purely religious complexion of a sacrifice, an act of excommunication, a penance, or what not. thus almost insensibly we are led on to the subject of religion from the study of the legal sanction; this very term "sanction," which is derived from roman law, pointing in the same direction, since it originally stood for the curse which was appended in order to secure the inviolability of a legal enactment. chapter viii religion "how can there be a history of religions?" once objected a french senator. "for either one believes in a religion, and then everything in it appears natural; or one does not believe in it, and then everything in it appears absurd!" this was said some thirty years ago, when it was a question of founding the now famous chair of the general history of religions at the college de france. at that time, such chairs were almost unheard of. now-a-days the more important universities of the world, to reckon them alone, can show at least thirty. what is the significance of this change? it means that the parochial view of religion is out of date. the religious man has to be a man of the world, a man of the wider world, an anthropologist. he has to recognize that there is a "soul of truth" in other religions besides his own. it will be replied--and i fully realize the force of the objection--that history, and therefore anthropology, has nothing to do with truth or falsehood--in a word, with value. in strict theory, this is so. its business is to describe and generalize fact; and religion from first to last might be pure illusion or even delusion, and it would be fact none the less on that account. at the same time, being men, we all find it hard, nay impossible, to study mankind impartially. when we say that we are going to play the historian, or the anthropologist, and to put aside for the time being all consideration of the moral of the story we seek to unfold, we are merely undertaking to be as fair all round as we can. willy nilly, however, we are sure to colour our history, to the extent, at any rate, of taking a hopeful or a gloomy view of man's past achievements, as bearing on his present condition and his future prospects. in the same way, then, i do not believe that we can help thinking to ourselves all the time, when we are tracing out the history of world-religion, either that there is "nothing in it" at all, or that there is "something in it," whatever form it assume, and whether it hold itself to be revealed (as it almost always does) or not. on the latter estimate of religion, however, it is still quite possible to judge that one form of religion is infinitely higher and better than another. religion, regarded historically, is in evolution. the best form of religion that we can attain to is inevitably the best for us; but, as a worse form preceded it, so a better form, we must allow and even desire, may follow. now, frankly, i am one of those who take the more sympathetic view of historical religion; an i say so at once, in case my interpretation of the facts turn out to be coloured by this sanguine assumption. moreover, i think that we may easily exaggerate the differences in culture and, more especially, in religious insight and understanding that exist between the ruder peoples and ourselves. in view of our common hope, and our common want of knowledge, i would rather identify religion with a general striving of humanity than with the exclusive pretension of any one people or sect. who knows, for instance, the final truth about what happens to the soul at death? i am quite ready to admit, indeed, that some of us can see a little farther into a brick wall than, say, neanderthal man. yet when i find facts that appear to prove that neanderthal man buried his dead with ceremony, and to the best of his means equipped them for a future life, i openly confess that i would rather stretch out a hand across the ages and greet him as my brother and fellow-pilgrim than throw in my lot with the self-righteous folk who seem to imagine this world and the next to have been created for their exclusive benefit. now the trouble with anthropologists is to find a working definition of religion on which they can agree. christianity is religion, all would have to admit. again, mahomedanism is religion, for all anthropological purposes. but, when a naked savage "dances" his god--when the spoken part of the rite simply consists, as amongst the south-eastern australians, in shouting "daramulun! daramulun!" (the god's name), so that we cannot be sure whether the dancers are indulging in a prayer or in an incantation--is that religion? or, worse still, suppose that no sort of personal god can be discovered at the back of the performance--which consists, let us say, as amongst the central australians, in solemnly rubbing a bull-roarer on the stomach, so that its mystic virtues may cause the man to become "good" and "glad" and "strong" (for that is his own way of describing the spiritual effects)--is that religion, in any sense that can link it historically with, say, the christian type of religion? no, say some, these low-class dealings with the unseen are magic, not religion. the rude folk in question do not go the right way about putting themselves into touch with the unseen. they try to put pressure on the unseen, to control it. they ought to conciliate it, by bowing to its will. their methods may be earnest, but they are not propitiatory. there is too much "my will be done" about it all. unfortunately, two can play at this game of _ex-parte_ definition. the more unsympathetic type of historian, relentlessly pursuing the clue afforded by this distinction between control and conciliation, professes himself able to discover plenty of magic even in the higher forms of religion. the rite as such--say, churchgoing as such--appears to be reckoned by some of the devout as not without a certain intrinsic efficacy. "very well," says this school, "then a good deal of average christianity is magic." my own view, then, is that this distinction will only lead us into trouble. and, to my mind, it adds to the confusion if it be further laid down, as some would do, that this sort of dealing with the unseen which, on the face of it, and according to our notions, seems rather mechanical (being, as it were, an effort to get a hold on some hidden force) is so far from being akin to religion that its true affinity is with natural science. the natural science of to-day, i quite admit, has in part evolved out of experiments with the occult; just as law, fine art, and almost every other one of our higher interests have likewise done. but just so long and so far as it was occult science, i would maintain, it was not natural science at all, but, as it were, rather supernatural science. besides, much of our natural science has grown up out of straightforward attempts to carry out mechanical work on industrial lines--to smelt iron, let us say; but since then, as now, there were numerous trade-secrets, an atmosphere of mystery was apt to surround the undertaking, which helped to give it the air of a trafficking with the uncanny. but because science then, as even now sometimes, was thought by the ignorant to be somehow closely associated with all the powers of evil, it does not follow that then or now the true affinity of science must be with the devil. magic and religion, according to the view i would support, belong to the same department of human experience--one of the two great departments, the two worlds, one might almost call them, into which human experience, throughout its whole history, has been divided. together they belong to the supernormal world, the _x_-region of experience, the region of mental twilight. magic i take to include all bad ways, and religion all good ways, of dealing with the supernormal--bad and good, of course, not as we may happen to judge them, but as the society concerned judges them. sometimes, indeed, the people themselves hardly know where to draw the line between the two; and, in that case, the anthropologist cannot well do it for them. but every primitive society thinks witchcraft bad. witchcraft consists in leaguing oneself with supernormal powers of evil in order to effect selfish and anti-social ends. witchcraft, then, is genuine magic--black magic of the devil's colour. on the other hand, every primitive society also distinguishes certain salutary ways of dealing with supernormal powers. all these ways taken together constitute religion. for the rest, there will always be a mass of more or less evaporated beliefs, going with practices that have more or less lost their hold on the community. these belong to the folklore which every people has. under this or some closely related head must also be set down the mass of mere wonder-tales, due to the play of fancy, and without direct bearing on the serious pursuits of life. the world to which neither magic nor religion belongs, but to which physical science, the knowledge of how to deal mechanically with material things, does belong wholly, is the workaday world, the region of normal, commonplace, calculable happenings. with our telescopes and microscopes we see farther and deeper into things than does the savage. yet the savage has excellent eyes. what he sees he sees. consequently, we must duly allow for the fact that there is for him, as well as for us, a "natural," that is to say, normal and workaday world; even though it be far narrower in extent than ours. the savage is not perpetually spook-haunted. on the contrary, when he is engaged on the daily round, and all is going well, he is as careless and happy as a child. but savage life has few safeguards. crisis is a frequent, if intermittent, element in it. hunger, sickness and war are examples of crisis. birth and death are crises. marriage is usually regarded by humanity as a crisis. so is initiation--the turning-point in one's career, when one steps out into the world of men. now what, in terms of mind, does crisis mean? it means that one is at one's wits' end; that the ordinary and expected has been replaced by the extraordinary and unexpected; that we are projected into the world of the unknown. and in that world of the unknown we must miserably abide until, somehow, confidence is restored. psychologically regarded, then, the function of religion is to restore men's confidence when it is shaken by crisis. men do not seek crisis; they would always run away from it, if they could. crisis seeks them; and, whereas the feebler folk are ready to succumb, the bolder spirits face it. religion is the facing of the unknown. it is the courage in it that brings comfort.[6] [footnote 6: the courage involved in all live religion normally coexists with a certain modesty or humility. i have tried to work out this point elsewhere in a short study entitled _the birth of humility_.] we must go on, however, to consider religion sociologically. a religion is the effort to face crisis, so far as that effort is organized by society in some particular way. a religion is congregational--that is to say, serves the ends of a number of persons simultaneously. it is traditional--that is to say, has served the ends of successive generations of persons. therefore inevitably it has standardized a method. it involves a routine, a ritual. also it involves some sort of conventional doctrine, which is, as it were, the inner side of the ritual--its lining. now in what follows i shall insist, in the first instance, on this sociological side of religion. for anthropological purposes it is the sounder plan. we must altogether eschew that "robinson crusoe method" which consists in reconstructing the creed of a solitary savage, who is supposed to evolve his religion out of his inner consciousness: "the mountain frowns, therefore it is alive"; "i move about in my dreams whilst my body lies still, therefore i have a soul," and so on. no doubt somebody had to think these things, for they are thoughts. but he did not think them, at any rate did not think them out, alone. men thought them out together; nay, whole ages of living and thinking together have gone to make them what they are. so a social method is needed to explain them. the religion of a savage is part of his custom; nay, rather, it is his whole custom so far as it appears sacred--so far as it coerces him by way of his imagination. between him and the unknown stands nothing but his custom. it is his all-in-all, his stand-by, his faith and his hope. being thus the sole source of his confidence, his custom, so far as his imagination plays about it, becomes his "luck." we may say that any and every custom, in so far as it is regarded as lucky, is a religious rite. hence the conservatism inherent in religion. "nothing," says robertson smith, "appeals so strongly as religion to the conservative instincts." "the history of religion," once exclaimed dr. frazer, "is a long attempt to reconcile old custom with new reason, to find a sound theory for absurd practice." at first sight one is apt to see nothing but the absurdities in savage custom and religion. after all, these are what strike us most, being the curiosity-hunters that we all are. but savage custom and religion must be taken as a whole, the bad side with the good. of course, if we have to do with a primitive society on the down-grade--and very few that have been "civilizaded," as john stuart mill terms it, at the hands of the white man are not on the down-grade--its disorganized and debased custom no longer serves a vital function. but a healthy society is bound, in a wholesale way, to have a healthy custom. though it may go about the business in a queer and roundabout fashion, it must hit off the general requirements of the situation. therefore i shall not waste time, as i might easily do, in piling up instances of outlandish "superstitions," whether horrible and disgusting, from our more advanced point of view, or merely droll and silly. on the contrary, i would rather make it my working assumption that, with all its apparent drawbacks, the religion of a human society, if the latter be a going concern, is always something to be respected. in considering, however, the relation of religion to custom, we are met by the apparent difficulty that, whereas custom implies "do," the prevailing note of primitive religion would seem rather to consist in "do not." but there is really no antagonism between them on this account. as the old greek proverb has it, "there is only one way of going right, but there are infinite ways of going wrong." hence, a nice observance of custom of itself involves endless taboos. since a given line of conduct is lucky, then this or that alternative course of behaviour must be unlucky. there is just this difference between positive customs or rites, which cause something to be done, and negative customs or rites, which cause something to be left undone, that the latter appeal more exclusively to the imagination for their sanction, and are therefore more conspicuously and directly a part of religion. "why should i do this?" is answered well-nigh sufficiently by saying, "because it is the custom, because it is right." it seems hardly necessary to add, "because it will bring luck." but "why should i not do something else instead?" meets, in the primitive society, with the invariable answer, "because, if you do, something awful will happen to us all." what precise shape the ill-luck will take need not be specified. the suggestion rather gains than loses by the indefiniteness of its appeal to the imagination. * * * * * to understand more clearly the difference between negative and positive types of custom as associated with religion, let us examine in some detail an example of each. it will be well to select our cases from amongst those that show the custom and the religion to be quite inseparable--to be, in short, but two aspects of one and the same fact. now nothing could be more commonplace and secular a custom than that of providing for one's dinner. yet for primitive society this custom tends to be likewise a rite--a rite which may, however, be mainly negative and precautionary, or mainly positive and practical in character, as we shall now see. the todas, so well described by dr. rivers, are a small community, less than a thousand all told, who have retired out of the stress of the world into the fastnesses of the nilgiri hills, in southern india, where they spend a safe but decidedly listless life. they are in a backwater, and are likely to remain there. at any rate, their religion is not such as to make them more enterprising. gods they may be said to have none. the bare names of certain deities of the hill-tops are retained, but whether these were once the honoured gods of the todas or, as some think, those of a former race, certain it is that there is more shadow than substance about them now. the real religion of the people centres round a dairy-ritual. from a practical and economic point of view, the work of the dairy consists in converting the milk of their buffaloes into the butter and buttermilk which constitute their staple diet. from a religious point of view, it consists in converting something they dare not eat into something they can eat. many, though not all, of their buffaloes are sacred, and their milk may not be drunk. the reason why it may not be drunk anthropologists may cast about to discover, but the todas themselves do not know. all that they know, and are concerned to know, is that things would somehow all go wrong, if any one were foolish enough to commit such a sin. so in the toda temple, which is a dairy, the toda priest, who is the dairyman, sets about rendering the sacred products harmless. the dairy has two compartments--one sacred, the other profane. in the first are stored the sacred vessels, into which the milk is placed when it comes from the buffaloes, and in which it is turned into butter and buttermilk with the help of some of the previous brew, this having meanwhile been put by in an especially sacred vessel. in the second compartment are profane vessels, destined to receive the butter and buttermilk, after they have been carefully transferred from the sacred vessels with the help of an intermediary vessel, which stands exactly on the line between the two compartments. this transference, being carried out to the accompaniment of all sorts of reverential gestures and utterances, secures such a profanation of the sacred substance as is without the evil consequences that would otherwise be entailed. thus the ritual is essentially precautionary. a taboo is the hinge of the whole affair. and the tendency of such a negative type of religion is to pile precautions on precautions. thus the dairyman, in order to be equal to his sacred office, must observe taboos without end. he must be celibate. he must avoid all contact with the dead. he is limited to certain kinds of food; which, moreover, must be prepared in a certain way, and consumed in a certain place. his drink, again, is a special milk, which must be poured out with prescribed formulas. he is inaccessible to ordinary folk save on certain days and in certain ways, their mode of approach, their salutations, his greeting in reply, being all regulated with the utmost nicety. he can only wear a special garb. he must never cut his hair. his nails must be suffered to grow long. and so on and so forth. such disabilities, indeed, are wont to circumscribe the life of all sacred persons, and can be matched from every part of the world. but they may fairly be cited here, as helping to fill in the picture of what i have called the precautionary or negative type of religious ritual. further, there is something rotten in the state of toda religion. the dairymen struck dr. rivers as very slovenly in the performance of their duties, as well as vague and inaccurate in their accounts of what ought to be done. indeed, it was hard to find persons willing to undertake the office. ritual duties involving uncomfortable taboos were apt to be thrust on youngsters. the youngsters, being youngsters, would probably violate the taboos; but anyway that was their look-out. from evasions to fictions is but a step. hence when an unclean person approached the dairyman, the latter would simply pretend not to see him. or the rule that he must not enter a hut, if women were within, would be circumvented by simply removing from the dwelling the three emblems of womanhood, the pounder, the sieve, and the sweeper; whereupon his "face was saved." now wherefore all this lack of earnestness? dr. rivers thinks that too much ritual was the reason. i agree; but would venture to add, "too much negative ritual." a religion that is all dodging must produce a sneaking kind of worshipper. now let us turn another type of primitive religion that is equally identified with the food-quest, but allied to its positive and active functions, which it seeks to help out. messrs. spencer and gillen have given us a most minute account of certain ceremonies of the arunta, a people of central australia. these ceremonies they have named _intichiuma_, and the name will probably stick, though there is reason to believe that the native word for them is really something different. their purpose is to make the food-animals and food-plants multiply and prosper. each animal or plant is attended to by the group that has it for a totem. (totemism amongst this very remarkable people has nothing to do either with exogamy or with lineage; but that is a subject into which it is impossible to go here.) the rites vary considerably from totem to totem, but a typical case or two may be cited. the witchetty-grub men, for instance, want the grubs to multiply, that there may be plenty for their fellows to eat. so they wend their way along a certain path which tradition declares to have been traversed by the great leader of the witchetty-grubs of the days of long ago. (these were grubs transformed into men, who became by reincarnation ancestors of the present totemites.) the path brings them to a place in the hills where there is a big stone surrounded by many small stones. the big stone is the adult animal, the little stones are its eggs. so first they tap the big stone, chanting an invitation to it to lay eggs. then the master of the ceremonies rubs the stomach of each totemite with the little stones, and says, "you have eaten much food." or, again, the kangaroo men repair to a place called undiara. it is a picturesque spot. by the side of a water-hole that is sheltered by a tall gum-tree rises a curiously gnarled and weather-beaten face of quartzite rock. about twenty feet from the base a ledge juts out. when the totemites hold their ceremony, they repair to this ledge. for here in the days of long ago the ancestors who are now reincarnated in them cooked and ate kangaroo food; and here, moreover, the kangaroo animals of that time deposited their spirit-parts. first the face of the rock below the ledge is decorated with long stripes of red ochre and white gypsum, to represent the red fur and white bones of the kangaroo. it is, in fact, one of those rock-paintings such as the palaeolithic men of europe made in their caves. then a number of men, say, seven or eight, mount upon the ledge, and, whilst the rest sing solemn chants about the prospective increase of the kangaroos, these men open veins in their arms, so that the blood flows down freely upon the ceremonial stone. this is the first part of the rite. the second part is no less interesting. after the blood-letting, they hunt until they kill a kangaroo. thereupon the old men of the totem eat a little of the meat; then they smear some of the fat on the bodies of all the party; finally, they divide the flesh amongst them. afterwards, the totemites paint their bodies with stripes in imitation of the design upon the rock. a second hunt, followed by a second sacramental meal, concludes the whole ceremony. that their meal is sacramental, a sort of communion service, is proved by the fact that henceforth in an ordinary way they allow themselves to partake of kangaroo meat at most but very sparingly, and of certain portions of the flesh not at all. one more example of these rites may be cited, in order to bring out the earnestness of this type of religion, which is concerned with doing, instead of mere not-doing. there is none of the toda perfunctoriness here. it will be enough to glance at the commencement of the ritual of the honey-ant totemites. the master of the ceremonies places his hand as if he were shading his eyes, and gazes intently in the direction of the sacred place to which they are about to repair. as he does so, the rest kneel, forming a straight line behind him. in this position they remain for some time, whilst the leader chants in a subdued tone. then all stand up. the company must now start. the leader, who has fallen to the rear, that he may marshal the column in perfect line, gives the signal. then they move off in single file, taking a direct course to the holy ground, marching in perfect silence, and with measured step, as if something of the profoundest import were about to take place. i make no apology for describing these proceedings at some length. it is necessary to my argument to convey the impression that the essentials of religion are present in these apparently godless observances of the ruder peoples. they arise directly out of custom--in this case the hunting custom. their immediate design is to provide these people with their daily bread. yet their appeal to the imagination--which in religion, as in science, art, and philosophy, is the impulse that presides over all progress, all creative evolution--is such that the food-quest is charged with new and deeper meaning. not bread alone, but something even more sustaining to the life of man, is suggested by these tangled and obscure solemnities. they are penetrated by quickenings of sacrifice, prayer, and communion. they bring to bear on the need of the hour all the promise of that miraculous past, which not only cradled the race, but still yields it the stock of reincarnated soul-force that enables it to survive. if, then, these rites are part and parcel of mere magic, most, or all, of what the world knows as religion must be mere magic. but it is better for anthropology to call things by the names that they are known by in the world of men--that is, in the wider world, not in some corner or coterie of it. * * * * * in order to bring out more fully the second point that i have been trying to make, namely, the close interdependence between religion and custom in primitive society, let me be allowed to quote one more example of the ritual of a rude people. and again let us resort to native australia, though this time to the south-eastern corner of it; since in australia we have a cultural development on the whole very low, having been as it were arrested through isolation, yet one that turns out to be not incompatible with high religion in the making. initiation in native australia is the equivalent of what is known amongst ourselves as the higher education. the only difference is that, with them, every one who is not judged utterly unfit is duly initiated; whereas, with us, the higher education is offered to some who are unfit, whilst many who are fit never have the luck to get it. the initiation-custom is intended to tide the boys over the difficult time of puberty, and turn them into responsible men. the whole of the adult males assist in the ceremonies. special men, however, are told off to tutor the youth--a lengthy business, since it entails a retirement, perhaps for six months, into the bush with their charges; who are there taught the tribal traditions, and are generally admonished, sometimes forcibly, for their good. further, this is rather like a retirement into a monastery for the young men, seeing that during all the time they are strictly taboo, or in other words in a holy state that involves much fasting and mortification of the flesh. at last comes the time when their actual passage across the threshold of manhood has to be celebrated. the rites may be described in one word as impressive. society wishes to set a stamp on their characters, and believes in stamping hard. physically, then, the lads feel the force of society. a tooth is knocked out, they are tossed in the air to make them grow tall, and so on--rites that, whilst they may have separate occult ends in view, are completely at one in being highly unpleasant. spiritual means of education, however, are always more effective than physical, if designed and applied with sufficient wisdom. the bull-roarer, of which something has been already said, furnishes the ceremonies with a background of awe. it fills the woods, that surround the secret spot where the rites are held, with the rise and fall of its weird music, suggestive of a mighty rushing wind, of spirits in the air. not until the boys graduate as men do they learn how the sound is produced. even when they do learn this, the mystery of the voice speaking through the chip of wood merely wings the imagination for loftier flights. whatever else the high god of these mysteries, daramulun, may be for these people--and undoubtedly all sorts of trains of confused thinking meet in the notion of him--he is at any rate the god of the bull-roarer, who has put his voice into the sacred instrument. but daramulun is likewise endowed with a human form; for they set up an image of him rudely shaped in wood, and round about it dance and shout his name. daramulun instituted these rites, as well as all the other immemorial rites of the assembled tribe or tribes. so when over the heads of the boys, prostrated on the ground, are recited solemnly what mr. lang calls "the ten commandments," that bid them honour the elders, respect the marriage law, and so on, there looms up before their minds the figure of the ultimate law-giver; whilst his unearthly voice becomes for them the voice of the law. thus is custom exalted, and its coercive force amplified, by the suggestion of a power--in this case a definitely personal power--that "makes for righteousness," and, whilst beneficent, is full of terror for offenders. * * * * * and now it may seem high time to pass on from the sociological and external view that has hitherto been taken of primitive religion to a psychological view of it--one that should endeavour to disclose the hidden motives, the spiritual sources, of the beliefs that underlie and sustain the customary practices. but precisely at this point the anthropological treatment of religion is apt to prove unsatisfactory. history can record that such and such is done with far more certainty than that such and such a state of mind accompanies and inspires the doing. besides, the savage is no authority on the why and wherefore of his customs. "however else would a reasonable being think of acting?" is his sufficient reason, as we have already seen. not but what the higher minds amongst savages reflect in their own way upon the meaning of their customs and rites. but most of this reflection is no more than an elaborate "justification after the event." the mind invents what mr. kipling would call a "just-so story" to account for something already there. how it might have come about, not how it did come about, is all that the professed explanation amounts to. and when it comes to choosing amongst mere possibilities, the anthropologist, instead of consulting the savage, may just as well endeavour to do it for himself. now anthropological theories of the origin of religion seem to me to go wrong mainly because they seek to simplify too much. having got down to what they take to be a root-idea, they straightway proclaim it _the_ root-idea. i believe that religion has just as few, or as many, roots as human life and mind. the theory of the origin of religion that may be said to hold the field, because it is the view of the greatest of living anthropologists, is dr. tylor's theory of animism. the term animism is derived from the latin _anima_, which--like the corresponding word _spiritus_, whence our "spirit"--signifies the breath, and hence the soul, which primitive folk tend to identify with the breath. dr. tylor's theory of animism, then, as set forth in his great work, _primitive culture_, is that "the belief in spiritual beings" will do as a definition of religion taken at its least; which for him means the same thing as taken at its earliest. now what is a "spiritual being"? clearly everything turns on that. dr. tylor's general treatment of the subject seems to lay most of the emphasis on the phantasm. a phantasm (as the etymology of the word shows) is essentially an appearance. in a dream or hallucination one sees figures, more or less dim, but still having "vaporous materiality." so, too, the shadow is something without body that one can see; though the breath, except on a frosty day, shows its subtle but yet sensible nature rather by being felt than by being seen. now there can be no doubt that the phantasm plays a considerable part in primitive religion (as well as in those fancies of the primitive mind that have never found their way into religion, at all events into religion as identified with organized cult). savages see ghosts, though probably not more frequently than we do; they have vivid dreams, and are much impressed by their dream-experiences; and so on. besides, the phantasm forms a very convenient half-way house between the seen and the unseen; and there can be no doubt that the savage often says breath, shadow, and so forth, when he is trying to think and mean something immaterial altogether. but animism would seem sometimes to be used by dr. tylor in a wider sense, namely, as "a doctrine of universal vitality." in dealing with the myths of the ruder peoples, as, for example, those about the sun, moon, and stars, he shows how "a general animation of nature" is implied. the primitive man reads himself into these things, which, according to our science, are without life or personality. he thinks that they have a different kind of body, but the same kind of feelings and motives. but this is not necessarily to think that they are capable of giving off a phantasm, as a man does when his soul temporarily leaves him, or when after death his soul becomes a ghost. there need be nothing ghost-like about the sun, whether it is imagined as a shining orb, or as a shining being of human shape to whom the orb belongs. there is not anything in the least phantasmal about the greek god apollo. i think, then, that we had better distinguish this wider sense of animism by a different name, calling it "animatism," since that will serve at once to disconnect and to connect the two conceptions. i am not sure, however, how far we ought to press this "doctrine of universal vitality." does a savage, for instance, when he is hammering at a piece of flint think of it as other than a "thing," any more than we should? i doubt it. he may say "confound you!" if it suddenly snaps in two, just as we might do. but though the language may seem to imply a "you," he would mean, i believe, to impute to the flint just as much, or as little, of personality as we should mean to do when using similar language. in other words, i believe that, within the world of his ordinary work-a-day experience, he recognizes both things and persons; without giving a thought, in either case, to the hidden principles that make them be what they are, and act as they do. when, on the other hand, the thing, or the person, falls within the world of supernormal experience, when they strike the imagination as wonderful and wonder-working, then there is much more reason why he should seek to account to himself for the mystery in, or behind, the strange appearance. howitt, who knew his australian natives intimately, cites the following as "a good example of how the native mind works." to the black-fellow his club or his spear are part and parcel of his ordinary life. there is no, "medicine," no "devil," in them. if they are to be made supernaturally potent, they must be specially charmed. but it is quite otherwise with his spear-thrower or his bull-roarer. the former for no obvious reason enables him to throw his spear extraordinarily far. (i have myself seen an australian spear, with the help of the spear-thrower, fly a hundred and fifty yards, and strike true and deep at the end of its flight.) the latter emits the noise of thunder, though a mere chip of wood on the end of a string. these, then, are in themselves "medicine." there is "virtue" in, or behind, them. is, then, to attribute "virtue" the same thing, necessarily, as to attribute vitality? are the spear-thrower and the bull-roarer inevitably thought of as alive? or are they, as a matter of course, endowed with soul or spirit? or may there be also an impersonal kind of "virtue," "medicine," or whatever the wonder-working power in the wonder-working thing is to be called? now there is evidence that the savage himself, in speaking about these matters, sometimes says power, sometimes vitality, sometimes spirit. but the simplest way of disposing of these questions is to remember that such fine distinctions as these, which theorists may seek to draw, do not appeal at all to the savage himself. for him the only fact that matters is that, whereas some things in the world are ordinary, and can be reckoned on, other things cannot be reckoned on, but are wonder-working. moreover, of wonder-working things, some are good and some are bad. to get all the good kind of wonder-workers on to his side, so as to confound the bad kind--that is what his religion is there to do for him. "may blessings come, may mischiefs go!" is the import of his religious striving, whether anthropologists class it as spell or as prayer. now the function of religion, it has been assumed, is to restore confidence, when man is mazed, and out of his depth, fearful of the mysteries that obtrude on his life, yet compelled, if not exactly wishful, to face them and wrest from them whatever help is in them. this function religion fulfils by what may be described in one word as "suggestion." how the suggestion works psychologically--how, for instance, association of ideas, the so-called "sympathetic magic," predominates at the lower levels of religious experience--is a difficult and technical question which cannot be discussed here. religion stands by when there is something to be done, and suggests that it can be done well and successfully; nay, that it is being so done. and, when the religion is of the effective sort, the believers respond to the suggestion, and put the thing through. as the latin poet says, "they can because they think they can." what, from the anthropological point of view, is the effective sort of religion, the sort that survives because, on the whole, those whom it helps survive? it is dangerous to make sweeping generalizations, but there is at any rate a good deal to be said for classing the world's religions either as mechanical and ineffective, or as spiritual and effective. the mechanical kind offers its consolations in the shape of a set of implements. the "virtue" resides in certain rites and formularies. these, as we have seen, are especially liable to harden into mere mechanism when they are of the negative and precautionary type. the spiritual kind of religion, on the other hand, which is especially associated with the positive and active functions of life, tends to read will and personality into the wonder-working powers that it summons to man's aid. the will and personality in the worshippers are in need not so much of implements as of more will and personality. they get this from a spiritual kind of religion; which in one way or another always suggests a society, a communion, as at once the means and the end of vital betterment. to say that religion works by suggestion is only to say that it works through the imagination. there is good make-believe as well as bad; and one must necessarily imagine and make-believe in order to will. the more or less inarticulate and intuitional forces of the mind, however, need to be supplemented by the power of articulate reasoning, if the will is to make good its twofold character of a faculty of ends that is likewise a faculty of the means to those ends. suggestion, in short, must be purged by criticism before it can serve as the guide of the higher life. to bring this point out will be the object of the following chapter. chapter ix morality space is running out fast, and it is quite impossible to grapple with the details of so vast a subject as primitive morality. for these the reader must consult dr. westermarck's monumental treatise, _the origin and development of the moral ideas_, which brings together an immense quantity of facts, under a clear and comprehensive scheme of headings. he will discover, by the way, that, whereas customs differ immensely, the emotions, one may even say the sentiments, that form the raw material of morality are much the same everywhere. here it will be of most use to sketch the psychological groundwork of primitive morality, as contrasted with morality of the more advanced type. in pursuance of the plan hitherto followed, let us try to move yet another step on from the purely exterior view of human life towards our goal; which is to appreciate the true inwardness of human life--so far at least as this is matter for anthropology, which reaches no farther than the historic method can take it. it is, of course, open to question whether either primitive or advanced morality is sufficiently of one piece to allow, as it were, a composite photograph to be framed of either. for our present purposes, however, this expedient is so serviceable as to be worth risking. let us assume, then, that there are two main stages in the historical evolution of society, as considered from the standpoint of the psychology of conduct. i propose to term them the synnomic and the syntelic phases of society. "synnomic" (from the greek _nomos_, custom) means that customs are shared. "syntelic" (from the greek _telos_, end) means that ends are shared. the synnomic phase is, from the psychological point of view, a kingdom of habit; the syntelic phase is a kingdom of reflection. the former is governed by a subconscious selection of its standards of good and bad; the latter by a conscious selection of its standards. it remains to show very briefly how such a difference comes about. the outstanding fact about the synnomic life of the ruder peoples is perhaps this--that there is hardly any privacy. of course, many other drawbacks must be taken into account also--no wide-thrown communications, no analytic language, no writing, no books, and so on; but perhaps being in a crowd all the time is the worst drawback of all. for, as disraeli says in _sybil_, gregariousness is not association. constant herding and huddling together hinders the development of personality. that independence of character which is the prime condition of syntelic society cannot mature, even though the germs be there. no one has a chance of withdrawing into his own soul. therefore the individual does not experience that silent conversation with self which is reflection. instead of turning inwards, he turns outwards. in short, he imitates. but how, it may be objected, does evolution take place, if every one imitates every one else? certainly, it looks at first sight like a vicious circle. nevertheless, there is room for a certain progress, or at any rate for a certain process of change. to analyse its psychological springs would take us too long. if a phrase will do instead of an explanation, we may sum them up, with the brilliant french psychologist, tarde, as "a cross-fertilization of imitations." we need not, however, go far to get an impression of how this process of change works. it is going on every day in our midst under the name of "change of fashion." when one purchases the latest thing in ties or straw hats, one is not aiming at a rational form of dress. if there is progress in this direction, it is subconscious. the underlying spiritual condition is not inaptly described by dr. lloyd morgan as "a sheep-through-the-gapishness." from a moral point of view, this lack of capacity for private judgment is equivalent to a want of moral freedom. we have seen how relatively external are the sanctions of savage life. this does not mean, of course, that there is no answering judgment in the mind of the individual when he follows his customs. he says, "it is the custom; therefore it is right." but this judgment can scarcely be said to proceed from a truly judging, that is to say, critical, self. the man watches his neighbours, taking his cue from them. his judgment is a judgment of sense. he does not look inwards to principle. a moral principle is a standard that can, by means of thought, be transferred from one sensible situation to another sensible situation. the general law, and its application to the situation present now to the senses, are considered apart, before being put together. consequently, a possible application, however strongly suggested by custom, fashion, the action of one's neighbours, one's own impulse or prejudice, or what not, can be resisted, if it appear on reflection not to be really suited to the circumstances. in short, in order to be rational and "put two and two together," one must be able to entertain two and two as distinct conceptions. perceptions, on the contrary, can only be compared in the lump. just as in the chapter on language we saw how man began by talking in holophrases, and only gradually attained to analytic, that is, separable, elements of speech, so in this chapter we have to note the strictly parallel development from confusion to distinction on the side of thought. savage morality, then, is not rational in the sense of analysed, but is, so to speak, impressionistic. we might, perhaps, describe it as the expression of a collective impression. it is best understood in the light of that branch of social psychology which usually goes by the name of "mob-psychology." perhaps mob and mobbish are rather unfortunate terms. they are apt to make us think of the wilder explosions of collective feeling--panics, blood-mania, dancing-epidemics, and so on. but, though a savage society is by no means a mob in the sense of a weltering mass of humanity that has for the time being lost its head, the psychological considerations applying to the latter apply also to the former, when due allowance has been made for the fact that savage society is organized on a permanent basis. the difference between the two comes, in short, to this, that the mob as represented in the savage society is a mob consisting of many successive generations of men. its tradition constitutes, as it were, a prolonged and abiding impression, which its conduct thereupon expresses. savage thought, then, is not able, because it does not try, to break up custom into separate pieces. rather it plays round the edges of custom; religion especially, with its suggestion of the general sacredness of custom, helping it to do so. there is found in primitive society plenty of vague speculation that seeks to justify the existing. but to take the machine to bits in order to put it together differently is out of the reach of a type of intelligence which, though competent to grapple with details, takes its principles for granted. when progress comes, it comes by stealth, through imitating the letter, but refusing to imitate the spirit; until by means of legal fictions, ritual substitutions, and so on, the new takes the place of the old without any one noticing the fact. freedom, in the sense of intellectual freedom, may perhaps be said to have been born in one place and at one time--namely, in greece in the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.[7] of course, minglings and clashings of peoples had prepared the way. ideas begin to count as soon as they break away from their local context. but greece, in teaching the world the meaning of intellectual freedom, paved a way towards that most comprehensive form of freedom which is termed moral. moral freedom is the will to give out more than you take in; to repay with interest the cost of your social education. it is the will to take thought about the meaning and end of human life, and by so doing to assist in creative evolution. [footnote 7: political freedom, which is rather a different matter, is perhaps pre-eminently the discovery of england.] chapter x man the individual by way of epilogue, a word about individuality, as displayed amongst peoples of the ruder type, will not be out of place. there is a real danger lest the anthropologist should think that a scientific view of man is to be obtained by leaving out the human nature in him. this comes from the over-anxiety of evolutionary history to arrive at general principles. it is too ready to rule out the so-called "accident," forgetful of the fact that the whole theory of biological evolution may with some justice be described as "the happy accident theory." the man of high individuality, then, the exceptional man, the man of genius, be he man of thought, man of feeling, or man of action, is no accident that can be overlooked by history. on the contrary, he is in no small part the history-maker; and, as such, should be treated with due respect by the history-compiler. the "dry bones" of history, its statistical averages, and so on, are all very well in their way; but they correspond to the superficial truth that history repeats itself, rather than to the deeper truth that history is an evolution. anthropology, then, should not disdain what might be termed the method of the historical novel. to study the plot without studying the characters will never make sense of the drama of human life. it may seem a truism, but is perhaps worth recollecting at the start, that no man or woman lacks individuality altogether, even if it cannot be regarded in a particular case as a high individuality. no one is a mere item. that useful figment of the statistician has no real existence under the sun. we need to supplement the books of abstract theory with much sympathetic insight directed towards men and women in their concrete selfhood. said a vedda cave-dweller to dr. seligmann (it is the first instance i light on in the first book i happen to take up): "it is pleasant for us to feel the rain beating on our shoulders, and good to go out and dig yams, and come home wet, and see the fire burning in the cave, and sit round it." that sort of remark, to my mind, throws more light on the anthropology of cave-life than all the bones and stones that i have helped to dig out of our mousterian caves in jersey. as the stock phrase has it, it is, as far as it goes, a "human document." the individuality, in the sense of the intimate self-existence, of the speaker and his group--for, characteristically enough, he uses the first person plural--is disclosed sufficiently for our souls to get into touch. we are the nearer to appreciating human history from the inside. some of those students of mankind, therefore, who have been privileged to live amongst the ruder peoples, and to learn their language well, and really to be friends with some of them (which is hard, since friendship implies a certain sense of equality on both sides), should try their hands at anthropological biography. anthropology, so far as it relates to savages, can never rise to the height of the most illuminating kind of history until this is done. it ought not to be impossible for an intelligent white man to enter sympathetically into the mental outlook of the native man of affairs, the more or less practical and hardheaded legislator and statesman, if only complete confidence could be established between the two. that there are men of outstanding individuality who help to make political history even amongst the rudest peoples is, moreover, hardly to be doubted. thus messrs. spencer and gillen, in the introductory chapter of their work on the central australians, state that, after observing the conduct of a great gathering of the natives, they reached the opinion that the changes which undoubtedly take place from time to time in aboriginal custom are by no means wholly of the subconscious and spontaneous sort, but are in part due also to the influence of individuals of superior ability. "at this gathering, for example, some of the oldest men were of no account; but, on the other hand, others not so old as they were, but more learned in ancient lore or more skilled in matters of magic, were looked up to by the others, and they it was who settled everything. it must, however, be understood that we have no definite proof to bring forward of the actual introduction by this means of any fundamental change of custom. the only thing that we can say is that, after carefully watching the natives during the performance of their ceremonies and endeavouring as best we could to enter into their feelings, to think as they did, and to become for the time being one of themselves, we came to the conclusion that if one or two of the most powerful men settled upon the advisability of introducing some change, even an important one, it would be quite possible for this to be agreed upon and carried out." this passage is worth quoting at length if only for the admirable method that it discloses. the policy of "trying to become for the time being one of themselves" resulted in the book that, of all first-hand studies, has done most for modern anthropology. at the same time messrs. spencer and gillen, it is evident, would not claim to have done more than interpret the external signs of a high individuality on the part of these prominent natives. it still remains a rare and almost unheard-of thing for an anthropologist to be on such friendly terms with a savage as to get him to talk intimately about himself, and reveal the real man within. there exist, however, occasional side-lights on human personality in the anthropological literature that has to do with very rude peoples. the page from a human document that i shall cite by way of example is all the more curious, because it relates to a type of experience quite outside the compass of ordinary civilized folk. here and there, however, something like it may be found amongst ourselves. my friend mr. l.p. jacks, for instance, in his story-book, _mad shepherds_, has described a rustic of the north of england who belonged to this old-world order of great men. for men of the type in question can be great, at any rate in low-level society. the so-called medicine man is a leader, perhaps even the typical leader, of primitive society; and, just because he is, by reason of his calling, addicted to privacy and aloofness, he certainly tends to be more individual, more of a "character," than the general run of his fellows. i shall slightly condense from howitt's _native tribes of south-east australia_ the man's own story of his experience of initiation. howitt says, by the way, "i feel strongly assured that the man believed that the events which he related were real, and that he had actually experienced them"; and then goes on to talk about "subjective realities." i myself offer no commentary. those interested in psychical research will detect hypnotic trance, levitation, and so forth. others, versed in the spirit of william james' _varieties of religious experience_, will find an even deeper meaning in it all. the sociologist, meanwhile, will point to the force of custom and tradition, as colouring the whole experience, even when at its most subjective and dreamlike. but each according to his bent must work out these things for himself. in any case it is well that the end of a book should leave the reader still thinking. the speaker was a wiradjuri doctor of the kangaroo totem. he said: "my father is a lizard-man. when i was a small boy, he took me into the bush to train me to be a doctor. he placed two large quartz-crystals against my breast, and they vanished into me. i do not know how they went, but i felt them going through me like warmth. this was to make me clever, and able to bring things up." (this refers to the medicine-man's custom of bringing up into the mouth, as if from the stomach, the quartz-crystal in which his "virtue" has its chief material embodiment or symbol; being likewise useful, as we see later on, for hypnotizing purposes.) "he also gave me some things like quartz-crystals in water. they looked like ice, and the water tasted sweet. after that, i used to see things that my mother could not see. when out with her i would say, 'what is out there like men walking?' she used to say, 'child, there is nothing.' these were the ghosts which i began to see." the account goes on to state that at puberty our friend went through the regular initiation for boys; when he saw the doctors bringing up their crystals, and, crystals in mouth, shooting the "virtue" into him to make him "good." thereupon, being in a holy state like any other novice, he had retired to the bush in the customary manner to fast and meditate. "whilst i was in the bush, my old father came out to me. he said, 'come here to me,' and then he showed me a piece of quartz-crystal in his hand. when i looked at it, he went down into the ground; and i saw him come up all covered with red dust. it made me very frightened. then my father said, 'try and bring up a crystal.' i did try, and brought one up. he then said, 'come with me to this place.' i saw him standing by a hole in the ground, leading to a grave. i went inside and saw a dead man, who rubbed me all over to make me clever, and gave me some crystals. when we came out, my father pointed to a tiger-snake, saying, 'that is your familiar. it is mine also.' there was a string extending from the tail of the snake to us--one of those strings which the medicine-men bring up out of themselves. my father took hold of the string, and said, 'let us follow the snake.' the snake went through several tree-trunks, and let us through them. at last we reached a tree with a great swelling round its roots. it is in such places that daramulun lives. the snake went down into the ground, and came up inside the tree, which was hollow. we followed him. there i saw a lot of little daramuluns, the sons of baiame. afterwards, the snake took us into a great hole, in which were a number of snakes. these rubbed themselves against me, and did not hurt me, being my familiars. they did this to make me a clever man and a doctor. "then my father said, 'we will go up to baiame's camp.' [amongst the wiradjuri, baiame is the high god, and daramulun is his son. what 'little daramuluns' may be is not very clear.] he got astride a thread, and put me on another, and we held by each other's arms. at the end of the thread was wombu, the bird of baiame. we went up through the clouds, and on the other side was the sky. we went through the place where the doctors go through, and it kept opening and shutting very quickly. my father said that, if it touched a doctor when he was going through, it would hurt his spirit, and when he returned home he would sicken and die. on the other side we saw baiame sitting in his camp. he was a very great old man with a long beard. he sat with his legs under him, and from his shoulders extended two great quartz-crystals to the sky above him. there were also numbers of the boys of baiame, and of his people who are birds and beasts. [the totems.] "after this time, and while i was in the bush, i began to bring crystals up; but i became very ill, and cannot do anything since." _november, 1911_. bibliography introductory note.--it is impossible to provide a bibliography of so vast a subject, even when first-class authorities only are referred to; whilst selection must be arbitrary and invidious. here books written in english are alone cited, and those mostly the more modern. the reader is advised to spend such time as he can give to the subject mostly on the descriptive treatises. a few very educative studies are marked by an asterisk. in many cases, to save space, merely the author's name with initials is given, and a library catalogue must be consulted, or a list of authors such as is to be found, _e.g._ at the end of westermarck's works. a. theoretical general.--e.b. tylor, _anthropology_* (best manual); _primitive culture_* (the greatest of anthropological classics); lord avebury's works; _anthropological essays presented to e.b. tylor_. antiquity of man.--w.j. sollas, _ancient hunters and their modern representatives_ (best popular account). subject difficult without special knowledge, to be derived from, _e.g._ sir j. evans (stone implements); j. geikie (geology of ice age), etc. see also brit. mus. guides to stone age, bronze age, early iron age. race and geographical distribution.--a.c. haddon, _races of man_ and _the wanderings of peoples_ (best short outlines to work from); fuller details in j. deniker, a.h. keane; and, for europe, w.z. ripley. see also brit. mus. guide to ethnological collections. social organization and law.--j.g. frazer, _totemism and exogamy_*; l.h. morgan, _ancient society_*; e. westermarck, _history of human marriage_*; e.s. hartland, _primitive paternity_; a. lang, _the secret of the totem_; n.w. thomas, _kinship organization and group marriage in australia_; h. webster, _primitive secret societies_. religion, magic, folk-lore.--j.g. frazer, _the golden bough_* (3rd edit.); e.s. hartland, _the legend of perseus_ (esp. vol. ii); a. lang, _myth, ritual and religion_,* _the making of religion_, etc.; w. robertson smith, _early religion of the semites_*; f.b. jevons, a.c. crawley, d.g. brinton, g.l. gomme, l.r. farnell, r.r. marett, etc. morals.--e. westermarck, _origin and development of the moral ideas_*; e.b. tylor, _contemp. rev._ xxi-ii; l.t. hobhouse, _morals in evolution_; a. sutherland, _origin and growth of the moral instinct_. miscellaneous.--language: e.j. payne, _history of the new world called america_,* vol. ii. art: y. hirn, _origins of art_.* economics: p.j.h. grierson, _the silent trade_. b. descriptive australia.--b. spencer and f.j. gillen, _native tribes of central australia_,* _northern tribes of central australia_; a.w. howitt, _native tribes of south-east australia_*; j. woods (and others), _native tribes of south australia_; l. fison and a.w. howitt, _kamilaroi and kurnai_; h. ling roth, _aborigines of tasmania_. oceania and indonesia.--r.h. codrington, _the melanesians_*; b.h. thompson, _the fijians_; a.c. haddon (and others), _report of cambridge expedition to torres straits_; c.g. seligmann (for new guinea); g. turner, w. ellis, e. shortland, r. taylor (for polynesia); a.r. wallace, _malay archipelago_; c. hose and w. mcdougall (for indonesia). asia.--j.j.m. de groot, _the religious system of china_; w.h.r. rivers, _the todas_*; and a host of other good authorities for india, _e.g._ sir h.h. risley, e. thurston, w. crooke, t.c. hodson, p.r.t. gurdon, c.g. and b.z. seligmann (veddas of ceylon); e.h. man, _journ. r. anthrop. instit._ xii (andamanese); w. skeat (for malay peninsula). africa.--south: h. callaway, e. casalis, j. maclean, d. kidd. east: a.c. hollis, j. roscoe, w.s. and k. routledge, a. werner. west: m.h. kingsley, a.b. ellis. madagascar: w. ellis. america.--a vast number of important works, see esp. _smithsonian institution_, _reports of the bureau of ethnology_ (j.w. powell, f. boas, f. cushing, a.c. fletcher, m.c. stevenson, j.r. swanton, c. mindeleff, s. powers, j. mooney, j.o. dorsey, w.j. hoffman, w.j. mcgee, etc.); l.h. morgan (on iroquois), j. teit, c. hill tout; c. lumholtz, _unknown mexico_; sir e. im thurn, _among the indians of guiana_. europe.--ancient: l.r. farnell, _cults of the greek states_; j.e. harrison, _prolegomena to greek religion_; w. warde fowler, _religious experience of the roman people_; _anthropology and the classics_, etc. modern: g.f. abbott, c. lawson (to compare modern with ancient), folk-lore society's publications, etc. c. subsidiary c. darwin, _descent of man_ (part i); w. bagehot, _physics and politics_*; w. james, _varieties of religious experience_*; w. mcdougall, _introduction to social psychology_.* and in this series geddes and thomson, newbigin, myres, mcdougall, keith. index adultery, 195 africans, 41, 100, 118, 127, 158, 193, 194, 195, 199 age-grades, 176 alpine race, 106 altamira, 52 americans, 40, 97, 100, 110-114, 124, 128, 133, 138-147, 157, 163, 174, 192, 199 andamanese, 160, 188, 193 anglo-saxons, 193 animatism, 230 animism, 228, 230 anthropo-geography, 23, 84, 95-101, 115, 129 anthropoid apes, 23, 37, 76-79, 81, 84, 111, 115, 117 anthropology, 7-30, 186, 204, 227, 242, 244 asiatics, 37, 59, 82, 99, 105-111, 114-118, 120-122, 128, 132, 133, 142, 150, 160-162, 183, 188, 194, 216-219 athapascan languages, 112 atlantic phase of culture, 102 aurignac, 48 australians, 39, 49, 51, 52, 54, 118, 120, 127, 147, 157, 162, 167, 174, 190, 191, 198, 207, 219-227, 231, 244-250 bagehot, w., 84, 185, 187, 201 baiame, 249, 250 balfour, h., 40 basque language, 55, 132, 134 biology, 10, 13 bison, 49, 51, 79, 100 blood-revenge, 189-194 boas, f., 75, 85 borneo, 101, 184 brandon, 56, 59 bronze-age, 32, 55, 107 bull-roarer, 125-128, 207, 226, 231 burial, 35, 79, 177, 202, 206, 248 bushmen, 39, 81, 87, 108, 119, 126, 160 butler, s., 66 buzz, 128 calaveras skull, 40 cannibalism, 37 cartailhac, e., 34 carthage, 105 caste, 144, 179 cave-paintings, 21, 47-53, 221 chelles, 77 china, 106, 108, 115, 142 chukchis, 110 clan, 161, 171, 175, 189, 197, 203 class (matrimonial), 172 climate, 83-86, 101, 103, 117, 156 cogul, 53 collective responsibility, 189, 192 colour, 82-86 commont, v., 33 confederacy, 174 consanguinity, 163 conservatism of savage, 113, 124, 183, 184, 213, 245 counting, 25, 148, 150 cranial index, 74 cranz, d., 191 creswell crags, 47 cro-magnon, 80 custom, 38, 183-187, 213-215, 223, 227, 238, 245, 247 dahomey, 158, 194 dairy-ritual, 216-219 daramulun, 207, 226, 249 darwin, c., 8-11, 22, 64, 65, 69, 132, 157 demolins, e., 98, 111 differential evolution, 121 dog, 118 dubois, e., 76 duel, 191, 195, 198 egypt, 102, 105, 107, 115 endogamy, 165, 173 environment, 69, 70, 75, 93, 94-129 eoliths, 41-48 eskimo, 39, 111, 190, 191 eugenics, 63, 70, 93, 95 eurasian region, 106-110 europeans, 33-59, 75, 77-82, 93, 102-105, 108, 109, 124, 126, 127, 133, 185, 193, 202, 230, 241 evans, sir j., 42, 124 evolution, 7-12, 14, 22, 61-72, 136, 205 exogamy, 159, 161-165, 168, 169, 172, 173, 220 experimental psychology, 23, 88 family, 159, 160, 164, 171, 178, 196 family jurisdiction, 196 flint-mining, 56, 57 folk-lore, 186, 210 frazer, j.g., 163, 172, 200 freedom, 130, 154, 181, 185, 238, 241 fuegians, 138-140, 145 galley hill skull, 46, 80 gargas, 47-50 genealogical method, 147 gesture-language, 134, 149 ghosts, 229, 230, 248 gibraltar skull, 78 greece, 127, 157, 172, 185, 241 greenwell, w., 56 grime's graves, 56 haddon, a.h., 88, 127 haeckel, e., 118 hand-prints, 49 harrison, b., 41, 44 head-form, 73-82, 107 head-hunting, 185 heidelberg mandible, 77 history, 11, 13-15, 30, 97, 156, 227, 242 hittites, 107 hobhouse, l.t., 160 holophrase, 140-152, 239 horse, 37, 50, 100, 108 howitt, a.w., 163, 231, 246 humility, 212 ice-age, 21, 33, 36, 38, 46, 106, 112, 132 icklingham, 38 imagination, 28, 213, 223, 234 incest, 189, 200 india, 115 individuality, 29, 241-250 indo-european languages, 133 indonesia, 116, 118, 121, 184 initiation, 127, 174, 176, 211, 224-227, 246-250 instinct, 23, 68, 71, 89-91 intichiuma ceremonies, 51, 167, 220-223 iron-age, 40, 119 jacks, l.p., 246 james, w., 247 jersey, 32, 36, 45, 243 kellor, f.a., 91 kent's cavern, 46 kingship, 194, 195, 200, 202 kinship, 163, 177 knappers, 57, 58 koryaks, 110 la chapelle-aux-saints, 79 lamarck, j.b., 64, 65 la naulette mandible, 78 lang, a., 187, 226 language, 24, 130-152 lapps, 110 law, 26, 181-203 lecky, t., 102 le moustier, 38, 45-47, 79 le play, f., 98 levy-bruhl, l., 138 lineage, 165, 168 lloyd morgan, c., 238 local association, 177 luck, 167, 200, 213, 215 mcdougall, w., 90 madagascar, 114, 158 magic, 27, 51, 177, 202, 208-210, 224, 245, 247 malaya, 114, 122, 126 malthus, t., 69, 157 mammoth, 37, 78, 111, 132 man, e.h., 188, 198 mas d'azil, 54 masks, 53 matriarchate, 166 matrilineal, matrilocal, matripotestal, 165, 196 medicine-man, 246-250 mediterranean race, 104, 109, 119 melanesians, 116, 121, 128 mendelism, 67 mentone, 35 military discipline, 192, 199 miscegenation, 93 mob-psychology, 92, 201, 239-241 moieties, 175 morality, 29, 235-241 mother-right, 166, 169, 197 myres, j.l., 102 nation, 174 natural selection, 68-71, 84 nature, 15, 82, 155, 211, 230 neanderthal race, 37, 39, 77-81, 87, 120, 206 negative rites, 216-219, 234 negritos, 81, 116-118, 120, 160, 188 negro race, 80, 91, 116, 120 neolithic age, 40, 53-59, 81, 104, 109 niaux, 50-53 nordic race, 109 ordeal, 191, 195 pacation, 192, 195 painted pebbles, 54 palaeolithic age, 40, 43-54, 108, 124 papuasians, 116 patagonians, 114 patrilineal, patrilocal, patripotestal, 165, 196 payne, e.j., 138 persecuting tendency, 187 perthes, boucher de, 43 phantasm, 229 philosophy, 15-17, 72, 154, 223 phratry, 172 pictographs, 51 pithecanthropus erectus, 76, 115 policy, 17-19 polynesians, 121, 128, 183, 194 positive rites, 219-224, 234 pottery, 33, 55 pre-dravidians, 120 pre-historic chronology, 34 pre-history, 21, 31, 97, 111 pre-natal environment, 94 prestwich, sir j., 42 profane vessels, 217 property, 179, 192, 195, 198 proto-history, 31, 97 quartz crystals, 248-250 race, 22, 59-94, 96, 99 ratzel, f., 98 reincarnation, 167, 221, 224 reindeer, 37, 55, 78, 106, 110 religion, 27, 49, 127, 166-168, 204-235, 246-250 ridgeway, w., 107 rites, 212, 219-224, 234 river-phase of culture, 102 rivers, w.h.r., 147, 216, 219 rutot, a., 41, 46 sacramental meal, 222 sacredness, 28, 52, 127, 168, 203, 213, 217, 218, 224, 226 st. acheul, 33, 45, 46 sanction, 195, 203 savagery, 11, 158 science, 12-15 secret societies, 177 seligmann, c.g. and b.z., 161, 243 sex-totems, 176 shaw, b., 66 slander, 198 slavery, 179 smith, w. robertson, 213 snare, f., 57 social organization, 24-26, 152-181 solutre, 47, 108 spear-thrower, 231 spencer, b., and gillen, f.j., 39, 163, 175, 220, 244 spirit, 228, 229 steinmetz, s.r., 197 stratigraphical method, 31-36 suggestion, 233-235, 237-240 survivals, 186 sutherland, a., 157 sympathetic magic, 126, 233 synnomic phase of society 236 syntelic phase of society, 236 taboo, 200-203, 215, 218 tasmanians, 39-44 thames gravels, 38-44, 46 theft, 198 todas, 210-219 torres straits, 88 totemism, 160, 166-168, 175, 189, 220-223, 250 tribe, 173 tylor, e.b., 184, 228-230 use-inheritance, 64, 93 variation, 66-68 veddas, 120, 160, 243 wallace, a.r., 69, 118, 184 wealden dome, 43 weismann, a., 65, 66 westermarck, e., 235 witchcraft, 202, 210 the home university library _of modern knowledge_ is made up of absolutely new books by leading authorities. the editors are _professors gilbert murray_, _h.a.l. fisher_, _w.t. brewster_, _and j. arthur thomson_. cloth bound, good paper, clear type, 256 pages per volume, bibliographies, indices, also maps or illustrations where needed. each complete and sold separately. 50c. per volume american history [_order number_] 47. the colonial period (1607-1766). by charles mclean andrews, professor of american history, yale. the fascinating history of the two hundred years of "colonial times." 82. the wars between england and america (1763-1815). by theodore c. smith, professor of american history, williams college. a history of the period, with especial emphasis on the revolution and the war of 1812. 67. from jefferson to lincoln (1815-1860). by william macdonald, professor of history, brown university. the author makes the history of this period circulate about constitutional ideas and slavery sentiment. 25. the civil war (1854-1865). by frederic l. paxson, professor of american history, university of wisconsin. 39. reconstruction and union (1865-1912). by paul leland haworth, a history of the united states in our own times. general history and geography 92. the ancient east. by d.g. hogarth, m.a., f.b.a., f.s.a. connects with prof. myres's _dawn of history_ (no. 26) at about 1000 b.c. and reviews the history of assyria, babylon, cilicia, persia and macedon. 94. the navy and sea power. by david hannay, author of _short history of the royal navy_, etc. a brief history of the navies, sea power, and ship growth of all nations, including the rise and decline of america on the sea, and explains the present british supremacy thereon. 78. latin america. by william r. shepherd, professor of history, columbia. with maps. the historical, artistic, and commercial development of the central south american republics. 76. the ocean. a general account of the science of the sea. by sir john murray, k.c.b., naturalist h.m.s. "challenger," 1872-1876, joint author of _the depths of the ocean_, etc. 86. exploration of the alps. by arnold lunn, m.a. 72. germany of to-day. by charles tower. 57. napoleon. by h.a.l. fisher, vice-chancellor of sheffield university. author of _the republican tradition in europe_, etc. 26. the dawn of history. by j.l. myres, professor of ancient history, oxford. 30. rome. by w. warde fowler, author of _social life at rome_, etc. "a masterly sketch of roman character and what it did for the world."--_london spectator_. 84. the growth of europe. by granville cole, professor of geology, royal college of science, ireland. a study of the geology and physical geography in connection with the political geography. 13. medieval europe. by h.w.c. davis, fellow at balliol college, oxford, author of _charlemagne_, etc. 33. the history of england. by a.f. pollard, professor of english history, university of london. 100. poland. by w. alison phillips, university of dublin. a history with special emphasis upon the polish question of to-day. 95. belgium. by r.c.k. ensor, sometime scholar of balliol college. the geographical, linguistic, historical, artistic, and literary associations. 3. the french revolution. by hilaire belloc. 4. a short history of war and peace. by g.h. perris, author of _russia in revolution_, etc. 20. history of our time (1885-1911). by g.p. gooch. a "moving picture" of the world since 1885. 22. the papacy and modern times. by rev. william barry, d.d., author of _the papal monarchy_, etc. the story of the rise and fall of the temporal power. 8. polar exploration. by dr. w.s. bruce, leader of the "scotia" expedition. emphasizes the results of the expeditions. 18. the opening-up of africa. by sir h.h. johnston. the first living authority on the subject tells how and why the "native races" went to the various parts of africa and summarizes its exploration and colonization. 19. the civilization of china. by h.a. giles, professor of chinese, cambridge. 36. peoples and problems of india. by sir t.w. holderness. "the best small treatise dealing with the range of subjects fairly indicated by the title."--_the dial_. 7. modern geography. by dr. marion newbigin. shows the relation of physical features to living things and to some of the chief institutions of civilization. 51. master mariners. by john r. spears, author of _the history of our navy_, etc. a history of sea craft adventure from the earliest times. social science 91. the negro. by w.e. burghardt dubois, author of _souls of black folks_, etc. a history of the black man in africa, america or wherever else his presence has been or is important. 77. co-partnership and profit sharing. by aneurin williams, chairman, executive committee, international co-operative alliance, etc. explains the various types of co-partnership or profit-sharing, or both, and gives details of the arrangements now in force in many of the great industries. 98. political thought: from herbert spencer to the present day. by ernest barker, m.a. 99. political thought: the utilitarians. from benthan to j.s. mill. by william l. davidson. 79. unemployment. by a.c. pigou, m.a., professor of political economy at cambridge. the meaning, measurement, distribution, and effects of unemployment, its relation to wages, trade fluctuations, and disputes, and some proposals of remedy or relief. 80. common-sense in law. by prof. paul vinogradoff, d.c.l., ll.d. social and legal rules--legal rights and duties--facts and acts in law--legislation--custom--judicial precedents--equity--the law of nature. 49. elements of political economy. by s.j. chapman, professor of political economy and dean of faculty of commerce and administration, university of manchester. 11. the science of wealth. by j.a. hobson, author of _problems of poverty_. a study of the structure and working of the modern business world. 1. parliament. its history, constitution, and practice. by sir courtenay p. ilbert, clerk of the house of commons. 16. liberalism. by prof. l.t. hobhouse, author of _democracy and reaction_. a masterly philosophical and historical review of the subject. 5. the stock exchange. by f.w. hirst, editor of the london _economist_. reveals to the non-financial mind the facts about investment, speculation, and the other terms which the title suggests. 10. the socialist movement. by j. ramsay macdonald, chairman of the british labor party. 28. the evolution of industry. by d.h. macgregor, professor of political economy, university of leeds. an outline of the recent changes that have given us the present conditions of the working classes and the principles involved. 29. elements of english law. by w.m. geldart, vinerian professor of english law, oxford. a simple statement of the basic principles of the english legal system on which that of the united states is based. 32. the school: an introduction to the study of education. by j.j. findlay, professor of education, manchester. presents the history, the psychological basis, and the theory of the school with a rare power of summary and suggestion. 6. irish nationality. by mrs. j.r. green. a brilliant account of the genius and mission of the irish people. natural science 68. disease and its causes. by w.t. councilman, m.d., ll.d., professor of pathology, harvard university. 85. sex. by j. arthur thompson and patrick geddes, joint authors of _the evolution of sex_. 71. plant life. by j.b. farmer, d.sc., f.r.s., professor of botany in the imperial college of science. this very fully illustrated volume contains an account of the salient features of plant form and function. 63. the origin and nature of life. by benjamin m. moore, professor of bio-chemistry, liverpool. 90. chemistry. by raphael meldola, f.r.s., professor of chemistry, finsbury technical college. presents the way in which the science has developed and the stage it has reached. 53. electricity. by gisbert kapp, professor of electrical engineering, university of birmingham. 54. the making of the earth. by. j.w. gregory, professor of geology, glasgow university. 38 maps and figures. describes the origin of the earth, the formation and changes of its surface and structure, its geological history, the first appearance of life, and its influence upon the globe. 56. man: a history of the human body. by a. keith, m.d., hunterian professor, royal college of surgeons. shows how the human body developed. 74. nerves. by david fraser harris, m.d., professor of physiology, dalhousie university, halifax. explains in non-technical language the place and powers of the nervous system. 21. an introduction to science. by prof. j. arthur thomson, science editor of the home university library. for those unacquainted with the scientific volumes in the series, this would prove an excellent introduction. 14. evolution. by prof. j. arthur thomson and prof. patrick geddes. explains to the layman what the title means to the scientific world. 23. astronomy. by a.r. hinks, chief assistant at the cambridge observatory. "decidedly original in substance, and the most readable and informative little book on modern astronomy we have seen for a long time."--_nature_. 24. psychical research. by prof. w.f. barrett, formerly president of the society for psychical research. a strictly scientific examination. 9. the evolution of plants. by dr. d.h. scott, president of the linnean society of london. the story of the development of flowering plants, from the earliest zoological times, unlocked from technical language. 43. matter and energy. by f. soddy, lecturer in physical chemistry and radioactivity, university of glasgow. "brilliant. can hardly be surpassed. sure to attract attention."--_new york sun_. 41. psychology, the study of behaviour. by william mcdougall, of oxford. a well digested summary of the essentials of the science put in excellent literary form by a leading authority. 42. the principles of physiology. by prof. j.g. mckendrick. a compact statement by the emeritus professor at glasgow, for uninstructed readers. 37. anthropology. by r.r. marett, reader in social anthropology, oxford. seeks to plot out and sum up the general series of changes, bodily and mental, undergone by man in the course of history. "excellent. so enthusiastic, so clear and witty, and so well adapted to the general reader."--_american library association booklist_. 17. crime and insanity. by dr. c.a. mercier, author of _text-book of insanity_, etc. 12. the animal world. by prof. f.w. gamble. 15. introduction to mathematics. by a.n. whitehead, author of _universal algebra_. philosophy and religion 69. a history of freedom of thought. by john b. bury, m.a., ll.d., regius professor of modern history in cambridge university. summarizes the history of the long struggle between authority and reason and of the emergence of the principle that coercion of opinion is a mistake. 55. missions: their rise and development. by mrs. mandell creighton, author of _history of england_. the author seeks to prove that missions have done more to civilize the world than any other human agency. 52. ethics. by g.e. moore, lecturer in moral science, cambridge. discusses what is right and what is wrong, and the whys and wherefores. 65. the literature of the old testament. by george f. moore, professor of the history of religion, harvard university. "a popular work of the highest order. will be profitable to anybody who cares enough about bible study to read a serious book on the subject."--_american journal of theology_ 50. the making of the new testament. by b.w. bacon, professor of new testament criticism, yale. an authoritative summary of the results of modern critical research with regard to the origins of the new testament. 96. a history of philosophy. by clement c.j. webb, oxford. 35. the problems of philosophy. by bertrand russell, lecturer and late fellow, trinity college, cambridge. 44. buddhism. by mrs. rhys davids, lecturer on indian philosophy, manchester. 46. english sects: a history of nonconformity. by w.b. selbie, principal of manchester college, oxford. 60. comparative religion. by prof. j. estlin carpenter. 88. religious development between old and new testaments. by r.h. charles, canon of westminster. shows how religious and ethical thought grew between 180 b.c. and 100 a.d. literature and art 73. euripides and his age. by gilbert murray, regius professor of greek, oxford. 81. chaucer and his times. by grace e. hadow, lecturer lady margaret hall, oxford; late reader, bryn mawr. 70. ancient art and ritual. by jane e. harrison, ll.d., d.litt. "one of the 100 most important books of 1913."--_new york times review_. 61. the victorian age in literature. by g.k. chesterton. 97. milton. by john bailey. 59. dr. johnson and his circle. by john bailey. johnson's life, character, works, and friendships are surveyed; and there is a notable vindication of the "genius of boswell." 58. the newspaper. by g. binney dibble. the first full account, from the inside, of newspaper organization as it exists to-day. 62. painters and painting. by sir frederic wedmore. with 16 half-tone illustration. 64. the literature of germany. by j.g. robertson. 48. great writers of america. by w.p. trent and john erskine, of columbia university. 87. the renaissance. by edith sichel, author of _catherine de medici, men and women of the french renaissance_. 101. dante. by jefferson b. fletcher, columbia university, an interpretation of dante and his teachings from his writings. 93. an outline of russian literature. by maurice baring, author of _the russian people_, etc. tolstoi, tourgenieff, dostoieffsky, pushkin (the father of russian literature), saltykov (the satirist), leskov, and many other authors. 40. the english language. by l.p. smith. a concise history of its origin and development. 45. medieval english literature. by w.p. ker, professor of english literature, university college, london. "one of the soundest scholars. his style is effective, simple, yet never dry."--_the athenaeum_. 89. elizabethan literature. by j.m. robertson, m.p., author of _montaigne and shakespeare, modern humanists_. 27. modern english literature. by g.h. mair. from wyatt and surrey to synge and yeats. "one of the best of this great series."--_chicago evening post_. 2. shakespeare. by john masefield. "one of the very few indispensable adjuncts to a shakespearean library."--_boston transcript_. 31. landmarks in french literature. by g.l. strachey, scholar of trinity college, cambridge. "it is difficult to imagine how a better account of french literature could be given in 250 pages."--_london times_. 38. architecture. by prof. w.r. lethaby. an introduction to the history and theory of the art of building. 66. writing english prose. by william t. brewster, professor of english, columbia university. "should be put into the hands of every man who is beginning to write and of every teacher of english that has brains enough to understand sense."--_new york sun_. 83. william morris: his work and influence. by a. clutton brock, author of _shelley: the man and the poet_. william morris believed that the artist should toil for love of his work rather than the gain of his employer, and so he turned from making works of art to remaking society. 75. shelley, godwin and their circle. by h.n. brailsford. the influence of the french revolution on england. other volumes in preparation henry holt and company 34 west 33d street new york proofreading team. towards the great peace by ralph adams cram, litt.d., ll.d. 1922 introduction for the course of lectures i am privileged to deliver at this time, i desire to take, in some sense as a text, a prayer that came to my attention at the outset of my preparatory work. it is adapted from a prayer by bishop hacket who flourished about the middle of the seventeenth century, and is as follows: _lord, lift us out of private-mindedness and give us public souls to work for thy kingdom by daily creating that atmosphere of a happy temper and generous heart which alone can bring the great peace._ each thought in this noble aspiration is curiously applicable to each one of us in the times in which we fall: the supersession of narrow and selfish and egotistical "private-mindedness" by a vital passion for the winning of a kingdom of righteousness consonant with the revealed will of god; the lifting of souls from nervous introspection to a height where they become indeed "public souls"; the accomplishing of the kingdom not by great engines of mechanical power but by the daily offices of every individual; the substitution in place of current hatred, fear and jealous covetousness, of the unhappy temper and "generous heart" which are the only fruitful agencies of accomplishment. finally, the "great peace" as the supreme object of thought and act and aspiration for us, and for all the world, at this time of crisis which has culminated through the antithesis of great peace, which is great war. i have tried to keep this prayer of bishop hacket's before me during the preparation of these lectures. i cannot claim that i have succeeded in achieving a "happy temper" in all things, but i honestly claim that i have striven earnestly for the "generous heart," even when forced, by what seem to me the necessities of the case, to indulge in condemnation or to bring forward subjects which can only be controversial. if the "great war," and the greater war which preceded, comprehended, and followed it, were the result of many and varied errors, it matters little whether these were the result of perversity, bad judgment or the most generous impulses. as they resulted in the great war, so they are a detriment to the great peace that must follow, and therefore they must be cast away. consciousness of sin, repentance, and a will to do better, must precede the act of amendment, and we must see where we have erred if we are to forsake our ill ways and make an honest effort to strive for something better. for every failure i have made to achieve either a happy temper or a generous heart, i hereby express my regret, and tender my apologies in advance. contents lecture introduction i. a world at the crossroads ii. a working philosophy iii. the social organism iv. the industrial problem v. the political organization of society vi. the function of education and art vii. the problem of organic religion viii. personal responsibility appendix a appendix b towards the great peace i a world at the crossroads for two thousand years christianity has been an operative force in the world; for more than a century democracy has been the controlling influence in the public affairs of europe and the americas; for two generations education, free, general and comprehensive, has been the rule in the west. wealth incomparable, scientific achievements unexampled in their number and magnitude, facile means of swift intercommunication between peoples, have all worked together towards an earthly realization of the early nineteenth-century dream of proximate and unescapable millennium. with the opening of the second decade of the twentieth century it seemed that the stage was set for the last act in an unquestioned evolutionary drama. man was master of all things, and the failures of the past were obliterated by the glory of the imminent event. the great war was a progressive revelation and disillusionment. therein, everything so carefully built up during the preceding four centuries was tried as by fire, and each failed--save the indestructible qualities of personal honour, courage and fortitude. nothing corporate, whether secular or ecclesiastical, endured the test, nothing of government or administration, of science or industry, of philosophy or religion. the victories were those of individual character, the things that stood the test were not things but _men._ the "war to end war," the war "to make the world safe for democracy" came to a formal ending, and for a few hours the world gazed spellbound on golden hopes. greater than the disillusionment of war was that of the making of the peace. there had never been a war, not even the "thirty years' war" in germany, the "hundred years' war" in france or the wars of napoleon, that was fraught with more horror, devastation and dishonour; there had never been a peace, not even those of berlin, vienna and westphalia, more cynical or more deeply infected with the poison of ultimate disaster. and here it was not things that failed, but _men._ what of the world since the peace of versailles? hatred, suspicion, selfishness are the dominant notes. the nations of europe are bankrupt financially, and the governments of the world are bankrupt politically. society is dissolving into classes and factions, either at open war or manoeuvering for position, awaiting the favourable moment. law and order are mocked at, philosophy and religion disregarded, and of all the varied objects of human veneration so loudly acclaimed and loftily exalted by the generation that preceded the war, not one remains to command a wide allegiance. one might put it in a sentence and say that everyone is dissatisfied with everything, and is showing his feelings after varied but disquieting fashion. it is a condition of unstable equilibrium constantly tending by its very nature to a point where dissolution is apparently inevitable. it is no part of my task to elaborate this thesis, and still less to magnify its perils. enough has been said and written on this subject during the last two years; more than enough, perhaps, and in any case no thinking person is unaware of the conditions that exist, whatever may be his estimate of their significance, his interpenetration of their tendency. i have set myself the task of trying to suggest some constructive measures that we may employ in laying the foundations for the immediate future; they may be wrong in whole or in part, but at least my object and motive are not recrimination or invective, but regeneration. nevertheless, as a foundation the case must be stated, and as a necessary preparation to any work that looks forward we must have at least a working hypothesis as to how the conditions that need redemption were brought about. i state the case thus, therefore: that human society, even humanity itself, is now in a state of flux that at any moment may change into a chaos comparable only with that which came with the fall of classical civilization and from which five centuries were necessary for the process of recovery. christianity, democracy, science, education, wealth, and the cumulative inheritance of a thousand years, have not preserved us from the vain repetition of history. how has this been possible, what has been the sequence of events that has brought us to this pass? it is of course the result of the interaction of certain physical, material facts and certain spiritual forces. out of these spiritual energies come events, phenomena that manifest themselves in political, social, ecclesiastical transactions and institutions; in wars, migrations and the reshaping of states; in codes of law, the organization of society, the development of art, literature and science. in their turn all these concrete products work on the minds and souls of men, modifying old spiritual impulses either by exaltation or degradation, bringing new ones into play; and again these react on the material fabric of human life, causing new combinations, unloosing new forces, that in their turn play their part in the eternal process of building, unbuilding and rebuilding our unstable and fluctuant world. underlying all the varied material forms of ancient society, as this developed around the shores of the mediterranean, was the great fact of slavery: persia, assyria, babylonia, egypt, greece, rome, all were small, sometimes very small, minorities of highly developed, highly privileged individuals existing on a great sub-stratum of slaves. all the vast contributions of antiquity in government and law, in science, letters, art and philosophy, all the building of the culture and civilization that still remain the foundation stones of human society, was the work of the few free subsisting on the many un-free. but freedom, liberty, is an attribute of the soul and it may exist even when the body is in bondage. the slaves of antiquity were free neither in body nor in soul, but with the coming of christianity all this was changed, for it is one of the great glories of the christian religion that it gave freedom to the soul even before the church could give freedom to the body of the slave. after the fall of the roman empire, and with the infiltration of the free races of the north, slavery gradually disappeared, and between the years 1000 and 1500 a very real liberty existed as the product of christianity and under its protection. society was hierarchical: from the serf up through the peasant, the guildsman, the burgher, the knighthood, the nobles, to the king, and so to the emperor, there was a regular succession of graduations, but the lines of demarcation were fluid and easily passed, and as through the church, the schools and the cloister there was an open road for the son of a peasant to achieve the papacy, so through the guilds, chivalry, war and the court, the layman, if he possessed ability, might from an humble beginning travel far. an epoch of real liberty, of body, soul and mind, and the more real in that limits, differences and degrees were recognized, accepted and enforced. this condition existed roughly for five centuries in its swift rise, its long dominion and its slow decline, that is to say, from 1000 a.d. to 1500 a.d. there was still the traditional aristocracy, now feudal rather than patriarchal or military; there was still a servile class, now reduced to a small minority. in between was the great body of men of a degree of character, ability and intelligence, and with a recognized status, the like of which had never been seen before. it was not a bourgeoisie, for it was made up of producers,--agricultural, artisan, craft, art, mechanic; a great free society, the proudest product of christian civilization. with the sixteenth century began a process of change that was to overturn all this and bring in something radically different. the renaissance and the reformation worked in a sense together to build up their own expressive form of society, and when this process had been completed we find still an aristocracy, though rapidly changing in the quality of its personnel and in the sense of its relationship to the rest of society; a servile class, the proletariat, enormously increased in proportion to the other social components; and two new classes, one the bourgeoisie, essentially non-producers and subsisting largely either on trade, usury or management, and the pauper, a phase of life hitherto little known under the christian regime. the great body of free citizens that had made up the majority of society during the preceding epoch, the small land-holders, citizens, craftsmen and artists of fifty different sorts, has begun rapidly to dissolve, has almost vanished by the middle of the seventeenth century, and in another hundred years has practically disappeared. what had become of them, of this great bulk of the population of western europe that, with the feudal aristocracy, the knighthood and the monks had made mediaevalism? some had degenerated into bourgeois traders, managers and financeers, but the great majority had been crushed down and down in the mass of submerged proletariat, losing liberty, degenerating in character, becoming more and more servile in status and wretched in estate, so forming a huge, inarticulate, dully ebullient mass, cut off from society, cut off almost from life itself. i must insist on these three factors in the development of society and its present catastrophe: the great, predominant, central body of free men during the middle ages, their supersession during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by a non-producing bourgeoisie, and the creation during the same period of a submerged proletariat. they are factors of great significance and potential force. towards the end of the eighteenth century the industrial-financial revolution began. within the space of an hundred years came all the revelations of the potential inherent in thermo-dynamics and electricity, and the invention of the machines that have changed the world. during the renaissance and reformation the old social and economic systems, so laboriously built up on the ruins of roman tyranny, had been destroyed; autocracy had abolished liberty, licentiousness had wrecked the moral stamina, "freedom of conscience" had obliterated the guiding and restraining power of the old religion. the field was clear for a new dispensation. what happened was interesting and significant. coal and iron, and their derivatives--steam and machinery--rapidly revealed their possibilities. to take advantage of these, it was necessary that labour should be available in large quantities and freely subject to exploitation; that unlimited capital should be forthcoming; that adequate markets should be discovered or created to absorb the surplus product, so enormously greater than the normal demand; and finally, it was necessary that directors and organizers and administrators should be ready at the call. the conditions of the time made all these possible. the land-holding peasantry of england--and it is here that the revolution was accomplished--had been largely dispossessed and pauperized under henry viii, edward vi and elizabeth, while the development of the wool-growing industry had restricted the arable land to a point where it no longer gave employment to the mass of field labourers. the first blast of factory production threw out of work the whole body of cottage weavers, smiths, craftsmen; and the result was a great mass of men, women, and children without defense, void of all rights, and given the alternative of submission to the dominance of the exploiters, or starvation. without capital the new industry could neither begin nor continue. the exploits of the "joint-stock companies" invented and perfected in the eighteenth century, showed how this capital could easily be obtained, while the paralyzing and dismemberment of the church during the reformation had resulted in the abrogation of the old ecclesiastical inhibition against usury. the necessary capital was forthcoming, and the foundations were laid for the great system of finance which was one of the triumphant achievements of the last century. the question of markets was more difficult. it was clear that, through machinery, the exploitation of labour, and the manipulations of finance, the product would be enormously greater than the local or national demand. until they themselves developed their own industrial system, the other nations of europe were available, but as this process proceeded other markets had to be found; the result was achieved through advertising, i.e., the stimulating in the minds of the general public of a covetousness for something they had not known of and did not need, and the exploiting of barbarous or undeveloped races in asia, africa, oceanica. this last task was easily achieved through "peaceful penetration" and the preëmpting of "spheres of influence." in the end (i.e., a.d. 1914), the whole world had so been divided, the stimulated markets showed signs of repletion, and since exaggerated profits meant increasing capital demanding investment, and the improvement in "labour-saving" devices continued unchecked, the contest for others' markets became acute, and world-politic was concentrated on the vital problem of markets, lines of communication, and tariffs. as for the finding or development of competent organizers and directors, the history of the world since the end of medievalism had curiously provided for this after a fashion that seemed almost miraculous. the type required was different from anything that had been developed before. whenever the qualitative standard had been operative, it was necessary that the leaders in any form of creative action should be men of highly developed intellect, fine sensibility, wide and penetrating vision, nobility of instinct, passion for righteousness, and a consciousness of the eternal force of charity, honour, and service. during the imperial or decadent stages, courage, dynamic force, the passion for adventure, unscrupulousness in the matter of method, took the place of the qualities that marked the earlier periods. in the first instance the result was the great law-givers, philosophers, prophets, religious leaders, and artists of every sort; in the second, the great conquerors. something quite different was now demanded--men who possessed some of the qualities needed for the development of imperialism, but who were unhampered by the restrictive influences of those who had sought perfection. to organize and administer the new industrial-financial-commercial régime, the leaders must be shrewd, ingenious, quick-witted, thick-skinned, unscrupulous, hard-headed, and avaricious; yet daring, dominating, and gifted with keen prevision and vivid imagination. these qualities had not been bred under any of the mediterranean civilizations, or that of central europe in the middle ages, which had inherited so much therefrom. the pursuit of perfection always implies a definite aristocracy, which is as much a goal of effort as a noble philosophy, an august civil polity or a great art. this aristocracy was an accepted and indispensable part of society, and it was always more or less the same in principle, and always the centre and source of leadership, without which society cannot endure. it is true that at the hands of christianity it acquired a new quality, that of service as contingent on privilege--one might almost say of privilege as contingent on service--and the ideals of honour, chivalry, compassion were established as its object and method of operation even though these were not always achieved, but the result was not a new creation; it was an institution as old as society, regenerated and transformed and playing a greater and a nobler part than ever before. between the years 1455 and 1795 this old aristocracy was largely exterminated. the wars of the roses, the massacres of the reformation, and the civil wars in england; the thirty years' war in germany; the hundred years' war, the wars of religion, and the revolution in france had decimated the families old in honour, preserving the tradition of culture, jealous of their alliances and their breeding--the natural and actual leaders in thought and action. england suffered badly enough as the result of war, with the persecutions of henry viii, edward vi and elizabeth, and the black death, included for full measure. france suffered also, but germany fared worst of all. by the end of the thirty years' war the older feudal nobility had largely disappeared, while the class of "gentlemen" had been almost exterminated. in france, until the fall of napoleon iii, and in germany and great britain up to the present moment, the recruiting of the formal aristocracy has gone on steadily, but on a different basis and from a different class from anything known before. demonstrated personal ability to gain and maintain leadership; distinguished service to the nation in war or statecraft; courage, honour, fealty--these, in general, had been the ground for admission to the ranks of the aristocracy. in general, also, advancement to the ranks of the higher nobility was from the class of "gentlemen," though the church, the universities, and chivalry gave, during the middle ages, wide opportunity for personal merit to achieve the highest honours. through the wholesale destruction of the representatives of a class that from the beginning of history had been the directing and creative force in civilization, a process began which was almost mechanical. as the upper strata of society were planed off by war, pestilence, civil slaughter, and assassination, the pressure on the great mass of men (peasants, serfs, unskilled labourers, the so-called "lower classes") was increasingly relaxed, and very soon the thin film of aristocracy, further weakened by dilution, broke, and through the crumbling shell burst to the surface those who had behind them no tradition but that of servility, no comprehension of the ideals of chivalry and honour of the gentleman, no stored-up results of education and culture, but only an age-long rage against the age-long dominating class, together with the instincts of craftiness, parsimony, and almost savage self-interest. as a class, it was very far from being what it was under the roman empire; on the other hand, it was equally removed from what it was during the middle ages in england, france and the rhineland. under mediaevalism chattel slavery had disappeared, and the lot of the peasant was a happier one than he had known before. he had achieved definite status, and the line that separated him from the gentry was very thin and constantly traversed, thanks to the accepted system of land tenure, the guilds, chivalry, the schools and universities, the priesthood and monasticism. the renaissance had rapidly changed all this, however; absolutism in government, dispossession of land, the abolition of the guilds, and the collapse of the moral order and of the dominance of the church, were fast pushing the peasant back into the position he had held under the roman empire, and from which christianity had lifted him. by 1790 he had been for nearly three centuries under a progressive oppression that had undone nearly all the beneficent work of the middle ages and made the peasant class practically outlaw, while breaking down its character, degrading its morals, increasing its ignorance, and building up a sullen rage and an invincible hatred of all that stood visible as law and order in the persons of the ruling class. filtering through the impoverished and diluted crust of a dissolving aristocracy, came this irruption from below. in their own persons certain of these people possessed the qualities and the will which were imperative for the organization of the industry, the trade, and the finance that were to control the world for four generations, and produce that industrial civilization which is the basis and the energizing force of modernism. immediately, and with conspicuous ability, they took hold of the problem, solved its difficulties, developed its possibilities, and by the end of the nineteenth century had made it master of the world. simultaneously an equal revolution and reversal was being effected in government. the free monarchies of the middle ages, beneath which lay the well recognized principle that no authority, human or divine, could give any monarch the right to govern wrong, and that there was such a thing (frequently exercised) as lawful rebellion, gave place to the absolutism and autocracy of renaissance kingship and this, which was fostered both by renaissance and reformation, became at once the ally of the new forces in society and so furthered the growth as well as the misery and the degradation of the proletariat. in revolt against this new and very evil thing came the republicanism of the eighteenth century, inspired and directed in large measure by members of the fast perishing aristocracy of race, character and tradition. it was a splendid uprising against tyranny and oppression and is best expressed in the personalities and the actions of the constitutional convention of the united states in 1787 and the states general of france in 1789. the movement is not to be confounded with another that synchronizes with it, that is to say, democracy, for the two things are radically different in their antecedents, their protagonists, their modes of operation and their objects. while the one was the aspiration and the creation of the more enlightened and cultured, the representatives of the old aristocracy, the other issued out of the same _milieu_ that was responsible for the new social organism. that is to say; while certain of the more shrewd and ingenious were organizing trade, manufacture and finance and developing its autocratic and imperialistic possibilities at the expense of the great mass of their blood-brothers, others of the same social antecedents were devising a new theory, and experimenting in new schemes, of government, which would take all power away from the class that had hitherto exercised it and fix it firmly in the hands of the emancipated proletariat. this new model was called then, and is called now, democracy. elsewhere i have tried to distinguish between democracy of theory and democracy of method. perhaps i should have used a more lucid nomenclature if i had simply distinguished between republicanism and democracy, for this is what it amounts to. the former is as old as man, and is part of the "passion for perfection" that characterizes all crescent society, and is indeed the chief difference between brute and human nature; it means the guaranteeing of justice, and may be described as consisting of abolition of privilege, equality of opportunity, and utilization of ability. democracy of method consists in a variable and uncertain sequence of devices which are supposed to achieve the democracy of ideal, but as a matter of fact have thus far usually worked in the opposite direction. the activity of this movement synchronizes with the pressing upward of the "the masses" through the dissolving crust of "the classes," and represents their contribution to the science of political philosophy, as the contribution of the latter is current "political economy." it will be perceived that the reaction of the new social force in the case of industrial organization is fundamentally opposed to that which occurred in the political sphere. the one is working steadily towards an autocratic imperialism and the "servile state," the other towards the fluctuating, incoherent control of the making and administering of laws by the untrained, the uncultivated, and the generally unfit, the issue of which is anarchy. the industrial-commercial-financial oligarchy that dominated society for the century preceding the great war is the result of the first; russia, today, is an exemplar of the second. the working out of these two great devices of the new force released by the destructive processes of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, simultaneously though in apparent opposition, explains why, when the war broke out, imperialism and democracy synchronized so exactly: on the one hand, imperial states, industry, commerce, and finance; on the other, a swiftly accelerating democratic system that was at the same time the effective means whereby the dominant imperialism worked, and the omnipresent and increasing threat to its further continuance. a full century elapsed before victory became secure, or even proximate. republicanism rapidly extended itself to all the governments of western europe, but it could not maintain itself in its primal integrity. sooner here, later there, it surrendered to the financial, industrial, commercial forces that were taking over the control and direction of society, becoming partners with them and following their aims, conniving at their schemes, and sharing in their ever-increasing profits. by the end of the first decade of the twentieth century these supposedly "free" governments had become as identified with "special privilege," and as widely severed from the people as a whole, as the autocratic governments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while they failed consistently to match them in effectiveness, energy and efficiency of operation. for this latter condition democracy was measurably responsible. for fifty years it had been slowly filtering into the moribund republican system until at last, during the same first decade of the present century, it had wholly transformed the governmental system, making it, whatever its outward form, whether constitutional monarchy, or republic, essentially democratic. so government became shifty, opportunist, incapable, and without the inherent energy to resist, beyond a certain point, the last great effort of the emergent proletariat to destroy, not alone the industrial civilization it justly detested, but the very government it had acquired by "peaceful penetration" and organized and administered along its chosen lines, and indeed the very fabric of society itself. now these two remarkable products of the new mentality of a social force were facts, but they needed an intellectual or philosophical justification just as a low-born profiteer, when he has acquired a certain amount of money, needs an expensive club or a coat of arms to regularize his status. protestantism and materialistic philosophy were joint nursing-mothers to modernism, but when, by the middle of the last century, it had reached man's estate, they proved inadequate; something else was necessary, and this was furnished to admiration by evolutionism. through its doctrine of the survival of the fittest, it appeared to justify in the fullest degree the gospel of force as the final test, and "enlightened self-interest" as the new moral law; through its lucid demonstration of the strictly physical basis of life, the "descent of man" from primordial slime by way of the lemur or the anthropoid ape, and the non-existence of any supernatural power that had devised, or could determine, a code of morality in which certain things were eternal by right, and other than the variable reactions of very highly developed animals to experience and environment, it had given weighty support to the increasingly popular movement towards democracy both in theory and in act. its greatest contribution, however, was its argument that, since the invariable law of life was one of progressive evolution, therefore the acquired characteristics which formed the material of evolution, and were heritable, could be mechanically increased in number by education; hence the body of inheritance (which unfortunately varied as between man and man because of past discrepancies in environment, opportunities, and education) could be equalized by a system of teaching that aimed to furnish that mental and physical training hitherto absent. whether the case was ever so stated in set terms does not matter; very shortly this became the firm conviction of the great mass of men, and the modern democracy of method is based on the belief that all men are equal because they are men, and that free, compulsory, secularized, state-controlled education can and does remove the last difference that made possible any discrimination in rights and privileges as between one man and another. in another respect, however, the superstition of mechanical evolution played an important part, and with serious results. neither the prophets nor the camp-followers seemed to realize that evolution, while undoubtedly a law of life within certain limits, was inseparable from degradation which was its concomitant, that is to say, that as the rocket rises so must it fall; as man is conceived, born and matures, even so must he die. the wave rises, but falls again; the state waxes to greatness, wanes, and the map knows it no more; each epoch of human history arises out of dim beginnings, magnifies itself in glory, and then yields to internal corruption, dilution and adulteration of blood, or prodigal dissipation of spiritual force, and takes its place in the annals of ancient history. without recognition of this implacable, unescapable fact of degradation sequent on evolution, the later becomes a delusion and an instrument of death, for the eyes of man are blind to incipient or crescent dangers; content, self-secure, lost in a vain dream of manifest destiny they are deaf to warnings, incapable even of the primary gestures of self-defense. such was one of the results of nineteenth-century evolutionism, and the generation that saw the last years of the nineteenth century and the first part of the new, basking in its day dreams of self-complacency, made no move to avert the dangers that threatened it then and now menace it with destruction. when, therefore, modernism achieved its grand climacteric in july, 1914, we had on the one hand an imperialism of force, in industry, commerce, and finance, expressing itself through highly developed specialists, and dictating the policies and practices of government, society, and education; on the other, a democracy of form which denied, combated, and destroyed distinction in personality and authority in thought, and discouraged constructive leadership in the intellectual, spiritual, and artistic spheres of activity. the opposition was absolute, the results catastrophic. the lack of competent leadership in every category of life finds a sufficient explanation in the two opposed forces, in their origin and nature, and in the fact of their opposition. in the somewhat garish light of the war and the peace, it would not be difficult to feel a real and even poignant sympathy for two causes that were prominent and popular in the first fourteen years of the present century, namely, the philosophy that based itself on a mechanical system of evolution which predicted unescapable, irreversible human progress, and that religion which denied the reality of evil in the world. the plausibility of each was dissipated by the catastrophic events though both still linger in stubborn unconsciousness of their demise. the impulse towards sympathy is mitigated by realization of the unfortunate effect they exerted on history. this is particularly true of evolutionary philosophy, which was held as an article of faith, either consciously or sub-consciously, by the greater part of western society. not only did it deter men from realizing the ominous tendency of events but, more unhappily, it minimized their power to discriminate between what was good and bad in current society, and even reversed their sense of comparative values. if man was indeed progressing steadily from bad to good, and so to better and best, then the vivid and even splendid life of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, with its headlong conquest of the powers of nature, its enormous industrial development, its vast and ever-increasing wealth in material things, must be not only an amazing advance beyond any former civilization but positively good in itself, while the future could only be a progressive magnifying of what then was going on. "just as" to quote mr. chesterton's admirable dr. pelkins, "just as when we see a pig in a litter larger than the other pigs, we know that by an unalterable law of the inscrutable, it will some day be larger than an elephant...so we know and reverently acknowledge that when any power in human politics has shown for any period of time any considerable activity, it will go on until it reaches the sky." nothing but a grave inability to estimate values, based on a pseudo-scientific dogma, can explain the lack of any just standard of comparative values that was the essential quality in pre-war society. extraordinary as were the material achievements of the time, beneficent in certain ways, and susceptible in part of sometime being used to the advantage of humanity, they were largely negatived, and even reversed in value, just because the sense of proportion had been lost. the image which might have stimulated reverence had become a fetish. there were voices crying in the wilderness against a worship that had poisoned into idolatry, but they were unheard. progressively the real things of life were blurred and forgotten and the things that were so obviously real that they were unreal became the object and the measure of achievement. it was an unhappy and almost fatal attitude of mind, and it was engendered not so much by the trend of civilization since the renaissance and reformation, nor by the compulsion and cumulative influence of the things themselves, as by the natural temper and inclinations and the native standards of this emancipated mass of humanity that, oppressed, outraged and degraded for four hundred years had at last burst out of its prison-house and had assumed control of society through industrialism, politics and social life. the saving grace of the old aristocracies had disappeared with the institution itself: between 1875 and 1900 the great single leaders, so fine in character, so brilliant in capacity, so surprising in their numbers, that had given a deceptive glory to the so-called victorian age, had almost wholly died out, and the new conditions neither fostered the development of adequate successors, nor gave audience to the few that, anomalously, appeared. it is not surprising therefore that the new social element that had played so masterly a part in bringing to its perfection the industrial-financial-democratic scheme of life should have developed an apologetic therefor, and imposed it, with all its materialism, its narrowness, its pragmatism, its, at times, grossness and cynicism, on the mind of a society where increasingly their own followers were, by sheer energy and efficiency, acquiring a predominant position. i am not unconscious that these are hard sayings and that few indeed will accept them. they seem too much like attempting that which burke said was impossible, viz., to bring an indictment against a people. i intend nothing of the sort. out of this same body of humanity which _as a whole_ has exerted this very unfavourable influence on modern society, have come and will come personalities of sudden and startling nobility, men who have done as great service as any of their contemporaries whatever their class or status. out of the depths have come those who have ascended to the supreme heights, for since christianity came into the world to free the souls of men, this new liberty has worked without limitations of caste or race. indeed, the very creations of the emergent force, industrialism and democracy, while they were the betrayal of the many were the opportunity of the few, taking the place, as they did, of the older creeds of specifically christian society, and inviting those who would to work their full emancipation and so become the servants of god and mankind. by the very bitterness of their antecedents, the cruelty of their inheritance, they gained a deeper sense of the reality of life, a more just sense of right and wrong, a clearer vision of things as they were, than happened in the case of those who had no such experience of the deep brutality of the regime of post-renaissance society. true as this is, it is also true that for one who won through there were many who gained nothing, and it was, and is, the sheer weight of numbers of those who failed of this that has made their influence on the modern life as pervasive and controlling as it is. what has happened is a certain degradation of character, a weakening of the moral stamina of men, and against this no mechanical device in government, no philosophical or social theory, can stand a chance of successful resistance, while material progress in wealth and trade and scientific achievement becomes simply a contributory force in the process of degeneration. for this degradation of character we are bound to hold this new social force in a measure responsible, even though it has so operated because of its inherent qualities and in no material respect through conscious cynicism or viciousness; indeed it is safe to say that in so far as it was acting consciously it was with good motives, which adds an element of even greater tragedy to a situation already sufficiently depressing. if i am right in holding this to be the effective cause of the situation we have now to meet, it is true that it is by no means the only one. the emancipation and deliverance of the downtrodden masses of men who owed their evil estate to the destruction of the christian society of the middle ages, was a clamourous necessity; it was a slavery as bad in some ways as any that had existed in antiquity, and the number of its victims was greater. the ill results of the accomplished fact was largely due to the condition of religion which existed during the period of emancipation. no society can endure without vital religion, and any revolution effected at a time when religion is moribund or dissipated in contentious fragments, is destined to be evacuated of its ideals and its potential, and to end in disaster. now the freeing of the slaves of the renaissance and the post-reformation, and their absorption in the body politic, was one of the greatest revolutions in history, and it came at a time when religion, which had been one and vital throughout western europe for six centuries, had been shattered and nullified, and its place taken, in the lands that saw the great liberation, by calvinism, lutheranism, puritanism and atheism, none of which could exert a guiding and redemptive influence on the dazed hordes that had at last come up into the light of day. in point of fact, therefore, we are bound to trace back the responsibility for the present crisis even to the reformation itself, as well as to the tyranny and absolutism of government, and the sordid and profligate ordering of society, which followed on the end of mediaevalism. so then we stand today confronting a situation that is ominous and obscure, since the very ideals and devices which we had held were the last word in progressive evolution have failed at the crisis, and because we who created them and have worked through them, have failed in character, and chiefly because we have accepted low ideals and inferior standards imposed upon us by social elements betrayed and abandoned by a world that could not aid them or assimilate them since itself had betrayed the only thing that could give them force, unity and coherency, that is, a vital and pervasive religious faith. there are those who hold our case to be desperate, to whom the disillusionment of peace, after the high optimism engendered by the vast heroism and the exalted ideals instigated by the war, has brought nothing but a mood of deep pessimism. the sentiment is perhaps natural, but it is none the less both irrational and wicked. if it is persisted in, if it becomes widespread, it may perfectly well justify itself, but only so. we no longer accept the calvinistic doctrine of predestination, we believe, and must highly believe, that our fate is of our own making, for christianity has made us the heirs of free-will. what we will that shall we be, or rather, what we _are_ that shall we will, and if we make of ourselves what, by the grace of god, we may, then the victory rests with us. it is true that we are in the last years of a definite period, on that decline that precedes the opening of a new epoch. never in history has any such period overpassed its limit of five hundred years, and ours, which came to birth in the last half of the fifteenth century, cannot outlast the present. but these declining years are preceding those wherein all things are made new, and the next two generations will see, not alone the passing of what we may call modernism, since it is our own age, but the prologue of the epoch that is to come. it is for us to say what this shall be. it is not foreordained; true, if we will it, it may be a reign of disaster, a parallel to the well-recognized "dark ages" of history, but also, if we will, it may be a new and a true "renaissance," a rebirth of old ideals, of old honour, of old faith, only incarnate in new and noble forms. the vision of an old heaven and a new earth was vouchsafed us during the war, when horror and dishonour and degradation were shot through and through with an epic heroism and chivalry and self-sacrifice. what if this all did fade in the miasma of versailles and the cynicism of trade fighting to get back to "normalcy," and the red anarchy out of the east? there is no fiat of god that fixes these things as eternal. even they also may be made the instruments of revelation and re-creation. paris and london, rome, berlin and washington are meshed in the tangled web of the superannuated who cannot escape the incubus of the old ways and the old theories that were themselves the cause of the war and of the failure of "modern civilization," but another generation is taking the field and we must believe that this has been burned out of them. they may have achieved this great perfection in the field, they may have experienced it through those susceptible years of life just preceding military age. it does not matter. somehow they have it, and those who come much in contact in school or college with boys and men between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five, know, and thankfully confess, that if they can control the event the future is secure. in the harlequinade of fabulous material success the nations of "modern civilization" suffered a moral deterioration, in themselves and in their individual members; by a moral regeneration they may be saved. how is this to be accomplished? how, humanly speaking, is the redemption of society to be achieved? not alone by change of heart in each individual, though if this could be it would be enough. humanly speaking there is not time and we dare not hope for the divine miracle whereby "in the twinkling of an eye we shall all be changed." still less by sole reliance on some series of new political, social, economic and educational devices; there is no plan, however wise and profound, that can work effectively under the dead weight of a society that is made up of individuals whose moral sense is defective. either of these two methods, put into operation by itself, will fail. acting together they may succeed. i repeat what i have said before. the material thing and the spiritual force work by inter-action and coördinately. the abandonment or reform of some device that has proved evil or inadequate, and the substitution of something better, changes to that extent the environment of the individual and so enables him more perfectly to develop his inherent possibilities in character and capacity, while every advance in this direction reacts on the machinery of life and makes its improvement more possible. with a real sense of my own personal presumption, but with an equally real sense of the responsibility that rests on every man at the present crisis, i shall venture certain suggestions as to possible changes that may well be effected in the material forms of contemporary society as well as in its methods of thought, in order that the spiritual energies of the individual may be raised to a higher level through the amelioration of a hampering environment, and, with even greater diffidence, others that may bear more directly on the character-development of the individual. in following out this line of thought i shall, in the remaining seven lectures, speak successively on: a working philosophy; the social organism; the industrial and economic problem; the political organization of society; the function of education and art; the problem of organic religion; and personal responsibility. i am only too conscious of the fact that the division of my subject under these categorical heads, and the necessities of special argument, if not indeed of special pleading, have forced me to such particular stress on each subject as may very likely give an impression of undue emphasis. if each lecture were to be taken by itself, such an impression would, i fear, be unescapable; i ask therefore for the courtesy of a suspension of judgment until the series is completed, for it is only when taken as a whole, one paper reacting upon and modifying another, that whatever merit the course possesses can be made apparent. ii a working philosophy[*] [*this lecture has been very considerably re-written since it was delivered, and much of the matter it then contained has been cut out, and is now printed in the appendix. these excisions were purely speculative, and while they have a certain bearing on the arguments and conclusions in the other lectures, might very well be prejudicial to them, and for this reason it has seemed better to remove them from the general sequence and give them a supplementary place by themselves.] the first reaction of the world war was a great interrogation, and the technical "peace" that has followed brings only reiteration. why did these things come, and how? the answers are as manifold as the clamourous tongues that ask, but none carries conviction and the problem is still unsolved. according to all rational probabilities we had no right to expect the war that befell; according to all the human indications as we saw them revealed amongst the allies we had a right to expect a better peace; according to our abiding and abounding faith we had a right to expect a great bettering of life after the war, and even in spite of the peace. it is all a _non sequitur,_ and still we ask the reason and the meaning of it all. it may be very long before the full answer is given, yet if we are searching the way towards "the great peace" we must establish some working theory, if only that we may redeem our grave errors and avoid like perils in the future. the explanation i assume for myself, and on which i must work, is that, in spite of our intentions (which were of the best) we were led into the development, acceptance and application of a false philosophy of life which was not only untenable in itself but was vitiated and made noxious through its severance from vital religion. in close alliance with this declension of philosophy upon a basis that had been abandoned by the christian world for a thousand years, perhaps as the ultimate reason for its occurrence, was the tendency to void religion of its vital power, to cut it out of intimate contact with life, and, in the end, to abandon it altogether as an energizing force interpenetrating all existence and controlling it in certain definite directions and after certain definite methods. the rather complete failure of our many modern and ingenious institutions, the failure of institutionalism altogether, is due far less to wrong theories underlying them, or to radical defects in their technique, than it is to this false philosophy and this progressive abandonment of religion. the wrong theories were there, and the mechanical defects, for the machines were conditioned by the principle that lay behind them, but effort at correction and betterment will make small progress unless we first regain the right religion and a right philosophy. i said this to henri bergson last year in paris and his reply was significant as coming from a philosopher. "yes," he said, "you are right; and of the two, the religion is the more important." if we had this back, and in full measure; if society were infused by it, through and through, and men lived its life, and in its life, philosophy would take care of itself and the nature of our institutions would not matter. on the other hand, without it, no institution can be counted safe, or will prove efficacious, while no philosophy, however lofty and magisterial, can take its place, or even play its own part in the life of man or society. i must in these lectures say much about institutions themselves, but first i shall try to indicate what seem to me the more serious errors in current philosophy, leaving until after a study of the material forms which are so largely conditioned by the philosophical attitude, the consideration of that religion, both organic and personal, which i believe can alone verify the philosophy, give the institutions life and render them reliable agencies for good. for a working definition of philosophy, in the sense in which i use it here, i will take two sayings, one out of the thirteenth century, one from the twentieth. "they are called wise who put things in their right order and control them well," says st. thomas aquinas. "philosophy is the science of the totality of things," says cardinal mercier, his greatest contemporary commentator, and he continues, "philosophy is the sum-total of reality." philosophy is the body of _human_ wisdom, verified and irradiated by divine wisdom. "the science of the totality of things": not the isolation of individual phenomena, or even of groups of phenomena, as is the method of the natural sciences, but the setting of all in their varied relationships and values, the antithesis of that narrowness and concentration of vision that follow intensive specialization and have issue in infinite delusions and unrealities, "philosophy regards the sum-total of reality" and it achieves this consciousness of reality, first by establishing right relations between phenomena, and then, abandoning the explicit intellectual process, by falling back on divine illumination which enables it to see through those well-ordered phenomena the divine actuality that lies behind, informing them with its own finality and using them both as types and as media of transmission and communication. so men are enabled by philosophy "to put things in their right order" and by religion "to control them well," thus becoming indeed worthy to be "called wise." now, from the beginnings of conscious life, man has found himself surrounded and besieged by un-calculable phenomena. beaten upon by forces he could not estimate or predict or control, he has sought to solve their sphynx-like riddle, to establish some plausible relation between them, to erect a logical scheme of things. primitive man, as worringer demonstrates in his "form problems of the gothic," strove to achieve something of certitude and fixity through the crude but definite lines and forms of neolithic art. classical man brought into play the vigour and subtlety and ingenuity of intellect in its primal and most dynamic form, expressed through static propositions of almost mathematical exactness. the peoples of the east rejected the intellectual-mathematical method and solution and sought a way out through the mysterious operation of the inner sense that manifests itself in the form of emotion. with the revelation of christianity came also, and of course, enlightenment, which was not definite and closed at some given moment, but progressive and cumulative. at once, speaking philosophically, the intellectual method of the west and the intuitive method of the east came together and fused in a new thing, each element limiting, and at the same time fortifying the other, while the opposed obscurities of the past were irradiated by the revealing and creative spirit of christ. so came the beginnings of that definitive christian philosophy which was to proceed from syria, anatolia and constantinople, through alexandria to st. augustine, and was to find its fullest expression during the middle ages and by means of duns scotus, albertus magnus, hugh of st. victor and st. thomas aquinas. it is an interesting fact, though apart from my present consideration, that this philosophical fusion was paralleled in the same places and at the same time, by an aesthetic fusion that brought into existence the first great and consistent art of christianity. this question is admirably dealt with in lisle march phillipps' "form and colour." this great christian philosophy which lay behind all the civilization of the middle ages, was positive, comprehensive and new. it demonstrated divine purpose working consciously through all things with a result in perfect coherency; it gave history a new meaning as revealing reality and as a thing forever present and never past, and above all it elucidated the nature of both matter and spirit and made clear their operation through the doctrine of sacramentalism. in the century that saw the consummation of this great philosophical system--as well as that of the civilization which was its expositor in material form--there came a separation and a divergence. the balanced unity was broken, and on the one hand the tendency was increasingly towards the exaggerated mysticism that had characterized the eastern moiety of the synthesis, on the other towards an exaggerated intellectualism the seeds of which are inherent even in st. thomas himself. the new mysticism withdrew further and further from the common life, finding refuge in hidden sanctuaries in spain, italy, the rhineland; the old intellectualism became more and more dominant in the minds of man and the affairs of the world, and with the renaissance it became supreme, as did the other qualities of paganism in art as well as in every other field of human activity. the first fruit of the new intellectualism was the philosophy of dr. john calvin--if we can call it such,--augustinian philosophy, misread, distorted and made noxious by its reliance on the intellectual process cut off from spiritual energy as the sufficient corrective of philosophical thought. it is this false philosophy, allied with an equally false theology, that misled for so many centuries those who accepted the new versions of christianity that issued out of the reformation. the second was the mechanistic system, or systems, the protagonist of which was descartes. if, as i believe, calvinism was un-christian, the materialistic philosophies that have gone on from the year 1637, were anti-christian. as the power of christianity declined through the centuries that have followed the reformation, calvinism played a less and less important part, while the new philosophies of mechanism and rationalism correspondingly increased. during the nineteenth century their control was absolute, and what we are today we have become through this dominance, coupled with the general devitalizing or abandonment of religion. and yet are we not left comfortless. even in the evolutionary philosophy engendered by darwin and formulated by herbert spencer and the germans, with all its mistaken assumptions and dubious methods, already there is visible a tendency to get away from the old pagan static system reborn with the renaissance. we can never forget that bergson has avowed that "the mind of man, by its very nature, is incapable of apprehending reality." after this the return towards the scholastic philosophy of the middle ages is not so difficult, nor even its recovery. if we associate with this process on the part of formal philosophy the very evident, if sometimes abnormal and exaggerated, progress towards a new mysticism, we are far from finding ourselves abandoned to despair as to the whole future of philosophy. now this return and this recovery are, i believe, necessary as one of the first steps towards establishing a sound basis for the building up of a new and a better civilization, and one that is in fact as well as in name a christian civilization. i do not mean that, with this restoration of christian philosophy, there we should rest. both revelation and enlightenment are progressive, and once the nexus of our broken life were restored, philosophical development would be continuous, and we should go on beyond the scholastics even as they proceeded beyond patristic theology and philosophy. i think a break of continuity was effected in the sixteenth century, with disastrous effects, and until this break is healed we are cut off from what is in a sense the apostolical succession of philosophical verity. before going further i would guard against two possible misconceptions; of one of them i have already spoken, that is, the error so frequent in the past as well as today, that would make of philosophy, however sound, however consonant with the finalities of revealed religion, a substitute in any degree for religion itself. philosophy is the reaction of the intellect, of man to the stimuli of life, but religion _is_ life and is therefore in many ways a flat contradiction of the concepts of the intellect, which is only a small portion of life, therefore limited, partial, and (because of this) sometimes entirely wrong in its conclusions independently arrived at along these necessarily circumscribed lines. the second possible error is that philosophy is the affair of a small group of students and specialists, quite outside the purview of the great mass of men, and that it owes its existence to this same class of delving scholars, few in number, impractical in their aims, and sharply differentiated from their fellows. on the contrary it is a vital consideration for all those who desire to "see life and see it whole" in order that they may establish a true scale of comparative values and a right relationship between those things that come from the outside and, meeting those that come from within, establish that plexus of interacting force we call life. as for the source of philosophic truth, friar bacon put it well when he said "all the wisdom of philosophy is created by god and given to the philosophers, and it is himself that illumines the minds of men in all wisdom." it is a whimsical juxtaposition, but the first pastor of the puritans in america, the rev. john robinson, testifies to the same effect. "all truth," he says, "is of god ... wherefore it followeth that nothing true in right reason and sound philosophy can be false in divinity.... i add, though the truth be uttered by the devil himself, yet it is originally of god." there are not two sources of truth, that of divine revelation on the one hand, that of science and philosophy and all the intellectual works of man on the other. truth is one, and the source is one; the channels of communication alone are different. but truth in its finality, the absolute, the _noumenon_ that is the substance of phenomena, is in itself not a thing that can be directly apprehended by man; it lies within the "ultra-violet" rays of his intellectual spectrum. "the trammels of the body prevent man from knowing god in himself" says philo, "he is known only in the divine forces in which he manifests himself." and st. thomas: "in the present state of life in which the soul is united to a passable body, it is impossible for the intellect to understand anything actually except by turning to the phantasm." religion confesses this, philosophy constantly tends to forget it, therefore true religion speaks always through the symbol, rejecting, because it transcends, the intellectual criterion, while philosophy is on safe ground only when it unites itself with religion, testing its own conclusions by a higher reality, and existing not as a rival but as a coadjutor. it is st. paul who declares that "god has never left himself without a witness" and the "witness" was explicit, however clouded, in the philosophies of paganism. plato and aristotle knew the limitations of man's mind, and the corrective of over-weaning intellectuality in religion, but thereafter the wisdom faded and pride ousted humility, with the result that philosophy became not light but darkness. let me quote from the great twelfth century philosopher, hugh of st. victor, who deserves a better fate than sepulture in the ponderous tomes of migne: "there was a certain wisdom that seemed such to them that knew not the true wisdom. the world found it and began to be puffed up, thinking itself great in this. confiding in its wisdom it became presumptuous and boasted it would attain the highest wisdom. and it made itself a ladder of the face of creation.... then those things which were seen were known and there were other things which were not known; and through those which were manifest they expected to reach those that were hidden. and they stumbled and fell into the falsehoods of their own imagining.... so god made foolish the wisdom of this world; and he pointed out another wisdom, which seemed foolishness and was not. for it preached christ crucified, in order that truth might be sought in humility. but the world despised it, wishing to contemplate the works of god, which he had made a source of wonder, and it did not wish to venerate what he had set for imitation, neither did it look to its own disease, seeking medicine in piety; but presuming on a false health, it gave itself over with vain curiosity to the study of alien things." precisely: and this is the destiny that has overtaken not only the pagan philosophy of which hugh of st. victor was speaking, but also that which followed after st. thomas aquinas, from descartes to hobbes and kant and comte and herbert spencer and william james. the jealously intellectual philosophies of the nineteenth century, the materialistic and mechanistic substitutes that were offered and accepted with such enthusiasm after the great cleavage between religion and life, are but "the falsehoods of their own imaginings" of which hugh of st. victor speaks, for they were cut off from the stream of spiritual verity, and are losing themselves in the desert they have made. meanwhile they have played their part in shaping the destinies of the world, and it was an ill part, if we may judge from the results that showed themselves in the events that have been recorded between the year 1800 and the present moment. just what this influence was in determining the nature of society, of industrial civilization and of the political organism i shall try to indicate in some of the following lectures, but apart from these concrete happenings, this influence was, i am persuaded, most disastrous in its bearing on human character. neither wealth nor power, neither education nor environment, not even the inherent tendencies of race--the most powerful of all--can avail against the degenerative force of a life without religion, or, what is worse, that maintains only a desiccated formula; and the post-renaissance philosophies are one and all definitely anti-religious and self-proclaimed substitutes for religion. as such they were offered and accepted, and as such they must take their share of the responsibility for what has happened. i believe we must and can retrace our steps to that point in time when a right philosophy was abandoned, and begin again. there is no impossibility or even difficulty here. history is not a dead thing, a thing of the past; it is eternally present to man, and this is one of the sharp differentiations between man and beast. the material monuments of man crumble and disappear, but the spirit that built the parthenon or reims cathedral, that inspired st. paul on mars' hill or forged magna charta or the constitution of the united states is, _because of our quality as men,_ just as present and operative with us today, if we will, as that which sent the youth of ten nations into a righteous war five years ago, or spoke yesterday through some noble action that you or i may have witnessed. it is as easy for us to accept and practice the philosophy of st. thomas or the divine humanism of st. francis as it is to accept the philosophy of mr. wells or the theories of sir oliver lodge. no spiritual thing dies, or even grows old, nor does it drift backward in the dwindling perspective of ancient history, and the foolishest saying of man is that "you cannot turn back the hands of the clock." it is simply a question of will, and will is simply a question of desire and of faith. manifestly i cannot be expected to recreate in a few words this philosophy to which i believe we must have recourse in our hour of need. i have no ability to do this in any case. it begins with st. paul, is continued through st. augustine, and finds its culmination in the great mediaeval group of duns scotus, albertus magnus, hugh of st. victor and st. thomas aquinas. i do not know of any single book that epitomizes it all in vital form, though cardinal mercier and dr. de wulf have written much that is stimulating and helpful. i cannot help thinking that the great demand today is for a compact volume that synthesizes the whole magnificent system in terms not of history and scientific exegesis, but in terms of life. plato and aristotle are so preserved to man, and the philosophers of modernism also; it is only the magisterial and dynamic philosophy of christianity that is diffused through many works, some of them still untranslated and all quite without coordination, save st. thomas aquinas alone, the magnitude of whose product staggers the human mind and in its profuseness defeats its own ends. we need no more histories of philosophy, but we need an epitome of christian philosophy, not for students but for men. such an epitome i am not fitted to offer, but there are certain rather fundamental conceptions and postulates that run counter both to pagan and to modern philosophy, the loss of which out of life has, i maintain, much to do with our present estate, and that must be regained before we can go forward with any reasonable hope of betterment. these i will try to indicate as well as i can. christian philosophy teaches, in so far as it deals with the relationship between man and these divine forces that are forever building, unbuilding and rebuilding the fabric of life, somewhat as follows: the world as we know it, man, life itself as it works through all creation, is the union of matter and spirit; and matter is not spirit, nor spirit matter, nor is one a mode of the other, but they are two different creatures. apart from this union of matter and spirit there is no life, in the sense in which we know it, and severance is death. "the body" says st. thomas, "is not of the essence of the soul; but the soul, by the nature of its essence, can be united to the body, so that, properly speaking, the soul alone is not the species, but the composite", and duns scotus makes clear the nature and origin of this common "essence" when he says there is "on the one hand god as infinite actuality, on the other spiritual and corporeal substances possessing an homogeneous common element." that is to say; matter and spirit are both the result of the divine creative act, and though separate, and in a sense opposed, find their point of origin in the divine actuality. the created world is the concrete manifestation of matter, through which, for its transformation and redemption, spirit is active in a constant process of interpenetration whereby matter itself is being eternally redeemed. what then is matter and what is spirit? the question is of sufficient magnitude to absorb all the time assigned to these lectures, with the strong possibility that even then we should be scarcely wiser than before. for my own purposes, however, i am content to accept the definition of matter formulated by duns scotus, which takes over the earlier definition of plotinus, purges it of its elements of pagan error, and redeems it by christian insight. "materia primo prima" says the great franciscan, "is the indeterminate element of contingent things. this does not exist in nature, but it has reality in so far as it constitutes the term of god's creative activity. by its union with a substantial form it becomes endowed with the attributes of quantity, and becomes secundo prima. subject to the substantial changes of nature, it becomes matter as we see it." it is this "materia primo prima," the term of god's creative activity, that is eternally subjected to the regenerative process of spiritual interpenetration, and the result is organic life. what is spirit? the creative power of the logos, in the sense in which st. john interprets and corrects the early, partial, and therefore erroneous theories of the stoics and of philo. god the son, the eternal word of the father, "the brightness of his glory and the figure of his substance." "god of god, light of light, very god of very god, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the father: by whom all things were made." pure wisdom, pure will, pure energy, unconditioned by matter, but creating life out of the operation of the holy spirit on and through matter, and in the fullness of time becoming incarnate for the purpose of the final redemption of man. now since man is so compact of matter and spirit, it must follow that he cannot lay hold of pure spirit, the absolute that lies beyond and above all material conditioning, except through the medium of matter, through its figures, its symbols, its "phantasms." says st. thomas: "from material things we can rise to some kind of knowledge of immaterial things, but not to the perfect knowledge thereof." the way of life therefore, is the incessant endeavour of man sacramentally to approach the absolute through the leading of the holy spirit, so running parallel to the slow perfecting of matter which is being effected by the same operation. so matter itself takes on a certain sanctity, not only as something susceptible, and in process, of perfection, but as the vehicle of spirit and its tabernacle, since in matter spirit is actually incarnate. from this process follows of necessity the whole sacramental system, in theology, philosophy and operation, of christianity. it is of its _esse;_ its great original, revolutionary and final contribution to the wisdom that man may have for his own, and it follows inevitably from the basic facts of the incarnation and redemption, which are also its perfect showing forth. philosophically this is the great contribution of christianity and for fifteen centuries it was held implicitly by christendom, yet it was rejected, either wholly or in part, by the protestant organizations that came out of the reformation, and it fell into such oblivion that outside the catholic church it was not so much ignored or rejected as totally forgotten. recently a series of lectures were delivered at king's college, london, by various carefully chosen authorities, all specialists in their own fields, under the general title "mediaeval contributions to modern civilization," and neither the pious author of the address on "the religious contribution of the middle ages," nor the learned author of that on "mediaeval philosophy," gave evidence of ever having heard of sacramental philosophy. it may be that i do them an injustice, and that they would offer as excuse the incontestible fact that mediaevalism contributed nothing to "modern civilization," either in religion or philosophy, that it was willing to accept. the peril of all philosophies, outside that of christianity as it was developed under the catholic dispensation, is dualism, and many have fallen into this grave error. now dualism is not only the reversal of truth, it is also the destroyer of righteousness. sacramentalism is the anthithesis of dualism. the sanctity of matter as the potential of spirit and its dwelling-place on earth; the humanizing of spirit through its condescension to man through the making of his body and all created things its earthly tabernacle, give, when carried out into logical development, a meaning to life, a glory to the world, an elucidation of otherwise unsolvable mysteries, and an impulse toward noble living no other system can afford. it is a real philosophy of life, a standard of values, a criterion of all possible postulates, and as its loss meant the world's peril, so its recovery may mean its salvation. now as the philosophy of christianity is purely and essentially sacramental, so must be the operation of god through the church. this "body of christ" on earth is indeed a fellowship, a veritable communion of the faithful, whether living or dead, but it is also a divine organism which lives, and in which each member lives, not by the preaching of the word, not even by and through the fellowship in living and worship, but through the ordained channels of grace known as the sacraments. in accordance with the sacramental system, every material thing is proclaimed as possessing in varying degree sacramental potentiality, while seven great sacraments were instituted to be, each after its own fashion, a special channel for the inflowing of the power of the divine actuality. each is a symbol, just as so many other created things are, or may become, symbols, but they are also _realities,_ veritable media for the veritable communications of veritable divine grace. here is the best definition i know, that of hugh of st. victor. "a sacrament is the corporeal or material element set out sensibly, representing from its similitude, signifying from its institution, and containing from its sanctification, some invisible and spiritual grace." this is the unvarying and invariable doctrine of historic christianity, and the reason for the existence of the church as a living and functioning organism. the whole sacramental system is in a sense an extension, in time, of the redemption, just as one particular sacrament, the holy eucharist, is also in a sense an extension of the incarnation, as it is also an extension, in time, of the atonement, the sacrifice of calvary. the incarnation and the redemption are not accomplished facts, completed nineteen centuries ago; they are processes that still continue, and their term is fixed only by the total regeneration and perfecting of matter, while the seven sacraments are the chiefest amongst an infinity of sacramental processes which are the agencies of this eternal transfiguration. god the son became incarnate, not only to accomplish the redemption of men as yet unborn, for endless ages, through the sacrifice of calvary, but also to initiate and forever maintain a new method whereby this result was to be more perfectly attained; that is to say, the church, working through the specific sacramental agencies he had ordained, or was from time to time to ordain, through his everlasting presence in the church he had brought into being at pentecost. he did not come to establish in material form a kingdom of heaven on earth, or to provide for its ultimate coming. he indeed established a spiritual kingdom, his church, "in the world, not of it," which is a very different matter indeed, as the centuries have proved. his kingdom is not of this world, nor will it be established here. there has been no _absolute_ advance in human development since the incarnation. nations rise and fall, epochs wax and wane, civilizations grow out of savagery, crest and sink back into savagery and oblivion. redemption is for the individual, not for the race, nor yet for society as a whole. then, and only then, and under that form, it is sure, however long may be the period of its accomplishment. "time is the ratio of the resistance of matter to the interpenetration of spirit," and by this resistance is the duration of time determined. when it shall have been wholly overcome then "time shall be no more." see therefore how perfect is the correspondence between the sacraments and the method of life where they are the agents, and which they symbolically set forth. there is in each case the material form and the spiritual substance, or energy. water, chrism, oil, the spoken word, the touch of hands, the sign of the cross, and finally and supremely the bread and wine of the holy eucharist. each a material thing, but each representing, signifying and containing some gift of the holy spirit, real, absolute and potent. so matter and spirit are linked together in every operation of the church, from the cradle to the grave, and man has ever before him the eternal revelation of this linked union of matter and spirit in his life, the eternal teaching of the honour of the material thing through its agency and through its existence as the subject for redemption. so also, through the material association, and the divine condescension to his earthly and fallible estate (limited by association with matter only to inadequate presentation) he makes the spirit of god his own, to dwell therewith after the fashion of man. and how much this explains and justifies: man approaches, and must always approach, spiritual things not only through material forms but by means of material agencies. the highest and most beautiful things, those where the spirit seems to achieve its loftiest reaches, are frequently associated with the grossest and most unspiritual forms, yet the very splendour of the spiritual verity redeems and glorifies the material agency, while on the other hand the homeliness, and even animal quality, of the material thing, brings to man, with a poignancy and an appeal that are incalculable, the spiritual thing that, in its absolute essence, would be so far beyond his ken and his experience and his powers of assimilation that it would be inoperative. this is the true humanism; not the fictitious and hollow thing that was the offspring of neo-paganism and took to itself a title to which it had no claim. held tacitly or consciously by the men of the middle ages, from the immortal philosopher to the immortal but nameless craftsman, it was the force that built up the noble social structure of the time and poised man himself in a sure equilibrium. already it had of necessity developed the whole scheme of religious ceremonial and given art a new content and direction through its new service. by analogy and association all material things that could be so used were employed as figures and symbols, as well as agencies, through the sacraments, and after a fashion that struck home to the soul through the organs of sense. music, vestments, incense, flowers, poetry, dramatic action, were linked with the major arts of architecture, painting and sculpture, and all became not only ministers to the emotional faculties but direct appeals to the intellect through their function as poignant symbols. so art received its soul, and was almost a living creature until matter and spirit were again divorced in the death that severed them during the reformation. thereafter religion had entered upon a period of slow desiccation and sterilization wherever the symbol was cast away with the sacraments and the faith and the philosophy that had made it live. the bitter hostility to the art and the liturgies and the ceremonial of the catholic faith is due far less to ignorance of the meaning and function of art and to an inherited jealousy of its quality and its power, than it is to the conscious and determined rejection of the essential philosophy of christianity, which is sacramentalism. the whole system was of an almost sublime perfection and simplicity, and the formal sacraments were both its goal and its type. if they had been of the same value and identical in nature they would have failed of perfect exposition, in the sense in which they were types and symbols. they were not this, for while six of the explicit seven were substantially of one mode, there was one where the conditions that held elsewhere were transcended, and where, in addition to the two functions it was instituted to perform it gave, through its similitude, the clear revelation of the most significant and poignant fact in the vast mystery of life. i mean, of course, the holy eucharist, commonly called the mass. if matter is _per se_ forever inert, unchangeable, indestructible, then we fall into the dilemma of a materialistic monism on the one hand, manichaean dualism on the other. even under the most spiritual interpretation we could offer--that, shall we say, of those today who try to run with the hare of religion and hunt with the hounds of rationalistic materialism--matter and spirit unite in man as body and soul, and in the sacraments as the vehicle and the essence, but temporally and temporarily; doomed always to ultimate severance by death in the one case, by the completion of the sacramental process in the other. if, on the other hand, the object of the universe and of time is the constant redemption and transformation of matter through its interpenetration by spirit in the power of god the holy ghost, then we escape the falsities of dualism, while in the miracle of the mass we find the type and the showing forth of the constant process of life whereby every instant, matter itself is being changed and glorified and transferred from the plane of matter to the plane of spirit. if this is so: if the incarnation and the redemption are not only fundamental facts but also types and symbols of the divine process forever going on here on earth, then, while the other sacraments are in themselves not only instruments of grace but manifestations of that process whereby in all things matter is used as the vehicle of spirit, the mass, transcending them all, is not only communion, not only a sacrifice acceptable before god, it is also the unique symbol of the redemption and transformation of matter; since, of all the sacraments, it is the only one where the very physical qualities of the material vehicle are transformed, and while the accidents alone remain, the substance, finite and perishable, becomes, in an instant of time and by the operation of god, infinite and immortal. it is to sacramentalism then that we must return, not only in religion and its practice, but in philosophy, if we are to establish a firm foundation for that newer society and civilization that are to help us to achieve the "great peace." antecedent systems failed, and subsequent systems have failed; in this alone, the philosophy of christianity, is there safety, for it alone is consonant with the revealed will of god. iii the social organism society, that is to say, the association in life of men, women and children, is the fundamental fact of life, and this is so whether the association is of the family, the school, the community, industry or government. everything else is simply a series of forms, arrangements and devices by which society works, either for good or ill. man makes or mars himself in and through society. he is responsible for his own soul, but if he sees only this and works directly for his soul's salvation, disregarding the society of which he is a part, he may lose it, whereas, if he is faithful to society and honourably plays his part as a social animal with a soul, he will very probably save it, even though he may for the time have quite ignored its existence. man is a member of a family, a pupil under education, a worker and a citizen. in all these relationships he is a part of a social group; he is also a component part of the human race and linked in some measure to every other member thereof whether living or dead. into every organization or institution in which he is involved during his lifetime--family, school, art or craft, trade union, state, church--enters the social equation. if society is ill organized either in theory or in practice, in any or all of its manifestations, then the engines or devices by which it operates will be impotent for good. defective society cannot produce either a good fundamental law, a good philosophy, a good art, or any other thing. conversely, these, when brought forth under an wholesome society, will decay and perish when society degenerates. in its large estate, that is, comprehending all the minor groups, as a nation, a people or an era, society is always in a state of unstable equilibrium, tending either toward better or worse. it may indeed be of the very essence of human life, but it is a plant of tender growth and needs delicate nurture and jealous care; a small thing may work it irreparable injury. it may reach very great heights of perfection and spread over a continent, as during the european middle ages; it may sink to low depths with an equal dominion, as in the second dark ages of the nineteenth century. sometimes little enclaves of high value hide themselves in the midst of degradation, as venice and ireland in the dark ages. always, by the grace of god, the primary social unit, the family may, and frequently does, achieve and maintain both purity and beauty when the world without riots in ruin and profligacy. i have taken the problem of the organization of society as the first to be considered, for it is fundamental. if society is of the wrong shape it does not matter in the least how intelligent and admirable may be the devices we construct for the operation of government or industry or education; they may be masterly products of human intelligence but they will not work, whereas on the other hand a sane, wholesome and decent society can so interpret and administer clumsy and defective instruments that they will function to admiration. a perfect society would need no such engines at all, but a perfect society implies perfect individuals, and i think we are now persuaded that a society of this nature is a purely academic proposition both now and in the calculable future. what we have to do is to take mankind as it is; made up of infinitely varied personalities ranging from the idiot to the "super-man"; cruel and compassionate, covetous and self-sacrificing, silly and erudite, cynical and emotional, vulgar and cultured, brutal and fastidious, shameful in their degradation and splendid in their honour and chivalry, and by the franchise of liberty and the binding of law, facilitate in every way the process whereby they themselves work out their own salvation. you cannot impose morality by statute or guarantee either character or intelligence by the perfection of the machine. every institution, good or bad, is the result of growth from many human impulses, not the creation of autocratic fiat. but growth may be impeded, hastened, or suspended, and the most that can be done is to offer incentives to action, remove the obstacles to development, and establish conditions and influences that make more easy the finding of the right way. now it seems to me that the two greatest obstacles to the development of a right society have been first, the enormous scale in which everything of late has been cast, and second, that element in modern democracy which denies essential differences in human character, capacity and potential, and so logically prohibits social distinctions, and refuses them formal sanction or their recognition through conferred honours. in questioning the validity and the value of these two factors, imperialism and social democracy, and in suggesting substitutes, i am, i suppose, attacking precisely the two institutions which are today--or at all events have been until very recently--held in most conspicuous honour by the majority of people, but the question is at least debateable, and for my own part i have no alternative but to assert their mistaken nature, and to offer the best i can in the way of substitutes. the question of imperialism, of a gross and unhuman and therefore absolutely wrong scale, is one that will enter into almost all of the matters with which i propose to deal, certainly with industrialism, with politics, with education, with religion, as well as with the immediate problem of the social organism, for not only has it destroyed the human scale in human life, and therefore brought it into the danger of immediate destruction, but it has also been a factor in establishing the quantitative standard in all things, in place of the qualitative standard, and this, in itself, is simply the antecedent of well-merited catastrophe. in considering the social organism, therefore, we must have in mind that this is intimately affected by every organic institution which man has developed and into which he enters in common with others of his kind. the situation as it confronts us today is one in which man by his very energy and the stimulus of those cosmic energies he has so astonishingly mastered, has got far beyond his depth. i say man has mastered these energies; yes, but this was true only of a brief period in the immediate past. they now have mastered him. it is the old story of the frankenstein monster over again. man is not omnipotent, he is not god. there are limits beyond which he cannot go without coming in peril of death. an isolated individual here and there may become super-man, perhaps, though at grievous peril to his own soul, and it is conceivable that to such an one it might be possible to live beyond the human scale, though hardly. if one could envisage so awful a thing as a community made up entirely of super-men, one might concede that here also the human scale might be exceeded without danger of catastrophe. with society as it is, and always will be, a welter of defectives and geniuses in small numbers and a vast majority of just plain men, with all that that implies, the breaking through into the imperial scale is simply a letting in the jungle; walls and palings and stockades, the delicate fabrics of architecture, the clever institutions of law, the thin red line of the army, all melt, crumble, are overcome by the onrush of primordial things, and where once was the white man's city is now the eternal jungle, and the vines and thrusting roots and rank herbage blot out the very memory of a futile civilization, while the monkey and the jackal and the python come again into their heritage. alexander and caesar, charles v and louis xiv and napoleon and disraeli and william iii could function for a few brief years beyond the limits of the human scale, though even they had an end, but you cannot link imperialism and democracy without the certainty of an earlier and a more ignominious fall. i have already spoken of the malignant and pathological quality of the quantitative standard. it is indeed not only the nemesis of culture but even of civilization itself. out of this same gross scale of things come many other evils; great states subsisting on the subjugation and exploitation of small and alien peoples; great cities which when they exceed more than 100,000 in population are a menace, when they exceed 1,000,000 are a crime; division of labour and specialization which degrade men to the level of machines; concentration and segregation of industries, the factory system, high finance and international finance, capitalism, trades-unionism and the international, standardized education, "metropolitan" newspapers, pragmatic philosophy, and churches "run on business methods" and recruited by advertising and "publicity agents." greater than all, however, is the social poison that effects society with pernicious anaemia through cutting man off from his natural social group and making of him an undistinguishable particle in a sliding stream of grain. man belongs to his family, his neighbourhood, his local trade or craft guild and to his parish church: the essence of wholesome association is that a man should work with, through and by those whom he knows personally--and preferably so well that he calls them all by their first names. as a matter of fact, today he works with, through and by the individuals whom he probably has never seen, and frequently would, as a matter of personal taste, hesitate to recognize if he did see them. he belongs to the "local" of a union which is a part of a labour organization which covers the entire united states and is controlled in all essential matters from a point from one hundred to two thousand miles away. he votes for mayor with a group of men, less than one per cent of whom he knows personally (unless he is a professional politician), with another group for state officers, and with the whole voting population of the united states, for president. if he goes to church in a city he finds himself amongst people drawn from every ward and outlying district, if he mixes in "society" he associates with those from everywhere, perhaps, except his own neighbourhood. only when he is in college, in his club or in his secret society lodge or the quarters of his ward boss does he find himself in intimate social relations with human beings of like mind and a similar social status. he is a cog in a wheel, a thing, a point of potential, a lonely and numerical unit, instead of a gregarious human animal rejoicing in his friends and companions, and working, playing and quarreling with them, as god made him and meant him to be and to do. of course the result of this is that men are forced into unnatural associations, many of which are purely artificial and all of which are unsound. it is true that the trade union, the professional society, the club are natural and wholesome expressions of common and intimate interests, but they acquire a false value when they are not balanced and regulated by a prior and more compelling association which cuts, not vertically but horizontally through society, that is to say, the neighbourhood or community group. the harsh and perilous division into classes and castes which is now universal, with its development of "class consciousness," is the direct and inevitable result of this imperial scale in life which has annihilated the social unit of human scale and brought in the gigantic aggregations of peoples, money, manufacture and labourers, where man can no longer function either as a human unit or an essential factor in a workable society. it is hard to see just how we are to re-fashion this impossible society in terms even nearly approaching the normal and the human. it is universal, and it is accepted by everyone as very splendid and quite the greatest achievement of man. it is practically impossible for any one today to conceive of a world where great empires, populous cities, mills and factories and iron-works in their thousands, and employing their millions through their billions of capitalization, where the stock exchange and the great banking houses and the insurance companies and the department stores, the nation-wide trade unions and professional associations and educational foundations and religious corporations, do not play their predominant part. nevertheless they are an aggregation of false values, their influence is anti-social, and their inherent weakness was so obviously revealed through the war and the peace that it has generally escaped notice. there seem but two ways in which the true scale of life can be restored; either these institutions will continue, growing greater and more unwieldy with increasing speed until they burst in anarchy and chaos, and after ruin and long rest we begin all over again (as once before after the bursting of roman imperialism), or we shall repeat history (as we always do) only after another fashion and, learning as we always can from the annals of monasticism, build our small communities of the right shape and scale in the very midst of the imperial states themselves, so becoming perhaps the leavening of the lump. this of course is what the monasteries of st. benedict did in the sixth century and those of the cluniacs and the cistercians in the eleventh, and it is what the franciscans and dominicans tried to do in the fourteenth century, and failed because the fall of the cultural and historic wave had already begun. the trouble today with nearly all schemes of reform and regeneration is that they are infected with the very imperialism in scale that has produced the conditions they would redeem. socialism is now as completely materialistic as the old capitalism, and as international in its scope and methods. anarchy is becoming imperial and magnificent in its operations. secular reformers must organize vast committees with intricate ramifications and elaborate systems supported by "drives" for money which must run into at least seven figures, and by vast and efficient bureaus for propaganda, before they can begin operations, and then the chief reliance for success is frequently placed on legislation enacted by the highest lawmaking bodies in the land. even religion has now surrendered to the same obsession of magnitude and efficiency, and nothing goes (or tries to, it doesn't always succeed) unless it is conceived in gigantic "nation-wide" terms and is "put across" by efficiency experts, highly paid organizers, elaborate "teams" of propagandists and solicitors, and plenty of impressive advertising. a good deal can be bought this way, but it will not "stay bought," for no reform of any sort can be established after any such fashion, since reform begins in and with the individual, and if it succeeds at all it will be by the cumulative process. i shall speak of this element of scale in every succeeding lecture, for it vitiates every institution we have. here, where i am dealing with society in itself, i can only say that i believe the sane and wholesome society of the future will eliminate great cities and great corporations of every sort. it will reverse the whole system of specialization and the segregation and unification of industries and the division of labour. it will build upward from the primary unit of the family, through the neighbourhood, to the small, and closely knit, and self-supporting community, and so to the state and the final unifying force which links together a federation of states. in general it will be a return in principle, though not in form, to the social organization of a mediaeval europe before the extinction of feudalism on the continent, and the suppression of the monasteries and the enclosure of the common lands in england. the grave perils of this false scale in human society have been recognized by many individuals ever since the thing itself became operative, and every utopia conceived by man during the last two centuries, whether it was theoretical or actually put into ephemeral practice, has been couched in terms of revolt away from imperialism and towards the unit of human scale. in every case however, the introduction of some form of communism has been the ruin of those projects actually materialized, for this in itself is imperialistic in its nature. communism implies the standard of the gross aggregate, the denial of human differentiation and the quantitative standard, as well as the elimination of private property and the negation of sacred individuality. its institution implies an almost immediate descent into anarchy with a sequent dictatorship and autocracy, for it is the reversal of the foundation laws of life. such reversals cannot last, nothing can last that is inimical to flourishing life; it may triumph for a day but life itself sloughs it off as a sound body rids itself of some foreign substance through the sore that festers, bursts and, the septic conditions done away with, heals itself and returns to normal. now the inhuman scale has produced one set of septic conditions in society while what is commonly called "democratization" has produced another. we have a bloated society, but also we have one in which a false theory has grown up and been put in practice, in accordance with which an uniformity of human kind has been assumed which never has existed and does not now, and in the effort to enforce this false theory the achievement of distinction has been impeded, leadership discouraged and leaders largely eliminated, the process of leveling downward carried to a very dangerous point, the sane and vital organization of society brought near to an end and a peculiarly vicious scale and standard of social values established. i have urged the return to human scale in human associations, but this does not imply any admixture of communism, which is its very antithesis, still less does it permit the retention of the theoretical uniformity and the unescapable leveling process of so-called democracy. before the law all men are equal, that is, they are entitled to even-handed justice. before god all men are equal, that is, they are granted charity and mercy which transcends the law, also they possess immortal souls of equal value. here their equality stops. in every other respect they vary in character, capacity, intelligence and potentiality for development along any or all these lines, almost beyond the limits of computation. a sane society will recognize this, it will organize itself accordingly, it will deny to one what it will concede to another, it will foster emulation and reward accomplishment, and it will add another category to those in which all men are equal, that is, the freest scope for advancement, and the greatest facility for passing from one social group into another, the sole test being demonstrated merit. i am prepared at this point to use the word "aristocracy" for we have the thing even now, only in its worst possible form. the word itself means two things: a government by the best and most able citizens and, to quote a standard dictionary "persons noted for superiority in any character or quality, taken collectively." there is no harm here, but the harm comes, and the odium also, and justly, when an aristocratic government degenerates into an oligarchy of privilege without responsibility, and when socially it is not "superiority in character or quality" but political cunning, opulence and sycophancy that are the touchstones to recognition and acceptance. the latter are the antithesis of christianity and common sense, the former is consonant with both and, paradoxical as it may seem, it is also the fulfilling of the ideals of a real democracy, since its honours and distinctions imply service, its relations with those in other estates are reciprocal, it is not a closed caste but the prize of meritorious achievement, and it is therefore equality of opportunity, utilization of ability and the abolition of privilege without responsibility. men are forever and gloriously struggling onward towards better things, but there is always the gravitational pull of original sin which scientists denominate "reversion to type." the saving grace in the individual is the divine gift of faith, hope and charity implanted in every soul. these every man must guard and cherish for they are the way of advancement in character. but society is man in association with men, in a sense a new and complex personality, and the same qualities are as necessary here as in the individual. society, like man, may be said to possess body, soul and spirit, and it must function vitally along all these lines if it is to maintain a normal and wholesome existence. somewhere there must be something that achieves high ideals of honour, chivalry, courtesy; that maintains right standards of comparative value, and that guards the social organism as a whole from the danger of surrender to false and debased standards, to plausible demagogues, and to mob-psychology. the greater the prevalence of democratic methods, the greater is the danger of this surrender to propaganda of a thousand sorts and to the dominance of the demagogue, and the existence of an estate fortified by the inheritance of high tradition, measurably free from the necessity of engaging too strenuously in the "struggle for life," guaranteed security of status so long as it does not betray the ideals of its order, but open to accessions from other estates on the basis of conspicuous merit alone, such a force operating in society has proved, and will prove, the best guardian of civilization as a whole and of the interests and liberties of those who may rank in what are known as lower social scales. but, it may be objected, such an institution as this has never existed. every political or social aristocracy in history has been mixed and adulterated with bad characters and recreant representatives. there never has been and never will be a perfect aristocracy. quite true; neither has there ever been a perfect democracy, or a perfect monarchy for that matter. as men we work with imperfections, but we live by faith, and our sole duty is to establish the highest ideals, and to compass them, in so far as we may, with unfailing courage, patience and steadfastness. the _ideal_ of democracy is a great ideal, but the _working_ of democracy has been a failure because, amongst other things, it has tried to carry on without the aid of true aristocracy. if the two can be united, first in ideal and in theory, then in operation, our present failure may be changed into victory. what, after all, does this imply, so far as the social organism is concerned? it seems to me, something like this. first of all, recognition of the fact that there are differences in individuals, in strains of blood, in races, that cannot be overcome by any power of education and environment, and can only be changed through very long periods of time, and that these differences must work corresponding differences in position, function and status in the social organism. second, that since society automatically develops an aristocracy of some sort or other, and apparently cannot be stopped from doing this, it must be protected from the sort of thing it has produced of late, which is based on money, political expediency and the unscrupulous cleverness of the demagogue, and given a more rational substitute in the shape of a permanent group representing high character and the traditions of honour, chivalry and courtesy. third, that character and service should be fostered and rewarded by that formal and august recognition, that secure and unquestioned status, and those added opportunities for service that will form a real and significant distinction. finally, that this order or estate must be able to purge itself of unworthy material, and also must be freely open to constant accessions from without, whatever the source, and for proved character and service. i fear i must argue this case of the inequality in individual potential, that inequality that does not yield to complex education or favourable environment, for it is fundamental. if it does not exist, then my argument for the organization of society along lines that recognize and regularize diversity of social status and functions, falls to the ground. i affirm that, the doctrine of evolution and modern democratic theory to the contrary, it does exist and that the mitigating influence of education, environment and inherited acquired characters, is small at best. let us take the most obvious concrete examples. there are certain ethnic units or races which for periods ranging from five hundred to two thousand years have produced _character_, and through character the great contributions that have been made to human culture and have been expressed through men of distinction, dynamic force, and vivid personality. such, amongst many, are the greeks, the jews, the romans, the normans, the franks, the "anglo-saxons," and the celts. there are others that in all history have produced nothing. there are certain family names which are a guarantee of distinction, dynamic force, and vivid personality. there are thousands of these names, and they are to be found amongst all the races that have contributed towards the development of culture and civilization. on the other hand, there are far more that have produced nothing distinctive, and possibly never will. what is the reason for this? is it the result of blind chance, of accidents that have left certain races and families isolated in stagnant eddies from which some sudden current of a whimsical tide might sweep them out into the full flood of progress, until they then overtook and passed their hitherto successful rivals, who, in their turn, would drift off into progressive incompetence and degeneracy? biology does not look with enthusiasm on the methods of chance and accident. the choice and transmission of the forty-eight chromosomes that give to each individual his character-potential are probably in accordance with some obscure biological law through which the unfathomable divine will operates. now these chromosomes may be selected and combined after a fashion, and with a persistence of continuity, that would guarantee character-potential, for good or for ill, through many generations, or they might be so varied in their combinations that no distinct traits would be carried over from one generation to another. as a matter of experience all these three processes take place and are recorded in families of distinct quality, good, bad and indifferent. if the character-potential is predetermined, then manifestly education and environment can play only the subordinate part of fostering its development or retarding it. in the same way the character and career of the various races of men are determined by the potential inherent in the individuals and families that compose them, and like them the races themselves are for long periods marked by power and capacity or weakness and lack of distinction. there are certain races, such as the hottentot, the malay, the american indian, and mixed bloods, as the mexican peons and mongol-slavs of a portion of the southeastern europe, that, so far as recorded history is concerned, are either static or retrogressive. there are family units, poverty-stricken and incompetent, in naples, canton, east side new york; or opulent and aggressive in west side new york, in birmingham, westphalia, pittsburgh, that are no more subject to the cultural and character-creating influences of education and environment--beyond a certain definite point--than are the amphibians of africa or the rampant weeds of my garden. this is a hard saying and a provocative. the entire course of democratic theory, of humanitarian thought and of the popular type of scientific speculation stands against it, and the christian religion as well, unless the statement itself is guarded by exact definitions. if the contention of the scientific materialist were correct, and the thing that makes man, and that christians call the immortal soul, were but the result of physical processes of growth and differentiation, then slavery would be justifiable, and exploitation a reasonable and inevitable process. since, however, this assumption of materialism is untenable, and since all men are possessed of immortal souls between which is no distinction in the sight of god, the situation, regrettable if you like, is one which at the same time calls for the exercise of a higher humanitarianism than that so popular during the last generation, and as well for a very drastic revision of contemporary political and social and educational methods. the soul of the man is the localization of divinity; in a sense each man is a manifestation of the incarnation. black or white, conspicuous or obscure, intelligent or stupid, offspring of a creative race or bound by the limitations of one that is static or in process of decay, there is no difference in the universal claim to justice, charity, and opportunity. the soul of a cantonese river-man, of a congo slave, of an east side jew, is in itself as essentially precious and worth saving as the soul of a bishop, of a descendant of a norman viking or an irish king, or that of a volunteer soldier in the late armies of france or great britain or the united states. here lies absolute and final equality, and the state, the law, the church are bound to guard this equality in the one case and the other with equal force; indeed, those of the lower racial and family types claim even more faithful guardianship than those of the higher, for they can accomplish less for themselves and by themselves. but the fundamental and inescapable inequality, in intellect, in character, and in capacity, which i insist is one of the conditioning factors in life, is vociferously denied, but ruthlessly enforced, by the people that will be the first to denounce any restatement of what is after all no more than a patent fact. a little less enthusiasm for shibboleths, and a little more intelligent regard for history and palpable conditions, will show that the assumed equality between men "on the strength of their manhood alone," the sufficiency of education for correcting the accidental differences that show themselves, and the scheme of life that is worked out along democratic lines on the basis of this essential (or potential) equality, are "fond things vainly imagined" which must be radically modified before the world can begin a sane and wholesome building-up after the great purgation of war. that equality between men which exists by virtue of the presence in each of an immortal soul, involves an even distribution of justice and the protection of law, without distinction of persons, and an even measure of charity and compassion, but it does not involve the admission of a claim to equality of action or the denial of varied status, since race-values, both of blood and of the _gens_ enter in to establish differences in character, in intelligence and in capacity which cannot be changed by education, environment or heredity within periods which are practical considerations with society. if we could still hold the old darwinian dogmas of the origin of species through the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest, and if the equally august and authoritative dogma of the transmission by inheritance of acquired characteristics were longer tenable, then perhaps we might invoke faith, hope and patience and continue our generous method of imperilling present society while we fixed our eyes on the vision of that to come when environment, education and heredity had accomplished their perfect work. unfortunately--or perhaps fortunately--science is rapidly reconsidering its earlier and somewhat hasty conclusions, and the consensus of the most authoritative opinion seems to be that we must believe these things no longer. failing these premises, on which we have laboured so long and so honestly and so sincerely, we are again thrown back on the testimony of history and our own observation, and with this reversal we also are bound to reconsider both our premises and the constitution of those systems and institutions we have erected on them as a foundation. the existence of a general law does not exclude exceptions. the fact that in the case of human beings we have to take into consideration a powerful factor that does not come into play in the domain of zoölogy and botany--the immortal soul--makes impossible the drawing of exact deductions from precedents therein established. this determining touch of the divine, which is no result of biological processes, but stands outside the limitations of heredity and environment and education, may manifest itself quite as well in one class as in another, for "god is no respecter of persons." as has been said before, there is no difference in degree as between immortal souls. the point is, however, that each is linked to a specific congeries of tendencies, limitations, effective or defective agencies, that are what they have been made by the parents of the race. these may be such as enable the soul to triumph in its earthly experience and in its bodily housing; they may be such as will bring about failure and defeat. it is not that the soul builds itself "more stately mansions"; it is that these are provided for it by the physical processes of life, and it is almost the first duty of man to see that they are well built. again, the soul is single and personal; as it is not a plexus of inherited tendencies, so it is not heritable, and a great soul showing suddenly in the dusk of a dull race contributes nothing of its essential quality to the issue of the body it has made its house. the stews of a mill town may suddenly be illuminated by the radiance of a divine soul, to the amazement of profligate parents and the confusion of eugenists; but unless the unsolvable mystery of life has determined on a new species, and so by a sudden influx of the _élan vital_ cuts off the line of physical succession and establishes one that is wholly new, then the brightness dies away with the passing of the splendid soul, and the established tendencies resume their sway. the bearing of this theory on the actions of society is immediate. through the complete disregard of race-values that has obtained during the last two or three centuries, and the emergence and complete supremacy in all categories of life of human groups of low potential, civilization has been brought down to a level where it is threatened with disaster. if recovery is to be effected and a second era of "dark ages" avoided, there must be an entirely new evaluation of things, a new estimate of the principles and methods that obtained under modernism, and a fearless adventure into fields that may prove not to be so unfamiliar as might at first appear. specifically, we must revise our attitude as to immigration, excluding whole classes, and even races, that we have hitherto welcomed with open hands from the disinterested offices of steamship companies: we must control and in some cases prohibit, the mating of various racial stocks; finally we must altogether disallow the practice of changing, by law, one race-name for another. this process is one for which no excuse exists and unless it can be brought to an end then, apart from certain physical differentiations on which nature wisely insists, we have no guaranty against the adulteration that has gone so far towards substituting the mongrel for the pure racial type, while society is bound to suffer still further deception and continued danger along the lines that have recently been indicated by the transformation of treibitsch into "lincoln," braunstein into "trotsky" and samuels into "montague." for its fulfillment, then, and its regeneration, the real democracy demands and must achieve the creation and cooperation of a real aristocracy, not an aristocracy of material force either military or civil, nor one of land owners or money-getters, nor one of artificial caste. all these substitutes have been tried from time to time, in rome, china, great britain, the united states, and all have failed in the end, for all have ignored the one essential point of _character_, without which we shall continue to reproduce what we have at present; a thing as insolent, offensive and tyrannical as the old aristocracies at their worst, with none of the constructive and beneficent qualities of the old aristocracies at their best. that race-values have much to do with this development of character i believe to be true, but of far greater efficiency, indeed the actual motive force, is the christian religion, working directly on and through the individual and using race as only one of its material means of operation. democracy has accomplished its present failure, not only because it could not function without the cooperation of aristocracy, but chiefly because, in its modernist form, it has become in fact isolated from christianity. all in it of good it derives from that catholic christianity of the middle ages which first put it into practice, all in it of evil it owes to a falling back on paganism and a denial of its own parentage and rejection of its control. i shall deal with this later in more detail; i speak of it now just for the purpose of entering a caveat against any deduction from what i have said that any natural force, of race or evolution or anything else, or any formal institution devised by man, ever has, or ever can, serve in itself as a way of social redemption. i am anxious not to overemphasize these things on which the development of my argument forces me to lay particular stress. for those who can go with me so far, the question will arise: how then are we so to reorganize society that we may gain the end in view? it is a question not easy of solution. granted the fact of social differentiation and the necessity of its recognition, how are we to break down the wholly wrong system that now obtains and substitute another in its place? it would be simple enough if within the period allowed us by safety (apparently not any too extended at the present moment) a working majority of men could achieve, in the old and exact phraseology, that change of heart, that spiritual conversion, that would bring back into permanent authority the supernatural virtues of faith, hope, and charity, and that sense of right values in life, which together make almost indifferent the nature of the formal devices man creates for the organization of society. certainly this is possible; greater miracles have happened in history but, failing this, what? one turns of course by instinct to old models, but in this is the danger of an attempt at an archaeological restoration, a futile effort at reviving dead forms that have had their day. in principle, and in the working as well, the old orders of chivalry or knighthood strongly commend themselves, for here there was, in principle, both the maintenance of high ideals of honour courtesy and _noblesse oblige,_ and the rendering of chivalrous service. chesterton has put it well in the phrase "the giving things which cannot be demanded, the avoiding things which cannot be punished." moreover, admission to the orders of knighthood was free to all provided there were that cause which came from personal character alone. knighthood was the crown of knightly service and it was forfeited for recreancy. is there not in this some suggestion of what may again be established as an incentive and a reward, and as well, as a vital agency for the reorganization of society? knighthood is personal, and is for the lifetime of the recipient. is there any value in an estate where status is heritable? if there is any validity in the theory of varying and persistent race-values, it would seem so, yet the idea of recognizing this excellence of certain families and the reasonable probability of their maintaining the established standard unimpaired, and so giving them a formal status, would no doubt be repugnant to the vast majority of men in the united states. i think this aversion is based on prejudice, natural but ill-founded. we resent the idea of privilege without responsibility, as we should, but this, while it was the condition of those aristocracies which were operative at the time of the founding of the republic, was opposed to the mediaeval, or true idea, which linked responsibility with privilege. the old privilege is gone and cannot be restored, but already we have a new privilege which is being claimed and enforced by proletarian groups, and the legislative representatives of the whole people stand in such terror of massed votes that they not only fail to check this astonishing and topsy-turvy movement, but actually further its pretensions. the "dictatorship of the proletariat" actually means the restoration of privilege in a form far more tyrannical and monstrous than any ever exercised by the old aristocracies of italy, france, germany and england. much recent legislation in washington exempting certain industrial and agricultural classes from the operation of laws which bear heavily on other classes, and some of the claims and pretensions of unionized labor, tend in precisely the same direction. it is not restoration of privilege i have in mind but rather in a sense the prevention of this through the existence of a class or estate that has a fixed status dependent first on character and service and then on an assured position that is not contingent on political favour, the bulk of votes, or the acquisition of an inordinate amount of money. surety of position works towards independence of thought and action and towards strong leadership. it establishes and maintains certain high ideals of honour, chivalry, and service as well as of courtesy and manners. if the things for which the gentlemen, the knighthood and the nobility of europe during the christian dispensation were responsible were stricken from the record there would be comparatively little left of the history of european culture and civilization. after all, is it merely sentimentalism and a sense of the picturesque that leads us to look backward with some wistfulness to the days of which the record is still left us in legends and fairy-tales and old romance, when ignorance and vulgarity did not sit in high places even if arrogance and pride and tyranny sometimes did, and when the profiteer and the oriental financier and the successful politician did not represent the distinction and the chivalry and the courtesy and the honour of the social organism man builds for his own habitation? the idea of knighthood still stirs us and the deeds of chivalry and the courtesy and the honour of the social knights of the round table, crusaders and knights errant, the quest of the holy grail, rescue and adventure, the fighting with paynims and powers of evil, still stir our blood and arouse in our minds strange contrasts and antinomies. princes and fair chatelaines in their wide domains with castle and chase and delicate pleasaunce, liege-men bound to them by more than the feudal ties of service. all the varied honours of nobility, vitalized by significant ritual and symbolized by splendid and beautiful costumes. courts of love and troubadours and trouvères, kings who were kings indeed, with the splendour and courtesy and beneficence of their courts--louis the saint and frederic ii, edward iii and king charles--above all the simple rank and high honour of the "gentleman," the representative of a long line of honourable tradition, no casual and purse-proud upstart, but of proud race and unquestioned status, proud because it stood for certain high ideals of honour and chivalry and loyalty, of courtesy and breeding and compassion. all these old things of long ago still rouse in us answering humours, and there are a few of us who can hardly see just why they are inconsistent with liberty and opportunity, justice, righteousness and mercy. somehow the last two generations, and especially the last ten years, have revealed many things hitherto hidden, and as we envisage society as it has come to be, estimating it by new-found standards and establishing new comparisons through a recovery of a more just historical sense, the question comes whether it is indeed more wholesome, more beautiful, more normal to man as he is, than the older society that in varying forms but always the same principle, had held throughout all history until the new model came in, now hardly a century ago. i do not think this wistful and bewildered looking backward is particularly due to a new desire for beauty, that comeliness of condition that existed then and has now given place to gross ugliness and ill-conditioned manners and ways. rather it seems to me it is due to a sense of irrationality and fundamental injustice in the present order, coupled with a new terror of the proximate issue as this already is revealing itself amongst many peoples. we resent the high estate, purchasable and purchased, of the cynical intriguer and the vulgar profiteer, of the tradesman in "big business," the cheap prophet and the pathetic progeny of "successful men" fast reverting to type. we know our city councils and our state legislatures and our houses of congress, we know our newspapers, their standards and the motive powers behind them, and what they record of the character and the doings of what they call "society men and women." above all we know that under the ancient regime, in spite of manifold failures, shortcomings and disloyalty, there was such a thing as a standard of honour, a principle of chivalry, an impulse to unselfish service, a criterion of courtesy and good manners; we look for these things now in vain, except amongst those little enclaves of oblivion where the old character and old breeding still maintain a fading existence, and as we consider what we have become we sometimes wonder if the price we have paid for "democracy" was not too extortionate. above all, we are tempted to this query when we think of our vanishing standards of right and wrong, of our progressive reversal of values, of our diminishing stock of social character. we tore down in indignant revolt the rotten fabric of a bad social system when it had so far declined from its ideal and its former estate that it could no longer be endured, and we made a new thing, full as we were with the fire of desire for a new righteousness and a new system that would compass it. perhaps we did well, at least we hardly could have done anything else; but now we are again in the position of our forefathers who saw things as they were and acted with force and decision. there are as many counts against our society of plutocrats, politicians and proletarians, mingled in complete and ineffective confusion, as there were against the aristocracies, so called, of the eighteenth century. perhaps there are more, at least many of them are different, but the indictment is no less sweeping. our plan, so generous, so liberal, so high-minded in many ways, has failed to produce the results we desired, while it has worked itself out to the point of menace. it is for us to see these facts clearly, and so to act, and so promptly, that we may not have to await the destroying force of cataclysm for the correction of our errors. iv the industrial problem the solution of the industrial and economic problem that now confronts the entire world with an insistence that is not to be denied, is contingent on the restoration, first of all, of the holiness and the joy of work. labour is not a curse, it is rather one of the greatest of the earthly blessings of man, provided its sanctity is recognized and its performance is accomplished with satisfaction to the labourer. in work man creates, whether the product is a bushel of potatoes from a space of once arid ground, or whether it is the taj mahal, westminster abbey or the constitution of the united states, and so working he partakes something of the divine power of creation. when work is subject to slavery, all sense of its holiness is lost, both by master and bondman; when it is subject to the factory system all the joy in labour is lost. ingenuity may devise one clever panacea after another for the salving work and for lifting the working classes from the intolerable conditions that have prevailed for more than a century; they will be ephemeral in their existence and futile in their results unless sense of holiness is restored, and the joy in production and creation given back to those who have been defrauded. before christianity prevailed slavery was universal in civilized communities, labour, as conducted under that regime, was a curse, and this at length came home to roost on the gaunt wreckage of imperialism. thereafter came slowly increasing liberty under the feudal system with its small social units and its system of production for use not profits, monasticism with its doctrine and practice of the sanctity of work, and the church with its progressive emancipation of the spiritual part of man. work was not easy, on the contrary it was very hard throughout the dark ages and mediaevalism, but there is no particular merit in easy work. it was virtually free except for the labour and contributions in kind exacted by the over-lord (less in proportion than taxes in money have been at several times since) from the workers on the soil, and in the crafts of every kind redeemed from undue arduousness by the joy that comes from doing a thing well and producing something of beauty, originality and technical perfection. the period during which work possessed the most honourable status and the joy in work was the greatest, extends from the beginnings of the twelfth century well into the sixteenth. in some centuries, and along certain lines of activity, it continued much longer, notably in england and the united states, but social and industrial conditions were rapidly changing, the old aristocracy was becoming perverted, lutheranisms, calvinism and puritanism were breaking down the old communal sense of brotherhood so arduously built up during the middle ages, capitalism was ousting the trade and craft guilds of free labour and political absolutism was crushing ever lower and lower a proletariat that was fast losing the last vestiges of old liberty. the fact of slavery without the name was gradually imposed on the agricultural classes, and after the suppression of the monasteries in england work as work lost its sacred character and fell under contempt. with the outbreak of industrialism in the last quarter of the eighteenth century through the institution and introduction of "labour-saving" machinery and the consequent division of labour, the factory system, the joint-stock company and capitalism, this new slavery was extended to industrial workers, and with its establishment disappeared the element of joy in labour. for fifty years, about the blackest half-century civilization has had to record, this condition of industrial slavery continued with little amendment. very slowly, however, the workers themselves, championed by certain aristocrats like the seventh earl of shaftsbury against professional liberals like cobden, bright, and gladstone in england, began to loosen the shackles that bound them to infamous conditions, and after the abrogation of laws that made any association of workingmen a penal offense, the labour unions began to ameliorate certain of the servile conditions under which for two generations the workman had suffered. since then the process of abolishing wage-slavery went slowly forward until at last the war came not only to threaten its destruction altogether but also to place the emancipated workers in a position where they could dictate terms and conditions to capital, to employers, to government and to the general public; while even now in many parts of europe and america, besides russia, overt attempts are being made to bring back the old slavery, only with the former bondsmen in supreme dictatorship, the former employers and the "bourgeoisie" in the new serfage. the old slavery is gone, but the joy in work has not been restored; instead, those who have achieved triumphant emancipation turn from labour itself with the same distaste, yes, with greater aversion than that which obtained under the old régime. with every added liberty and exemption, with every shortening of hours and increase of pay, production per hour falls off and the quality of the output declines. what is the reason for this? is it due to the viciousness of the worker, to his natural selfishness, greed and cruelty? i do not think so, but rather that the explanation is to be found in the fact that the industrial system of modernism has resulted in a condition where the joy has been altogether cut out of labour, and that until this state of things has been reversed and the sense of the holiness of work and the joy of working have been restored, it is useless to look for workable solutions of the labour problem. the _fact_ of industrial slavery has been done away with but the sense of the servile condition that attaches to work has been retained, therefore the idea of the dignity and holiness of labour has not come back any more than the old joy and satisfaction. failing this recovery, no reorganization of industrial relations, neither profit-sharing nor shop committees, neither nationalization nor state socialism, neither the abolition of capital, nor soviets nor syndicalism nor the dictatorship of the proletariat will get us anywhere. it is all a waste of time, and, through its ultimate failure and disappointments, an intensification of an industrial disease. why is it that this is so? for an answer i must probe deep and, it may seem, cut wildly. i believe it is because we have built up a system that goes far outside the limits of human scale, transcends human capacity, is forbidden by the laws and conditions of life, and must be abrogated if it is not to destroy itself and civilization in the process. what, precisely has taken place? late in the eighteenth century two things happened; the discovery of the potential inherent in coal and its derivative, steam, with electricity yet unexploited but ready to hand, and the application of this to industrial purposes, together with the initiating of a long and astounding series of discoveries and inventions all applicable to industrial purposes. with a sort of vertiginous rapidity the whole industrial process was transformed from what it had been during the period of recorded history; steam and machinery took the place of brain and hand power directly applied, and a revolution greater than any other was effected. the new devices were hailed as "labour-saving" but they vastly increased labour both in hours of work and in hands employed. bulk production through the factory system was inevitable, the result being an enormous surplus over the normal and local demand. to organize and conduct these processes of bulk-production required money greater in amount than individuals could furnish; so grew up capitalism, the joint-stock company, credit and cosmopolitan finance. to produce profits and dividends markets must be found for the huge surplus product. this was accomplished by stimulating the covetousness of people for things they had not thought of, under normal conditions would not, in many cases, need, and very likely would be happier without, and in "dumping" on supposedly barbarous peoples in remote parts of the world, articles alien to their traditions and their mode of life and generally pestiferous in their influence and results. so came advertising in all its branches, direct and indirect, from the newspaper and the bill-board to the drummer, the diplomatic representative and the commercial missionary. every year saw some new invention that increased the product per man, the development of some new advertising device, the conquest of some new territory or the delimitation of some new "sphere of influence," and the revelation of some new possibility in the covetousness of man. profits rose to new heights and accumulating dividends clamoured for new opportunities for investment. competition tended to cut down returns, therefore labour was more and more sustained through diminished wages and laws that savagely prevented any concerted effort towards self-defense. improvements in agricultural processes and the application of machinery and steam power, together with bulk-production and scientific localization of crops, threw great quantities of farm-labourers out of work and drove them into the industrial towns, while advances in medical science and in sanitation raised the proportion of births to deaths and soon provided a surplus of potential labour so that the operation of the "law of supply and demand," extolled by a new philosophy and enforced by the new "representative" or democratic and parliamentary government, resulted in an unfailing supply of cheap labour paid wages just beyond the limit of starvation. at last there came evidences that the limit had been reached; the whole world had been opened up and pre-empted, labour was beginning to demand and even get more adequate wages, competition, once hailed as "the life of trade" was becoming so fierce that dividends were dwindling. something had to be done and in self-defense industries began to coalesce in enormous "trusts" and "combines" and monopolies. capitalization of millions now ran into billions, finance became international in its scope and gargantuan in its proportions and ominousness, advertising grew from its original simplicity and naïveté into a vast industry based on all that the most ingenious professors could tell of applied psychology, subsidizing artists, poets, men of letters, employing armies of men along a hundred different lines, expending millions annually in its operations, making the modern newspaper possible, and ultimately developing the whole system of propaganda which has now become the one great determining factor in the making of public opinion. when the twentieth century opened, that industrialism which had begun just a century before, had, with its various collateral developments, financial, educational, journalistic, etc., become not only the greatest force in society, but as well a thing operating on the largest scale that man had ever essayed: beside it the roman empire was parochial. the result of this institution, conceived on such imperial lines, was, in the field we are now considering, the total destruction of the sense of the holiness of labour and of joy in work. it extended far beyond the limits of pure industrialism; it moulded and controlled society in all its forms, destroying ideals old as history, reversing values, confusing issues and wrecking man's powers of judgment. until the war it seemed irresistible, now its weakness and the fallacy of its assumptions are revealed, but it has become so absolutely a part of our life, indeed of our nature, that we are unable to estimate it by any sound standards of judgment, and even when we approximate this we cannot think in other terms when we try to devise our schemes of redemption. even the socialist and the bolshevik think in imperial terms when they try to compass the ending of imperialism. under this supreme system, as i see it, the two essential things i have spoken of cannot be restored, nor could they maintain themselves if, by some miracle, they were once re-established. the indictment cannot be closed here. the actual condition that has developed from industrialism presents certain factors that are not consonant with sane, wholesome and christian living. not only has the unit of human scale in human society been done away with, not only have the sense of the nobility of work and joy in the doing been exterminated, but, as well, certain absolutely false principles and methods have been adopted which are not susceptible of reform but only of abolition. of some of these i have spoken already; the alarming drift towards cities, until now in the united states more than one-half the population is urban; the segregation of industries in certain cities and regions; the minute division of labour and intensive specialization; the abnormal growth of a true proletariat or non-land-holding class; the flooding of the country by cheap labour drawn from the most backward communities and from peoples of low race-value. out of this has arisen a bitter class conflict and the ominous beginnings of a perilous class consciousness, with actual warfare joined in several countries, and threatened in all others where industrial civilization is prevalent. with this has grown up an artificially stimulated covetousness for a thousand futile luxuries, and a standard of living that presupposes a thousand non-essentials as basic necessities. production for profit, not use, excess production due to machinery, efficient organization, and surplus of labour, together with the necessity for marketing the product at a profit, have produced a state of things where at least one-half the available labour in the country is engaged in the production and sale of articles which are not necessary to physical, intellectual or spiritual life, while of the remainder, hardly more than a half is employed in production, the others are devoting themselves to distribution and to the war of competition through advertising and the capturing of trade by ingenious and capable salesmen. it is a significant fact that two of the greatest industries in the united states are the making of automobiles and moving pictures. it is probably true to say that of the potential labour in the united states, about one-fourth is producing those things which are physically, intellectually and spiritually necessary; the remaining three-fourths are essentially non-producers: they must, however, be housed, fed, clothed, and amused, and the cost of this support is added to the cost of the necessities of life. the reason for the present high cost of living lies possibly here. lest i be misunderstood, let me say here that under the head of necessities of life i do not mean a new model automobile each year, moving pictures, mechanical substitutes for music or any other art, and the thousand catch-trade devices that appear each year for the purpose of filching business from another or establishing a new desire in the already over-crowded imaginations of an over-stimulated populace. particularly do i not mean advertising in any sense in which it is now understood and practised. if, as i believe to be the case, production for profit, rather than for use, the reversal of the ancient doctrine that the demand must produce the supply, in favour of the doctrine that the supply must foster the demand, is the foundation of our economic error and our industrial ills, then it follows that advertising as it is now carried on by billboards, circulars and newspapers, by drummers, solicitors and consular agents, falls in the same condemnation, for except by its offices the system could not have succeeded or continue to function. it is bad in itself as the support and strength of a bad institution, but its guilt does not stop here. so plausible is it, so essential to the very existence of the contemporary régime, so knit up with all the commonest affairs of life, so powerful in its organization and broad in its operations, it has poisoned, and continues to poison, the minds of men so that the headlong process of losing all sense of comparative values is accelerated, while every instinctive effort at recovery and readjustment is nullified. how far this process has gone may be illustrated by two instances. it is only a few months ago that a most respected clergyman publicly declared that missionaries were the greatest and most efficient asset to trade because they were unofficial commercial agents who opened up new and savage countries to western commerce through advertising commodities of which the natives had never heard, and arousing in them a sense of acquisitiveness that meant more wealth and business for trade and manufacture, which should support foreign missions on this ground at least. more recently the head of an advertising concern in new york is reported to have said: "it is principally through advertising that we have arrived at the high degree of civilization which this age enjoys, for advertising has taught us the use of books and how to furnish our homes with the thousand and one comforts that add so materially to our physical and intellectual well-being. the future of the world depends on advertising. advertising is the salvation of civilization, for civilization cannot outlive advertising a century." it is tempting to linger over such a delectable morsel as this, for even if it is only the absurd and irresponsible output of one poor, foolish man, it does express more or less what industrial civilization holds to be true, though few would avow their faith so whole-heartedly. the statement was made as propaganda, and propaganda is merely advertising in its most insidious and dangerous form. the thing revealed its possibilities during the war, but the black discredit that was then very justly attached to it could not prevail against its manifest potency, and it is now universally used after the most comprehensive and frequently unscrupulous fashion, with results that can only be perilous in the extreme. the type and calibre of mind that has now been released from long bondage, and by weight of numbers is now fast taking over the direction of affairs, is curiously subservient to the written word, and lacking a true sense of comparative values, without effective leadership either secular or religious, is easily swayed by every wind of doctrine. the forces of evil that are ever in conflict with the forces of right are notoriously ingenious in making the worse appear the better cause, and with every desire for illumination and for following the right way, the multitude, whether educated or illiterate, fall into the falsehoods of others' imaginings. money, efficiency, an acquired knowledge of mob psychology, the printing press and the mail service acting in alliance, and directed by fanatical or cynical energy, form a force of enormous potency that is now being used effectively throughout society. it is irresponsible, anonymous and pervasive. through its operation the last barriers are broken down between the leadership of character and the leadership of craft, while all formal distinctions between the valuable and the valueless are swept away. i have spoken at some length of this particular element in the present condition of things, because in both its aspects, as the support of our present industrial and economic system and as the efficient moulder of a fluid and unstable public opinion, it is perhaps the strongest and most subtle force of which we must take account. with a system so prevalent as imperial industry, so knit up with every phase of life and thought, and so determining a factor in all our concepts, united as it is with two such invincible allies as advertising and propaganda, it is inconceivable that it should be overthrown by any human force from without. holding it to be essentially wrong, it seems to me providential that it is already showing signs of falling by its own weight. production of commodities has far exceeded production of the means of payment, and society is now running on promises to pay, on paper obligations, on anticipations of future production and sale, on credit, in a word. the war has enormously magnified this condition until an enforced liquidation would mean bankruptcy for all the nations of the earth, while the production of utilities is decreasing in proportion to the production of luxuries, labour is exacting increasing pay for decreasing hours of work and quality of output, and the enormous financial structure, elaborately and ingeniously built up through several generations, is in grave danger of immediate catastrophe. the whole world is in the position of an insolvent debtor who is so deeply involved that his creditors cannot afford to let him go into bankruptcy, and so keep him out of the poor debtor's court by doling out support from day to day. confidence is the only thing that keeps matters going; what happens when this is lost is now being demonstrated in many parts of europe. the optimist claims that increased production, coupled with enforced economy, will produce a satisfactory solution, but there is no evidence that labour, now having the whip-hand, will give up its present advantage sufficiently to make this possible; even if it did, payment must be in the form of exchange or else in further promises to pay, while the capacity of the world for consumption is limited somewhere, though thus far "big business" has failed to recognize this fact. at present the interest charges on debts, both public and private, have reached a point where they come near to consuming all possible profits even from a highly accelerated rate of production. altogether it is reasonable to assume that the present financial-industrial system is near its term for reasons inherent in itself, let alone the possibility of a further extension of the drastic and completely effective measures of destruction that are characteristics of bolshevism and its blood-brothers. assuming that this is so, two questions arise: what is to take the place of imperial industry, and how is this substitution to be brought about? i think the answer to the first is: a social and industrial system based on small, self-contained, largely self-sufficing units, where supply follows demand, where production is primarily for use not profit, and where in all industrial operations some system will obtain which is more or less that of the guilds of the middle ages. i should like to go into this a little more in detail before trying to answer the second question. the normal social unit is a group of families predominantly of the same race, territorially compact, of substantially the same ideals as expressed in religion and the philosophy of life, and sufficiently numerous to provide from within itself the major part of those things which are necessary to physical, intellectual and spiritual well-being. it should consist of a central nucleus of houses, each with its garden, the churches, schools and public buildings that are requisite, the manufactories and workshops that supply the needs of the community, the shops for sale of those things not produced at home, and all necessary places of amusement. around this residential centre should be sufficient agricultural land to furnish all the farm products that will be consumed by the community itself. the nucleus of habitation and industry, together with the surrounding farms, make up the social unit, which is to the fullest possible degree, self-contained, self-sufficient and self-governing. certain propositions are fundamental, and they are as follows: every family should own enough land to support itself at need. the farms included in the unit must produce enough to meet the needs of the population. industry must be so organized that it will normally serve the resident population along every feasible line. only such things as cannot be produced at home on account of climatic or soil limitations should be imported from outside. all necessary professional services should be obtainable within the community itself. all financial transactions such as loans, credits, banking and insurance should be domestic. surplus products, whether agricultural, industrial or professional, should be considered as by-products, and in no case should the producing agency acquire such magnitude that home-consumption becomes a side issue and production for profit take the place of production for use. all this is absolutely opposed to our present system, but our present system is wasteful, artificial, illogical, unsocial, and therefore vicious. i have said enough as to the falsities, the dangers and the failures of bulk-production through the operations of capitalism, the factory system and advertising, but its concomitant, the segregation of industries, is equally objectionable. to ship hogs 1,500 miles to be slaughtered and packed in food form, and then ship this manufactured product back to the source from which the raw material came; to feed a great city with grain, potatoes and fruits coming from 1,000 to 3,000 miles away, and vegetables from a distance of several hundred miles, while the farms within a radius of fifty miles are abandoned and barren; to make all the shoes for the nation in one small area, to spin the wool and cotton and weave the cloth in two or three others; to make the greater part of the furniture in one state, the automobiles in a second and the breakfast food in a third, is so preposterous a proposition that it belongs in gulliver's travels, not in the annals of a supposedly intelligent people. the only benefit is that which for a time accrued to the railways, which carted raw materials and finished products back and forth over thousands of miles of their lines, the costs of shipment and reshipment being naturally added to the price to the consumer. the penalties for this uneconomic procedure were borne by society at large, not only in the increased costs but through the abnormal communities, each with its tens of thousands of operatives all engaged in the same work and generally drawn from foreign races (with the active co-operation of the steamship lines), and the permanent dislocation of the labour supply, together with the complete disruption of the social synthesis. with production for profit and segregation of industries has come an almost infinitesimal division and specialization of labour. under a right industrial system this would be reduced, not magnified. the dignity of labour and the joy of creation demand that in so far as possible each man should carry through one entire operation. this is of course now, and always has been under any highly developed civilization, impossible in practice, except along certain lines of art and craftsmanship. the evils of the existing system can in a measure be done away with the moment production for use is the recognized law, for it is only in bulk-production that this intensive specialization can be made to pay. bulk-production there will always be until, and if, the world is reorganized on the basis of an infinite number of self-contained social units, but in the ideal community--and i am dealing now with ideals--it would not exist. allied with this is the whole question of the factory method and the use and misuse of machinery. it seems to me that the true principle is that machinery and the factory are admissible only when so employed they actually do produce, in bulk operations, a better product, and with less labour, than is possible through hand work. weaving, forging and all work where human action must be more or less mechanical, offer a fair field for the machine and the factory, but wherever the human element can enter, where personality and the skilled craft of the hand are given play, the machine and the factory are inadmissible. the great city, creation of "big business," segregation of industries, advertising, salesmanship and a hundred other concomitants of modernism, have built up an abnormal and avaricious demand for bulk-production along lines where the handicraft should function. it becomes necessary--let us say--to provide a million dollars worth of furniture for a ten million dollar hotel (itself to be superseded and scrapped in perhaps ten years) and naturally only the most intensive and efficient factory system can meet this demand. rightly, however, the furniture of a community should be produced by the local cabinet makers, and so it should be in many other industries now entirely taken over by the factory system. for the future then we must consciously work for the building upward from primary units, so completely reversing our present practice of creating the big thing and fighting hopelessly to preserve such small and few doles of liberty and personality as may be permitted to filter downward from above. this is the only true democracy, and the thing we call by the name is not this, largely because we have bent our best energies to the building up of vast and imperial aggregates which have inevitably assumed a complete unity in themselves and become dominating, tyrannical and ruthless forces that have operated regardless of the sound laws and wholesome principles of a right society. neither the vital democracy of principle nor the artificial democracy of practice can exist in conjunction with imperialism, whether this is established in government, in industry, in trade, in society or in education. if we can assume, then, the gradual development of a new society in which these principles will be carried out, a society that is made up of social units of human scale, self-contained, self-supporting and self-governed, where production is primarily for use not profit, and where bulk-production is practically non-existent, the sub-division of labour reduced to the lowest practicable point, machinery employed to a much less extent than now, and the factory system abolished, what organic form will labour take on in place of that which now obtains? it is possible to forecast this only in the most general terms, for life itself must operate to determine the lines of development and dictate the consequent forms. if we can acquire a better standard of comparative values, and with a clearer and more fearless vision estimate the rights and wrongs of the contemporary system, rejecting the ill thing and jealously preserving, or passionately regaining, the good, we shall be able to establish certain broad, fundamental and governing principles, and doing this we can await in confidence the evolution of the organic forms that will be the working agencies of the new society. i have tried to indicate some of the basic principles of a new society. the operating forms, so far as industry is concerned, will, i think, follow in essential respects the craft-guilds of the middle ages. they will not be an archaeological restoration, as some of the english protagonists of this great revolution seem to anticipate, they will be variously adapted to the peculiar conditions of a new century, but the basic principles will be preserved. whatever happens, i am sure it will not be either a continuation of the present system of capitalism and profit-hunting, or nationalization of industries, or state socialism in any form, or anything remotely resembling bolshevism, syndicalism or a "dictatorship of the proletariat." here, as in government, education and social relations, the power and the authority of the state must decline, government itself withdrawing more and more from interference with the operation of life, and liberty find its way back to the individual and to the social and economic groups. we live now under a more tyrannical and inquisitorial regime, in spite of (partly perhaps because of) its democratic forms and dogmas, than is common in historical records. nationalization or state socialism would mean so great a magnifying of this condition that existence would soon become both grotesque and intolerable. we must realize, and soon, that man may lose even the last semblance of liberty, as well under a nominal democracy as under a nominal despotism or theocracy. the guild system was the solution of the industrial problem offered and enforced by christianity working through secular life; it presupposed the small social and industrial unit and becomes meaningless if conceived in the gigantic and comprehensive scale of modern institutions. "national guilds" is a contradiction in terms: it takes on the same element of error that inheres in the idea of "one big union." in certain respects the christian guild resembled the modern trade union, but it differed from it in more ways, and it seems to be true that wherever this difference exists the guild was right and the union is wrong. community of fellowship and action amongst men of each craft trade or calling is essential under any social system, good or bad, and it would be inseparable from the better society that must sometime grow up on the basis of the unit of human scale, for these autonomous groups, in order to furnish substantially all that their component parts could require, would have to be of considerable size as compared with the little farming villages of new england, though in contrast with the great cities of modernism they would be small indeed. in these new "walled towns" there would be enough men engaged in agriculture, in the necessary industrial occupations, in trade and in the professions to form many guilds of workable size, and normally these guilds would neither contain members of two or more professions or occupations, nor those from outside the community itself. the guild cannot function under intensive methods of production or where production is primarily for profit, or where the factory system prevails, or where capitalism is the established system, or under combinations, trusts or other devices for the establishing and maintenance of great aggregates tending always towards monopoly. however much we may admire the guild system and desire its restoration, we may as well recognize this fact at once. the imperial scale must go and the human scale be restored before the guild can come back in any general sense. i am assuming that this will happen, either through conscious action on the part of the people or as the result of catastrophe that always overtakes those who remain wedded to the illusions of falsity. on this assumption what are these enduring principles that will control the guild system of industry in the new state, however may be its form? the answer is to be found in the old guilds, altars, shrines, vestments and sacred vessels were given in incredible quantities for the furnishing and embellishment of the chapel or church; funds also for the maintenance of priestly offices especially dedicated to the guild. closely allied with the religious spirit was that of good-fellowship and merrymaking. every sort of feast and game and pageant was a part of the guild system, as it was indeed of life generally at this time when men did not have to depend upon hired professional purveyors of amusement for their edification. what they wanted they did themselves, and this community in worship and community in merrymaking did more even than the merging of common material interests, to knit the whole body together into a living organism. in how far the old system can be revived and put into operation is a question. certainly it cannot be adopted as a fad and imposed on an unwilling society as a clever archaeological restoration. it will have to grow naturally out of life itself and along lines at present hardly predicable. there are many evidences that just this spontaneous generation is taking place. the guild system is being preached widely in england where the defects of the present scheme are more obvious and the resulting labour situation--or rather social situation--is more fraught with danger than elsewhere, and already the restoration seems to have made considerable headway. i am convinced, however, that the vital aspects of the case are primarily due to the interior working of a new spirit born of disillusionment and the undying fire in man that flames always towards regeneration; what the ardent preaching of the enthusiastic protagonists of the crusade best accomplishes is the creation in the minds of those not directly associated with the movement of a readiness to give sympathy and support to the actual accomplishment when it manifests itself. recently i have come in contact here in america with several cases where the workmen themselves have broken away from the old ways and have actually established what are to all intents and purposes craft-guilds, without in the least realizing that they were doing this. i think the process is bound to continue, for the old order has broken down and is so thoroughly discredited it can hardly be restored. if time is granted us, great things must follow, but it is increasingly doubtful if this necessary element of time can be counted on. daily the situation grows more menacing. capital, which so long exploited labour to its own fabulous profit, is not disposed to sit quiet while the fruits of its labours and all prospects of future emoluments are being dissipated, and it is hard at work striving to effect a "return to normalcy." in this it is being unconsciously aided by the bulk of union labour which, encouraged by the paramount position it achieved during the war, influenced by an avarice it may well have learned from its former masters, as narrow in its vision as they, and increasingly subservient to a leadership which is frequently cynical and unscrupulous and always of an order of character and intelligence which is tending to lower and lower levels, is alienating sympathy and bringing unionism into disrepute. in the united states the tendency is steadily towards a very dangerous reactionism, with a corresponding strengthening of the radical element which aims at revolution, and that impossible thing, a proletarian dictatorship. it is this latter which is rampant and at present unchecked in europe, and this also is a constant menace to the success of those sane and righteous movements which take their lead from the guild system of the middle ages. a third danger, but one which is constantly on the decline at present, partly because of the general disrepute of governments and partly because of the enormous accessions of power now accruing both to reactionism and radical revolutionism, or "bolshevism," is state socialism or nationalization, which leaves untouched all the fatal elements in industrialism while it changes only the agents of administration. the complete collapse of able and constructive and righteous leadership, which is one of the startling phenomena of modernism, has left uncontrolled the enormous energy that has been released during the last three generations, and this is working blindly but effectively towards a cataclysm so precipitate and comprehensive that it is impossible not to fear that it may determine long before the sober and informed elements in society have accomplished very much in the recovery and establishment of sound and righteous principles and methods. of course we can compass whichever result we will. we may shut our eyes to the omens and let matters drift to disaster, or we may take thought and council and avert the penalty that threatens us; the event is in our own hands. it is as criminal to foresee and predict only catastrophe as it is to compass this through lethargy, selfishness and illusion. we are bound to believe that righteousness will prevail, even in our own time, and believing this, what, in general terms will be the construction of the new system that must take the place of industrialism? i have already indicated what seem to me the fundamental ideas as: the small social unit that is self-sustaining; production primarily for use, coöperation in place of competition; a revived guild system with the abolition of capitalism, exploitation and intensive specialization as we now know these dominant factors in modern civilization. in the application of these principles there are certain innovations that will, i think, take place, and these may be listed somewhat as follows: land holding will become universal and the true proletariat or landless class will disappear. it may be that the holding of land will become a prerequisite to active citizenship. industrial production being for use not profit, the great city becomes a thing of the past, and life is rendered simpler through the elimination of a thousand useless and vicious luxuries; those employed in mechanical industries will be incalculably fewer than now, while those that remain will give only a portion of their time to industrial production, the remainder being available for productive work on their own gardens and farms. the handicrafts will be restored to their proper place and dignity, taking over into creative labour large numbers of those who otherwise would be sacrificed to the factory system. where bulk production, as in weaving and the preparation and manufacturing of metals, is economical and unavoidable and carried on by factory methods, these manufactories will probably be taken over by the several communities (not by the state as a whole) and administered as public institutions for the benefit of the community and under conditions and regulations which ensure justice and well-being to the employees. all those in any community engaged in a given occupation, as for example, building, will form one guild made up of masters, journeymen and apprentices, with the same principles and much the same methods as prevailed under the ancient guild system. fluctuating scales of prices determined by fluctuating conditions of competition, supply and demand, and power of coercion, will give place to "the fair price" fixed by concerted community action and revised from time to time in order to preserve a right balance with the general scale of cost of raw materials and cost of living. a maximum of returns in the shape of profits or dividends will be fixed by law. the community itself will undertake the furnishing of credits, loans and necessary capital for the establishing of a new business, charging a small rate of interest and maintaining a reserve fund to meet these operations. private banking, insurance and the loaning of money on collateral will cease to exist. i dare say this will all sound chimerical and irrational in the extreme; i do not see it in that light. its avowed object is the supersession of "big business" in all its phases by something that comes down to human scale. it aims to reduce labour and divide it more evenly by making the great mass of non-producers--those engaged in distribution, salesmanship, advertising, propaganda, and the furnishing of things unnecessary to the bodily, intellectual and spiritual needs of man--actual producers and self-supporting to a very large extent. it aims at restoring to work some sense of the joy in creation through active mind and hand. it aims at the elimination of the parasitic element in society and of that dangerous factor which subsists on wealth it acquires without earning, and by sheer force of its own opulence dominates and degrades society. it does not strike at private ownership, but rather exalts, extends and defends this, but it _does_ cut into all the theories and practices of communism and socialism by establishing the principle and practice of fellowship and coöperation. is this "chimerical and irrational"? meanwhile the "walled towns" do not exist and may not for generations. "big business" is indisposed to abrogate itself. trade unionism is fighting for its life and thereafter for world conquest, while the enmity between capital and labour increases, with no evidence that a restored guild system is even approximately ready to take its place. strikes and lockouts grow more and more numerous, and wider and more menacing in their scope. the day of the "general strike" has only been delayed at the eleventh hour in several countries, and a general strike, if it can hold for a sufficient period, means, where-ever it occurs and whenever it succeeds, the end of civilization and the loosing of the floods of anarchy. there is hardly time for us patiently to await the slow process of individual and corporate enlightenment or the spontaneous development of the autonomous communities which, if they were sufficient in number, would solve the problem through eliminating the danger. what then, in the premises, can we do? there are of course certain concrete things which might help, as for instance the further extension and honest trying out of the "kansas plan" for regulating industrial relations; the forming of "consumers leagues," and all possible support and furtherance of coöperative efforts of every sort. there are further possibilities (perhaps hardly probabilities) of controlling stock issues and stock holdings so that dividends do not have to be paid on grossly inflated capitalization, and fixing the maximum of dividends payable to non-active stockholders. equally desirable but equally improbable, is the raising of the level of leadership in the labour unions so that these valuable institutions may no longer stultify themselves and wreck their own cause by their unjust and anti-social regulations as to apprentices, control of maximum output and its standard of quality, division of labour with ironclad inhibitions against one man doing another's work and against one man doing what six men can do less well, and as to the obligation to strike on order when no local or personal grievance exists. most useful of all would be a voluntary renunciation, on the part of the purchasing public, of nine-tenths of the futile luxuries they now insanely demand, coupled with the production by themselves of some of the commodities which are easily producable; in other words, establishing some measure of self-support and so releasing many men and women from the curse of existence under factory conditions and giving them an opportunity of living a normal life under self-supporting circumstances. this, coupled with a fostering of the "back to the farm" movement, and the development of conditions which would make this process more practicable and the life more attractive, would do much, though in small ways, towards producing a more wholesome and less threatening state of affairs. back of the whole problem, however, lies a fallacy in our conception of existence that must be eliminated before even the most constructive panaceas can possibly work. i mean the whole doctrine of natural rights which has become the citadel of capitalism in all its most offensive aspects, and of labour in its most insolent assumptions. the "rights" of property, the "right" to strike, the "right" to collective bargaining, the "right" to shut down an essential industry or to "walk out" and then picket the place so that it may not be reopened, the "right" to vote and hold office and do any fool thing you please so long as it is within the law, these are applications of what i mean when i speak of a gross fallacy that has come into being and has stultified our intelligence while bringing near the wrecking of our whole system. neither man nor his community possesses any _absolute_ rights; they are all conditioned on how they are exercised. if they are not so conditioned they become privilege, which is a right not subject to conditions, and privilege is one of the things republicanism and democracy and every other effort towards human emancipation have set themselves up to destroy. even the "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is conditioned by the manner of use, and the same is true of every other and unspecified right. i do not propose to speak here of more than one aspect of this self-evident truth, but the single instance i cite is one that bears closely on the question of our industrial and economic situation; it is the responsibility to society of property or capital on the one hand and of labour on the other, when both invoke their "rights" to justify them in oppressing the general public in the pursuit of their own natural interests. during the middle ages, just as the political theory maintained that while a king ruled by divine right, this right gave him no authority to govern wrong, so the social theory held that while a man had a right to private property he had no right to use it against society, nor could the labourer use his own rights to the injury of the same institution. power, property and labour must be used as a _function_, i.e., "an activity which embodies and expresses the idea of social purpose." unless i am mistaken, this is at the basis of our "common law." as mediaevalism gave place to the renaissance this christian idea was abandoned, and increasingly the obligation was severed from the right, which so became that odious thing, privilege. intolerable in its injustice and oppression, this privilege, which by the middle of the eighteenth century had become the attribute of the aristocracy, was completely overthrown, in france first of all, and a new doctrine of rights was enunciated and put in operation. unfortunately the result was in essence simply a transforming of privilege from one body to another, for the old conception of social purpose, as the necessary concomitant of acknowledged rights, did not emerge from the shadows of the middle ages; it had been too long forgotten. the new "rights" were exclusively individualistic, in practice, though in the minds of the idealists who formulated them, they had their social aspect. their promulgation synchronized with the sudden rise and violent expansion of industrialism, and as one country after another followed the lead of england in accepting the new system, they hardened into an iron-clad scheme for the defence of property and the free action of the holders and manipulators of property. backed by the economic philosophy of locke, adam smith, bentham and the manchester school, generally, and the evolutionary theories of the exponents of darwinism, and abetted by an endless series of statutes, the idea of the exemption of property holders from any responsibility to society for the use of their property, became a fixed part of the mental equipment of modernism. precisely the same thing happened politically and socially. rights were personal and implied no necessary obligation to society as a whole; they were personal attributes and as such to be defended at all costs. now the result of this profound error as to the existence, nature and limitation of these personal rights has meant simply the destruction of a righteous and unified society which works by coöperation and fellowship, and the substitution of individuals and corporate bodies who work by competition, strife and mutual aggression towards the attainment of all they can get under the impulse of what was once praised as "enlightened self interest." in other words--war. the conflict that began in 1914 was not a war hurled into the midst of a white peace, it was only a military war arising in the centre of a far greater social war, for there is no other word that is descriptive. rights that are not contingent on the due discharge of duties and obligations are but hateful privilege; privilege has issue in selfishness and egotism, which in turn work themselves out in warfare and in the hatred that both precedes and follows conflict. the net result of a century and a half of industrialism is avarice, warfare and hate. society can continue even when avariciousness is rampant--for a time--and warfare of one sort or another seems inseparable from humanity, at all events it has always been so, but hatred is another matter, for it is the negation of social life and is its solvent. anger passes; it is sometimes even righteous, but hatred is synonymous with death in that it dissolves every unit, reducing it to its component parts and subjecting each of these to dissolution in its turn. righteous anger roused the nations into the war that hate had engendered, but hate has followed after and for the moment is victorious. russia seethes with hatred and is perishing of its poison, while there is not another country in europe, of those that were involved in the war, where the same is not true in varying degrees; hatred of race for race, of nation for nation, of class for class, of one social or industrial or economic or political institution for another. this, above all else, is the disintegrating influence, and against it no social organism, no civilization can stand. unless it is abrogated it means an ending of another epoch of human life, a period of darkness and another beginning, some time after the poison has been worked out by misery, adversity and forced repentance. it is this prevalence of hatred, reinforced by avarice and perpetuated by incessant warfare, that negatives all the efforts that are made towards effecting a correspondence between the divided interests that are the concomitant of industrialism. strikes and lockouts, trades unions and employers' associations as they are now constituted and as they now operate, syndicalism and bolshevism and proletarian dictatorships, protective tariffs and commercial spheres of influence, propaganda and subsidized newspapers are all energized by the principle of hate, and no good thing can come of any of them. nor is it enough to work for the re-establishment of justice even by those methods of righteousness, and with the impulse towards righteousness, which are so different from those which are functioning at present along the lines of contemporary industrial "reform." justice is a "natural" virtue with a real place in society, but the only saving force today is a supernatural virtue. this, amongst other things, christ brought into the world and left as the saving force amongst the race he had redeemed and in the society reconstituted in accordance with his will. this supernatural virtue is charity, sometimes expressed in the simpler form of love, the essence of the social code of christianity and the symbol of the new dispensation as justice was the symbol of the old. just in so far as a man or a cult or an interest or a corporation or a state or a generation or a race, relinquishes charity as its controlling spirit, in so far it relinquishes its place in christian society and its claim to the christian name, while it is voided of all power for good or possibility of continuance. where charity is gone, intellectual capacity, effectual power, and even justice itself become, not energies of good, but potent contributions to evil. is this supernatural gift of charity a mark of contemporary civilization? does it manifest itself with power today in the dealings between class and class, between interest and interest, between nation and nation? if not, then we have forfeited the name of christian and betrayed christian civilization into the hands of its enemies, while our efforts towards saving what is left to us of a once consistent and righteous society will be without result except as an acceleration of the now headlong process of dissolution. i am not charging any class or any interest or any people with exclusive apostacy. in the end there is little to choose between one or another. labour is not more culpable than capital, nor the proletarian than the industrial magnate and the financier, nor the nominal secularist than the nominal religionist. nor am i charging conscious and willful acceptance of wrong in the place of right. it is the institution itself, industrialism as it has come to be, with all its concomitants and derivatives, that has betrayed man to his disgrace and his society to condemnation, and so long as this system endures so long will recovery be impossible and regeneration a vain thing vainly imagined. charity, that is to say, fellowship, generosity, pity, self-sacrifice, chivalry, all that is comprehended in the thing that christ was, and preached, and promulgated as the fundamental law of life, cannot come back to the world so long as avarice, warfare and hate continue to exist, and through charity alone can we find the solution of the industrial and economic problem that _must_ be solved under penalty of social death. v the political organization of society in these essays, which look towards a new social synthesis, i find myself involved in somewhat artificial subdivisions. industrial, social and political forces all react one upon another, and the complete social product is the result of the interplay of these forces, coördinated and vitalized by philosophy, education and religion. to isolate each factor and consider it separately is apt to result in false values, but there seems no other way in which the subject, which is essentially one, may be divided into the definite parts which are consequent on the form of a course of lectures. in considering now the political estate of the human social organism it will be evident that i hold that this must be contingent on many elements that reveal themselves in a contributory industrial system, in the principles that are embodied in social relationships, and in the general scheme of such a working philosophy of life as may predominate amongst the component parts of the synthetic society which is the product of all these varied energies and the organic forms through which they operate. political organization has always been a powerful preoccupation of mankind, and the earliest records testify to its antiquity. the regulation of human intercourse, the delimiting of rights and privileges, protection of life and property, the codifying of laws, vague, various and conflicting, the making of new laws and the enforcing of those that have taken organic form; all these and an hundred other governmental functions, appeal strongly to the mind and touch closely on personal interests. it is no wonder that the political history of human society is the most varied, voluminous and popular in its appeal. at the present moment this problem has, in general, an even more poignant appeal, and no rival except the industrial problem, for in both cases systems that, up to ten years ago, were questioned only by a minority (large in the case of industry, small and obscure in the case of government) have since completely broken down, and it is probable that a political system which had existed throughout the greater part of europe and the americas for a century and a half, almost without serious criticism, has now as many assailants as industrialism itself. the change is startling from the "triumphant democracy" period, a space of time as clearly defined and as significant in its characteristics as the "victorian era." before the war, during the war, and throughout the earlier years of the even more devastating "peace," the system which followed the ruin of the renaissance autocracies, the essential elements in which were an ever-widening suffrage, parliamentary government, and the universal operation of the quantitative standard of values, was never questioned or criticised, except in matters of detail. that it was the most perfect governmental scheme ever devised and that it must continue forever, was held to be axiomatic, and with few exceptions the remedy proposed for such faults as could not possibly escape detection was a still further extension of the democratic principle. even the war itself was held to be "a war to make the world safe for democracy." it is significant that the form in which this saying now frequently appears is one in which the word "from" is substituted in place of the word "for." it is useless to blink the fact that there is now a distrust of parliamentary and representative government which is almost universal and this distrust, which is becoming widespread, reaches from the bolshevism of russia on the one hand, through many intermediate social and intellectual stages, to the conservative elements in england and the united states, and the fast-strengthening royalist "bloc" in france. in many unexpected places there is visible a profound sense that something is so fundamentally wrong that palliatives are useless and some drastic reform is necessary, a reform that may almost amount to revolution. lord bryce still believes in democracy in spite of his keen realizations of its grievous defects, because, as he says, hope is an inextinguishable quality of the human soul. mr. chesterton preaches democracy in principle while condemning its mechanism and its workings with his accustomed vigour; the adamses renounce democracy and all its works while offering no hint as to what could consistently take its place with any better chance of success, while the royalists excoriate it in unmeasured terms and preach an explicit return to monarchy. meanwhile international bolshevism, hating the thing as violently as do kings in exile, substitutes a crude and venal autocracy, while organized labour, as a whole, works for the day when a "class-conscious proletariat" will have taken matters into its own hands and established a new aristocracy of privilege in which the present working classes will hold the whip-hand. meanwhile the more educated element of the general public withdraws itself more and more from political affairs, going its own way and making the best of a bad job it thinks itself taught by experience it cannot mend. it is useless to deny that government, in the character of its personnel, the quality of its output, the standard of its service and the degree of its beneficence has been steadily deteriorating during the last century and has now reached, in nearly every civilized country, a deplorably low level. popular representatives are less and less men of character and ability; legislation is absurd in quantity, short-sighted, frivolous, inquisitorial, and in a large measure prompted by selfish interests; administration is reckless, wasteful and inefficient, while it is overloaded in numbers, without any particular aptitude on the part of its members, and in a measure controlled by personal or corporate interests. the whole system is in bad odour for it is shot through and through with the greed for money and influence, while the cynicism of the professional politician and the low average of character, intelligence and manners of the strata of society that increasingly are usurping all power, work towards producing that general contempt and aversion that have become so evident of late and that are a menace to society no less than that of the decaying institution itself. confronted by a situation such as this, the natural tendency of those who suffer under it, either in their material interests or their ideals, is to condemn the mechanism, perhaps even the very principles for the operation of which the various machines were devised. some reject the whole scheme of representative, parliamentary government, and, failing any plausible substitute, are driven back on some form of the soviet, or even government by industrial groups. those that go to the limit and reject the whole scheme of democracy are in still worse plight for they have no alternative to offer except a restored monarchy, and this, the _terminus ad quem_ of their logic, their courage will not permit them to avow. it is a dilemma, but forced, i believe, by the fatal passion of the man of modernism for the machine, the mechanical device, the material equivalent for a thing that has no equivalent, and that is the personal character of the constituents of society and the working factors in a political organism. there was never a more foolish saying than that which is so frequently and so boastfully used: "a government of laws and not of men." this is the exact reversal of what should be recognized as a self-evident truth, viz, that the quality of the men, not the nature of the laws or of the administrative machine, is the determining factor in government. you may take any form of government ever devised by man, monarchy, aristocracy, republic, democracy, yes, or soviet, and if the community in which this government operates has a working majority of men of character, intelligence and spiritual energy, it will be a good government, whereas if the working majority is deficient in these characteristics, or if it makes itself negligible by abstention from public affairs it will be a bad government. there is no one political system which is right while all others are wrong. the monarchy of st. louis was better than the third republic, as this is better than was the monarchy of louis xv. the aristocracy of washington was better than the democracy of this year of grace, as this in itself is better than the late junker aristocracy of prussia. you cannot substitute a machine in place of character, you cannot supersede life by a theory. this does not mean that the form of government is of no moment, it is of the utmost importance for i cannot too often insist that the organic life of society is the resultant of two forces; spiritual energy working through and upon the material forms towards their improvement or--when this energy is weak or distorted--their degeneration; the material forms acting as a stimulus towards the development of spiritual energy through association and environment that are favourable, or towards its weakening and distortion when these are deterrents because of their own degraded or degrading nature. if it is futile to look for salvation through the mechanism, it is equally futile to try to act directly and exclusively on the character of the social constituents in the patient hope that their defects may be remedied, and the preponderance of character of high value achieved, before catastrophe overtakes the experiment. life is as sacramental as the christian religion and christian philosophy; neither the spiritual substance nor the material accidents can operate alone but only in a conjunction so intimate that it is to all intents and purposes--that is, for the interests and purposes of god in human life--a perfect unity. however completely and even passionately we may realize the determining factor of spiritual energy as this manifests itself through personal character, however deeply we may distrust the machine, we are bound to recognize the paramount necessity of the active interplay of both within the limits of life as we know it on the earth, and therefore it is very much our concern that the machine, whether it is industrial, political, educational, ecclesiastical or social, is as perfect in its nature and stimulating in its operations as we are able to compass. in the present liquidation of values, theories and institutions we are bound therefore to scrutinize each operating agency of human society, to see wherein it has failed and how it can be bettered, and the problem before us now is the political organism. now it appears that in the past there have been just two methods whereby a civil polity has come into existence and established itself for a short period or a long. these two methods are, first, unpremeditated and sometimes unconscious growth; second, calculated and self-conscious revolution. the first method has produced communities, states and empires that frequently worked well and lasted for long periods; the second has had issue in nothing that has endured for any length of time or has left a record of beneficence. evolution in government is in accord with the processes of life, even to the extent that it is always after a time followed by degeneration; revolution in government is the throwing of a monkey-wrench into the machinery by a disaffected workman, with the wrecking of the machine, the violent stoppage of the works, and frequently the sudden death of the worker as a consequence. the english monarchy from duke william to henry viii, is a case of normal growth by minor changes and modifications, but its subsequent history has been one of revolutions, six or seven having occurred in the last four hundred years; the scheme which now holds, though precariously, is the result of the great democratic revolution accomplished during the reign of queen victoria. the free monarchies of europe which began to take form during the long period of the dark ages and pursued their admirable course well through the middle ages, were also normal and slow growths; but the revolutions that have followed the great war will meet a different fate, several of them, indeed, have counted their existence in months and have already passed into history. if we are wise we shall discount revolutions for the future, for nothing but ill is accomplished by denying life and exalting the ingenious substitutes of ambitious and presumptuous frankensteins; the result is too often a monster that works cleverly at first, and with a semblance of human intelligence, but in the end shows itself as a destroyer. our task is to envisage, as clearly as possible, the political systems established amongst us, note their weaknesses either in themselves or in their relationship to society as it is, and then try to find those remedies that can be applied without any violent methods of dislocation or substitution; always bearing in mind the fact that the energizing force that will make them live, preserve them from deterioration, and adapt them to conditions which will ever change, is the spiritual force of human personality, and that this force comes only through the character qualities of the individual components of society. now in considering our own case in this day and generation there are first of all two matters to be borne in mind. one is that we shall do well to confine our inquiry to the united states, for while the defects we shall have to point out are common to practically all the contemporary governments of europe and the americas, our own enginery is different in certain ways, and our troubles are also different between one example and another. after all, our immediate interest must lie with our own national problems. the other point is that in criticising the workings of government in america we are not necessarily criticising its founders or the creators of its original constitutions, charters, and other mechanisms. the constitution of the united states, for example, was conceived to meet one series of perfectly definite conditions that have now been superseded by others which are radically, and even diametrically different. the original constitution was a most able instrument of organic law, but just because it did fit so perfectly conditions as they were four generations ago, it applies but indifferently to present circumstances, and even less well than the founders hoped would be the case; for the reason that the amendments which were provided for have seldom taken cognizance of these changing conditions, and even when this was done the amendments themselves have not been wisely drawn, while certain of them have been actually disastrous in their nature, others frivolous, and yet more the result of ephemeral and hysterical ebullitions of an engineered public opinion. the same may be said of state constitutions and municipal charters, which have suffered incessant changes, mostly unfortunate and ill-judged, except during the last few years, when a spirit of real wisdom and constructiveness has shown itself, though sporadically and as yet with some timidity. the reforms, such as they are, are largely in the line of palliatives; the deep-lying factors, those that control both success and failure, are seldom touched upon. the necessary courage--or perhaps temerity--is lacking. what is needed is such a clear seeing of conditions, and such an approach, as manifested themselves in the constitutional convention of the united states, for in spite of the many compromises that were in the end necessary to placate a public opinion not untouched by prejudice, superstition and selfishness, the great document--and even more the records of the debates--still brilliantly set forth both the clear-seeing and the lofty attitude that characterized the convention. had these men been gathered together today, even the same men, they would frame a very different document, for they took conditions and men as they were, and, with an indestructible hope to glorify their common sense, they produced a masterpiece. it is in the same spirit that we must approach our problem of today. now in considering the situation that confronts us, we find certain respects in which either the methods are bad, or the results, or both. there is no unanimity in this criticism, indeed i doubt if any two of us would agree on all the items in the indictment, though we all might unite on one or two. i can only give my own list for what it is worth. in the first place we, in common with all the nations, have drifted into imperialism of a gross scale and illiberal, even tyrannical working. we could hardly do otherwise for such has been the universal tendency for more than an hundred years. by constant progression municipal governments have absorbed into themselves matters that in decency, and with any regard for liberty, belong to the individual. simultaneously our state governments have followed the same course, infringing even on the just prerogatives of the towns and cities, while, more than all, the national government has robbed the states, the cities and the citizens of what should belong to them, until at last we have an imperial, autocratic, inquisitorial, and largely irresponsible government at washington that is the one supreme political fact; we are no longer a federal republic but an imperialism, in which is centralized all the authority inherent in the one hundred and ten millions of our population and from which a constantly diminishing stream of what is practically devolved authority, trickles down through state and city to the individual in the last instance--if it gets there at all! this i believe to be absolutely and fatally wrong. in the first place, human society cannot function at this abnormal scale, it is outside the human scale, for in spite of our pride and insolence there are limits on every hand to what man can do. in the second place, i conceive it to be absolutely at variance with any principle of republicanism or democracy or even of free monarchy. it is at one only with the imperialism of egypt, babylon, rome and the late empire of germany. in a free monarchy, a republic, or a democracy, the pyramid of political organism stands, not on its point but broad-based and four-square, tapering upward to its final apex. a sane and wholesome society begins with the family--natural or artificial--which has original jurisdiction over a far greater series of rights and privileges than it now commands. from the family certain powers are delegated to the next higher social unit, the village or communal group, which in its turn concedes certain of its inherent rights to the organic group of communities, or states, and finally the states commit to the last and general authority, the national government, some of the elements of authority that have been delegated to them. the principle of this delegation from one organism to another, is common interest and welfare; only those functions which can be performed with more even justice and with greater effectiveness, by the community for example, than by the family, are so delegated. in the same way the several groups commit to their common government only so much as they cannot perform with due justice and equity to the others in the same group. in the end the national government exists only that it may provide for a limited number of national necessities, as for example, defence against extra-national aggression, the conduct of diplomatic relations with foreign powers, the maintaining of a national currency and a national postal service, the provision of courts of last resort, and the raising of revenue for the support of these few and explicit functions. the first step, it seems to me, towards governmental reform, is decentralization, with a return to the states, the civic communities and the individual citizens of nine-tenths of the powers and the prerogatives that have been taken from them in defiance of abstract justice, of the principles of free government and of the theory of the workable unit of human scale. in a word we must abandon imperialism and all its works and go back to the federal republic. the second cause of our troubles lies, i believe, in the institution of universal suffrage founded on the theory (or dogma) that the electoral franchise is an inalienable right. this doctrine is of recent invention, only coming into force during the "reconstruction period" following the war between the states, when it was brought forward by certain leaders of the republican party to justify their enfranchisement of the negroes in the hope that by this act they could fix their party in power to perpetuity. in any case, the plan itself has worked badly, both for the community and for many of the voters. it is of course impossible for me to argue the case in detail; i can do hardly more than state my own personal belief, and this is that the question is wholly one of expediency, and that the question of abstract justice and the rights of man does not enter into the consideration. i submit that the electoral franchise should again be accepted as a privilege involving a duty, and not as a right inherent in every adult person of twenty-one years or over and not lunatic or in jail. this privilege, which in itself should confer honour, should be granted to those who demonstrate their capacity to use it honestly and intelligently, and taken away for cause. the acute critic will not be slow to remind me that this proposition is somewhat beside the case and that it possesses but an academic interest, since we are dealing with a _fait accompli._ this is of course perfectly true. the electoral franchise could be so restricted only by the suffrages of the present electorate, and it is inconceivable that any large number, and far less, a majority, of voters would even consider the proposition for a moment. for good or ill we have unrestricted adult suffrage, and there is not the faintest chance of any other basis being established by constitutional means. something however can be done, and this is a thing of great value and importance. what i suggest is concerted effort towards a measured purification of the electorate through the penalizing of law-breakers by temporary disfranchisement. it is hardly too much to assume that a man who deliberately breaks the law is constructively unfit to vote or to hold office, at all events, conviction for any crime or misdemeanour gives a reasonable ground for depriving the offender of these privileges, at least for a time. the law-breaking element, whether it is millionaire or proletarian, is one of the dangerous factors in society, which would lose nothing if from time to time these gentry were removed from active participation in public affairs. if, for example, any one convicted of minor offenses punishable by fine or imprisonment were disfranchised for a year, if of major offenses, for varying and increasing periods, from five years upwards, and if a second offense during the period of disfranchisement worked an automatic doubling of the time prescribed for a first offense, i conceive that the electorate would be measurably purified and that regard for the law would be stimulated. in one instance i am persuaded that disfranchisement should be for life, and that is in the case of giving or accepting a bribe or otherwise committing a crime against the ballot; this, together with treason against the state, should be sufficient cause for eliminating the offender from all further participation in public affairs. if the electorate could be purified after this fashion, and if more stringent laws could be passed in the matter of naturalization of aliens, together with iron-clad requirements that every voter should be able to speak, read and write the english language, we should have achieved something towards the safeguarding of the suffrage. the third weakness in our system, and in some respect the most dangerous, as it is in all respects the most pestiferous, is the insanity of law-making. all parliamentary governments suffer from this malady, but that of the united states most grievously, and this is true of the national government, the states and the municipalities. it has become the conviction of legislative bodies that they must justify their existence by making laws, and the more laws they pass the better they have discharged their duties. the thing has become a scandal and an oppression, for the liberties of american citizens and the just prerogatives of the states and the cities, as vital human groups, have been more infringed upon, reduced, and degraded by free legislation than ever happened in similar communities by the action of absolute monarchs. it is a folly that works its insidious injury in two ways; first by confusing life by innumerable laws ill-advised, ill-drawn, mutually contradictory, ephemeral in their nature, inquisitorial in their workings; second, by creating a condition where any personal or factious interest can be served by due process of law, until at last we have reached a point where liberty itself has largely ceased to exist and we find ourselves crushed under a tyranny of popular government no less oppressive than the tyranny of absolutism. nor is this all; the mania for making laws has bred a complete and ingenious and singularly effective system of getting laws made by methods familiar to the members of all legislative bodies whether they are city councils, state legislatures or the national congress, and this means opportunities for corruption, and methods of corruption, that are fast degrading government in the united states to a point where there is none so poor as to do it reverence. the whole system is preposterous and absurd, breeding not only bad laws, but a widespread contempt of law, while the personal freedom for which democracy once fought, is fast becoming a memory. the trouble began as a result of one of the elements in the american constitution which was the product not of the sound common sense and the lofty judgment of the framers, but of a weak yielding to one of the doctrinaire fads of the time that had no relationship to life but was the invention of political theorists, and that was the unnatural separation of the executive, legislative and judicial functions of government. the error has worked far and the superstition still holds. what is needed is an initiative in legislation, centred in one responsible head or group, that, while functioning in all normal and necessary legislative directions, still allows individual initiative on the part of the legislators, as a supplementary, or corrective, or protective agency. no government functions well in fiscal matters without a budget: what we need in legislative matters is a legislative budget, and by this phrase, i mean that the primary agency for the proposing of laws should be the chief executive of a city, or state or the nation, with the advice and consent of his heads of departments who would form his cabinet or council. under this plan the governor and council, for example, would at the opening of each legislative session present a programme or agenda of such laws as they believed the conditions to demand, and in the shape of bills accurately drawn by the proper law officer of the government. no such "government" bill could be referred to committee but must be discussed in open session, and until the bills so offered had been passed or refused, no private bill could be introduced. a procedure such as this would certainly reduce the flood of private bills to reasonable dimensions while it would insure a degree of responsibility now utterly lacking. there is now no way in which the author of a foolish or dangerous bill which has been enacted into law by a majority of the legislature, can be held to account and due responsibility imposed upon him, but the case would be very different if a mayor, a governor or the president of the united states made himself responsible for a law or a series of laws, by offering them for action in his own name. certainly if this method were followed we should be preserved in great measure from the hasty, confused and frivolous legislation that at present makes up the major part of the output of our various legislative bodies. one of the greatest gains would be the reduction of the annual grist to a size where each act could be considered and debated at sufficient length to guarantee as reasonable a conclusion as would be possible to the members of the legislative body. the deplorable device of instituting committees, to each of which certain bunches of bills are referred before they are permitted to come before the house, would be no longer necessary. this system, which became necessary in order to deal with the enormous mass of undigested matter which has overwhelmed every legislature as a result of the present chaotic and irresponsible procedure, is perhaps both the most undemocratic device ever put in practice by a democracy, and the most fruitful of venality, corruption and injustice. it is unnecessary to labour this point for everyone knows its grave evils, but there seems no way to get rid of it unless some curb is placed on the number of bills introduced in any session. the british parliament is not necessarily a model of intelligent or capable procedure, but where in one session at westminster no more than four hundred bills were introduced, at washington, for the same period, the count ran well over twelve thousand! manifestly some committee system is inevitable under conditions such as this, but under the committee system free government and honest legislation are difficult of attainment. one would not of course prevent the proposal of a bill by any member of the legislature, indeed this free action would be absolutely necessary as a measure of protection against executive oppression, but this should be prohibited until after the government programme had been disposed of. after that task was accomplished the legislature might sit indefinitely, or as long as the public would stand it, for the purpose of considering private bills, and these could be referred to committees as at present. the chances are, however, that the government programme would cover the most essential matters and what would remain would be the edifying spectacle of solons solemnly considering such questions as the minimum length of sheets on hotel beds, the limitation in inches and fractions, of the heels of women's shoes, the amount of flesh that could be legally exposed by a bathing suit, or the pensioning of a swedish assistant janitor,--all of which are the substance of actual bills introduced in various state legislatures during the session last closed. another grave weakness in our system is the election by popular vote of many judicial and administrative officers, coupled with the vigorous remnants of the old and degrading "spoils system" whereby many thousands of strictly non-political offices are almost automatically vacated after any partisan victory. i cannot trust myself to speak of the infamy of an elective judiciary; fortunately i live in a state where this worst abuse of democratic practice does not exist, and so it touches me only in so far as it offends the sense of decency and justice. in the other cases it is only a question of efficient and intelligent administration. there is an argument for electing the chief executive of a city, a state or the nation, by popular vote, and the same holds in the case of the lower house of the legislature where a bi-cameral system exists, but there is no argument for the popular election of the administrative officers of a state. there is even less,--if there can be less than nothing--for the changes in personnel that take place after every election. civil service reform has done a world of good, but as yet it has not gone far enough in some directions, while its mechanism of examinations is defective in principle in that it leaves out the personal equation and establishes its tests only along a very few of the many lines that actually exist. i would offer it as a proposition that no election should in itself affect the status of any man except the man elected, and, in the case of a mayor or governor or the president, those who are directly responsible to him and to his administration for carrying out his policies; and further, that the voter, when he votes, should vote once and for one man in his city, once and for one man in his state, and once and for one man in the nation, and that man, in each case, should be his representative in the lower branch of the legislative body. choosing administrative officials by majority vote, and the election of judges for short terms by the same method, are absurdities of a system fast falling into chaos. the maintenance of a bi-cameral legislative organization, with the choosing of the members of both houses by the same electorate is in the same class, a perfectly irrational anomaly which violates the first principles of logic and leads only to legislative incompetence, and worse. the referendum is of precisely the same nature, but this already has become a _reductio ad absurdum,_ and can hardly survive the discredit into which it has fallen. in any reorganization of government looking towards better results, these elements must disappear. as a matter of fact, government has come to occupy altogether too large a place in our consciousness; naturally, for it has come to a point where it pursues us--and overtakes us--at every turn. democracies always govern too much, that is one of their great weaknesses. elections, law-making, and getting and holding office, have become an obsession and they shadow our days. so insistent and incessant are the demands, so artificial and unreal the issues, so barren of vital results all this pandemonium of partisanship and change, the more intelligent and scrupulous are losing interest in the whole affair, and while they increasingly withdraw to matters of a greater degree of reality those who subsist on the proceeds gain the power, and hold it. at the very moment when the women of the united states have been given the vote, there are many men (and women also) who begin to think that the vote is a very empty institution and in itself practically void of power to effect anything of really vital moment. i am not now defending this position, i only assert that it exists, and i believe it is due to the degradation of government through the very modifications and transformations that have been effected, since the time of andrew jackson, in a perfectly honest attempt at improvement. the best government is that which does the least, which leaves local matters in the hands of localities, and personal matters in the hands of persons, and which is modestly inconspicuous. good government establishes, or recognizes, conditions which are stable, reliable, and that may be counted on for more than two years, or four years, at a time. it has continuity, it preserves tradition, and it follows custom and common law. such a government is neither hectic in its vicissitudes nor inquisitorial in its enactments. it is cautious in its expenditures, efficient in its administration, proud in maintaining its standards of honour, justice and "noblesse oblige." good government is august and handsome; it surrounds itself with dignity and ceremony, even at times with splendour and pageantry, for these things are signs of self-respect and the outward showing of high ideals--or may be made so; that is what good manners and ceremony and beauty are for. finally, good government is where the laws of christian morals and courtesy and charity that are supposed to hold between christian men hold equally, even more forcefully, in public relations both domestic and foreign. where government of this nature exists, whether the form is monarchical, republican or democratic, there is liberty; where these conditions do not obtain the form matters not at all, for there is a servile state. at the risk of being tedious i will try to sketch the rough outlines of what, in substance, i believe to be that form of civil polity which, based on what now exists, changes only along lines that would perhaps tend towards establishing and maintaining those ideals of liberty, order and justice which have always been the common aim of those who have striven to reform a condition of things where they were attained indifferently or not at all. the primary and effective social and political unit is the "vill" or commune; that is to say, a group of families and individuals living in one neighbourhood, and of a size that would permit all the members to know one another if they wished to do so, and also the coming together of all those holding the electoral franchise, for common discussion and action. the average american country town, uninvaded by industrialism, is the natural type, for here the "town meeting" of our forefathers is practicable, and this remains the everlasting frame and model of self-government. in the case of a city the primary unit would be of approximately the same size, and the entire municipality would be divided into wards each containing, say, about five hundred voters. these primary units would possess a real unity and a very large measure of autonomy, but they would be federated for certain common purposes which would vary in number and importance in proportion to the closeness of their common interests, from the county, made up of a number of small villages, to the city which would comprise as many wards as might be numerically necessary, and whose central government would administer a great many more affairs than would the county. the city would be in effect a federation of the wards or boroughs. the individual voter would exercise his electoral franchise and perform his political duties only within the primary unit (the township or ward) where he had legal residence. at an annual "town meeting" he would vote for the "selectmen" or the ward council who would have in charge the local interests of the primary unit, which would be comprehensive in the case of a township, necessarily more limited in the case of a ward. these local boards would elect their own chairmen who would also form the legislative body of the county or the municipality. at the same town meeting the voter would cast his ballot for a representative in the lower legislative body of the state. in the smaller commonwealths each township or ward would elect its own representative, but in states of excessive population representation would have to be on the basis of counties and municipalities, for no legislative body should contain more than a very few hundred members. nominations in the town meeting should be _viva voce,_ elections by secret ballot. legislation should be primarily on the initiative of the selectmen or ward council, and voting should be _viva voce._ with the exercise of his privilege of speaking and voting at the meetings of his primary unit, the direct political action of the citizen would cease. the secondary unit would be the county or the city. here the legislative body would consist of the presiding officers of the township or ward governments. the sheriff of a county or the mayor of a city would be chosen by these legislative bodies from their own number and should hold office for a term of several years, while the local governments, and therefore the legislative bodies of the county or the city, would be chosen annually. the chief executive of a county or city would appoint all heads of departments who would form his advisory council, and he would also frame and submit annually both a fiscal and a legislative budget. the tertiary unit is the state, which is a federation of the counties and cities forming some one of the historic divisions of the united states. the legislature would as now be composed of two chambers, one made up of representatives of the primary units, holding office for a brief term, and a second representing the secondary units and chosen by their governing bodies for a long term. the logic of a bi-cameral system demands that the lower house should represent the changing will of the people, the upper, in so far as possible, its cumulative wisdom and the continuity of tradition, while, as already stated, the whole principle is vitiated if both houses are chosen by the same electorate. the chief executive should be chosen by the legislative chambers in joint session, from a panel made up of their own membership and the heads of the county and city governments. he should hold office for a long term, preferably for an indeterminate period contingent on "good behaviour." in this case his cabinet, or council of the heads of departments, would of course be responsible to the legislature and would resign on a formal vote of censure or "lack of confidence." the governor would have the same power of appointment, and the same authority to present fiscal and legislative budgets as, already specified in the case of a mayor of a city. no "commissions," unpaid or otherwise, should be permitted, all the administrative functions of government being performed by the various departments and their subordinate bureaux. the national government is the final social and political unit, though it is conceivable that with a territory and population as great and diversified as that of the united states, and bearing in mind the great discrepancy in size between the states, something might be gained by the institution of a system of provinces, some five or six in all, made up of states grouped in accordance with their general community of interests, as for example, all new england, new york, pennsylvania, new jersey and delaware; the states of the old confederacy, those of the pacific coast, and so on. the point need not be pressed here, but there are considerations in its favour. in any case the nation as a whole is the final federal unit. here the lower legislative house would consist of not more than four hundred members, allocated on a basis of population and elected by the representative bodies of the primary units (the townships and city wards) as already described. the members of the upper house would be elected by the legislative bodies of the several states on nomination by the governor. the chief executive of the nation would be chosen by the two legislative bodies, in joint session, from amongst the then governors of the several states. he should certainly hold office for "good behaviour," and his cabinet would be responsible to the legislature as provided for in the case of the state governments. i do not offer this programme with any pride of paternity; probably it would not work very well, but it could hardly prove less efficacious than our present system under conditions as they have come to be. this cannot continue indefinitely, for it is so hopelessly defective that it is bound to bring about its own ruin, with the probable substitution of some doctrinaire device engendered by the natural revolt against an intolerable abuse. if only we could see conditions clearly and estimate them at something approaching their real value, we should rapidly develop a constructive public opinion that, even though it represented a minority, might by the very force behind it compel the majority to acquiesce in a radical reformation. unfortunately we do not do this, we are hypnotized by phrases and deluded by vain theories, as mr. chesterton says: "so drugged and deadened is the public mind by the conventional public utterances, so accustomed have we grown to public men talking this sort of pompous nonsense and no other, that we are sometimes quite shocked by the revelation of what men really think, or else of what they really say." we do, now and then, confess that legislation is as a whole foolish, frivolous and opportunist; that administration is wasteful, incompetent and frequently venal; that the governmental personnel, legislative, administrative and executive, is of a low order in point of character, intelligence and culture--and tending lower each day. we admit this, for the evidence is so conspicuous that to deny it would be hypocrisy, but something holds us back from recognizing the nexus between effect and cause. unrestricted immigration, universal suffrage, rotation in office, the subjection of many offices and measures to popular vote, the parliamentary system, government by political parties--all these customs and habits into which we have fallen have arrived at failure which presages disaster. they have failed because the character of the people that functioned through these various engines had failed, diluted by the low mentality and character-content of millions of immigrants and their offspring, degraded by the false values and vicious standards imposed by industrial civilization, foot-loose from all binding and control of a vital and potent religious impulse or religious organism. it is the old, vicious circle; spiritual energy declines or is diverted into wrong channels; thereupon the physical forms, social, industrial, political, slip a degree or two lower out of sympathy with the failing energy, and these in their turn exert a degrading influence on the waning spiritual force, which declines still further only to be pulled lower still by the material agencies which continue their progressive declension. theories, no matter how high-minded and altruistic, cannot stand before a condition such as this, for self-protection decrees otherwise even if the higher motive of doing right things and getting right things just because they _are_ right, does not come into effective operation. the evil results of the institutions i have catalogued above are not to be denied, and the institutions themselves must be reformed or altogether abandoned, in the face of the loud-mouthed exhortations of those who now make them their means of livelihood, and even at the expense of the honest upholders of theories and doctrines that do credit to their humanitarianism but have been weighed and found wanting. i am anxious not to put this plan for the reform, in root and branch, of our political institutions, on the low level of mere caution and self-defense. the motive power of this is fear, and fear is only second to hate in its present position as a controlling force in society. we should have good government not because it is economical and ensures what are known as "good business conditions," and promises a peaceful continuance of society, but because it is as worthy an object of creative endeavour as noble art or a great literature or a just and merciful economic system, or a life that is full of joy and beauty and wholesome labour. the political organism is in a sense the microcosm of life itself, and it should be society lifted up to a level of dignity, majesty and nobility. the doctrine that in a democracy the government must exactly express the numerical preponderance in the social synthesis, and that, if this happens to be ignorant, mannerless and corrupt, then the government must be after the same fashion, is a low and a cowardly doctrine. government should be better than the majority; better than the minority if this has advantage over the other. it should be of the best that man can compass, resting above him as in some sort an ideal; the visible expression of his better self, and the better self of the society of which he is a part. if a political system, any political system, produces any other result; if it has issue in a representation of the lowest and basest in society, or even of the general average, then it is a bad system and it must be redeemed or it will bring an end that is couched in terms of catastrophe. reform is difficult, perhaps even impossible of attainment under the existing system where universal, unlimited suffrage and the party system are firmly intrenched as opponents of vital reform, and where representation and legislation take their indelible colour from these unfortunate institutions. it must freely be admitted that there is no chance of eliminating or recasting either one or the other by the recognized methods of platform support and mass action through the ballot. it comes in the end to a change of viewpoint and of heart on the part of the individual. no party, no political leader would for a moment endorse any one of the principles or methods i have suggested, for this would be a suicidal act. the newspaper, irresponsible, anonymous, directed by its advertizing interests or by those more sinister still, yet for all that the factor that controls the opinions of those who hold the balance of power in the community as it is now constituted, would reject them with derision, while in themselves they are radically opposed to the personal interests of the majority. the only hope of lifting government to the level of dignity and capacity it should hold, lies in the individual. it is necessary that we should see things clearly, estimate conditions as they are, and think through to the end. we do not do this. we admit, in a dull sort of way, that matters are not as they should be, that legislation is generally silly and oppressive, that taxation is excessive, that administration is wasteful and reckless and incompetent, for we know these things by experience. we accept them, however, with our national good-nature and easy tolerance, assuming that they are inseparable from democratic government--as indeed they are, but not for a moment does any large number think of questioning the principle, or even the system, that must take the responsibility. when disgust and indifference reach a certain point we stop voting, that is all. at the last presidential election less than one half the qualified voters took the trouble to cast their ballots, while in boston (which is no exception) it generally happens that at a municipal elections the ballots cast are less than one-third the total electorate. i wonder how many there are here today who have ever been to a ward meeting, or have sat through a legislative session of a city government, as of boston for example, or have listened to the debates in a state house of representatives, or analyzed the annual grist of legislative bills, or have sat for an hour or two in the senate or house at washington. such an experience is, i assure you, illuminating, for it shows exactly why popular government is what it is, while it forms an admirable basis for a constructive revision of judgment as to the soundness of accepted principles and the validity of accepted methods. our political attitude today is based on an inherited and automatic acceptance of certain perfectly automatic formulae. we neither see things clearly, estimate conditions as they are, nor think a proposition through to the end: we are obsessed by old formulae, partisan "slogans" and newspaper aphorisms; the which is both unworthy and perilous. let us see things clearly for a moment; if we do this anything is possible, no matter how idealistic and apparently impracticable it may be. is there any one who would confess that character and intelligence are now a helpless minority in this nation? such an admission would be almost constructive treason. the instinct of the majority is right, but it is defective in will and it is subservient to base leadership, while its power for good is negatived by the persistence of a mass of formulae that, under radically changed conditions, have ceased to be beneficient, or even true, and have become a clog and a stumbling block. i may not have indicated better ideals or sounder methods of operation, but the true ideals exist and it is not beyond our ability to discover a better working system. partisanship cannot reveal either one or the other, nor are they the fruit of organization or the attribute of political leadership. they belong to the common citizen, to you, to the individual, and if once superstition is cast out and we fall back on right reason and the eternal principles of the christian ethic and the christian ideal, we shall not find them difficult of attainment; and once attained they can be put in practice, for the ill thing exists only on sufferance, the right thing establishes itself by force of its very quality of right. vi the function of education and art when, as on occasion happens, some hostile criticism is leveled against the civilization of modernism, or against some one of its many details, the reply is ready, and the faultfinder is told that the defect, if it exists, will in the end be obviated by the processes of popular education. pressed for more explicit details as to just what may be the nature of this omnipotent and sovereign "education," the many champions give various answer, depending more or less on the point of view and the peculiar predilections of each, but the general principles are the same. education, they say, consist of two things; the formal practice and training of the schools, and the experience that comes through the use of certain public rights and privileges, such as the ballot, the holding of office, service on juries, and through various experiences of the practice of life, as the reading of newspapers (and perhaps books), the activities of work, business and the professions, and personal association with other men in social, craft, and professional clubs and other organizations. with the second category of education through experience we need not deal at this time; it is a question by itself and of no mean quality; the matter i would consider is the more formal and narrow one of scholastic training in so far as it bears on the great peace that, though perhaps after many days, must follow the great war and the little peace. answering along this line, the protagonists of salvation through education pretty well agree that the thing itself means the widest possible extension of our public school system, with free state universities and technical schools, and the extension of the educational period, with laws so rigid, and enforcement so pervasive and impartial, that no child between the ages of six and sixteen can possibly escape. this free, compulsory and universal education is assumed to be scrupulously secular and hedged about with every safeguard against the insidious encroachments of religion; it will aim to give a little training in most of the sciences, and much in the practical necessities of business life, as for example, stenography, book-keeping, advertising and business science; it will cover a broad field of manual training leading to "graduate courses" in special technical schools; the "laboratory method" and "field practice" will be increasingly developed and applied; latin, greek, logic and ancient history will be minimized or done away with altogether, and modern languages, applied psychology and contemporary history will be correspondingly emphasized. as for the state university, it will allow the widest range of free electives, and as an university it will aim to comprise within itself every possible department of practical activity, such as business administration, journalism, banking and finance, foreign trade, political science, psycho-analysis, mining, sanitary engineering, veterinary surgery, as well as law, medicine, agriculture, and civil and mechanical engineering. i am curious to inquire at this time if education such as this does, as a matter of fact, educate, and how far it my be relied upon as a corrective for present defects in society; or rather, first of all, whether education of this, or of any sort, may be looked on as a sufficient saving force, and whether general education, instead of being extended should not be curtailed, or rather safeguarded and restricted. i have already tried to indicate, in my lecture on the social organism, certain doubts that are now arising as to the prophylactic and regenerative powers of education, whether this is based on the old foundation of the trivium and quadrivium under the supreme dominion of theology, or on the new foundation of utilitarianism and applied science under the dominion of scientific pedagogy. while the active-minded portion of society believed ardently in progressive evolution, in the sufficiency of the intellect, the inerrancy of the scientific method, and the transmission by inheritance of acquired characteristics, this supreme confidence in free, secular, compulsory education as the cure-all of the profuse and pervasive ills of society was not only natural but inevitable. i submit that experience has measurably modified the situation, and that we are bound therefore to reconsider our earlier persuasions in the light of somewhat revealing events. we may admit that the system of modern education works measurably well so far as intellectual training is concerned; _training_ as distinguished from development. it works measurably well also in preparing youth for participation in the life of applied science and for making money in business and finance. conscientious hard labour has been given, and is being given, to making it more effective along these lines, and almost every year some new scheme is brought forward enthusiastically, tried out painstakingly, and then cast aside ignominiously for some new and even more ingenious device. the amount of education is enormous; the total of money spent on new foundations, courses, buildings, equipment--on everything but the pay of the teachers--is princely; the devotion of the teachers, themselves, in the face of inadequate wages, is exemplary, and yet, somehow the results are disappointing. the truth is, the development of _character_ is not in proportion to the development of public and private education. the moral standing of the nation, taken as a whole, has been degenerating; in business, in public affairs, in private life, until the standards of value have been confused, the line of demarcation between right and wrong blurred to indistinctness, and the old motives of honour, duty, service, charity, chivalry and compassion are no longer the controlling motive, or at least the conscious aspiration, of active men. this is not to say that these do not exist; the period that has seen the retrogression has recorded also a reaction, and there are now perhaps more who are fired by the ardent passion for active righteousness, than for several generations, but the average is lower, for where, many times in the past, there has been a broad, general average of decency, now the disparity is great between the motives that drive society as a whole, and its methods of operation, and the remnant that finds itself an unimportant minority. newspapers are perhaps hardly a fair criterion of the moral status of a people--or of anything else for that matter--but what they record, and the way they do it, is at least an indication of a condition, and after every possible allowance has been made, what they record is a very alarming standard of public and private morality, both in the happenings themselves and in the fashion of their publicity. no one would claim that the responsibility for this weakening of moral standards rests predominantly on the shoulders of the educational system of today; the causes lie far deeper than this, but the point i wish to make is that the process has not been arrested by education, in spite of its prevalence, and that therefore it is unwise to continue our exclusive faith in its remedial offices. the faith was never well founded. education can do much, but what it does, or can do, is to foster and develop _inherent possibilities,_ whether these are of character, intelligence or aptitude: it cannot put into a boy or man what was not there, _in posse,_ at birth, and humanly speaking, the diversity of potential in any thousand units is limited only by the number itself. whether our present educational methods are those best calculated to foster and develop these inherent possibilities, so varied in nature and degree, is the question, and it is a question the answer to which depends largely on whether we look on intelligence, capacity or character as the thing of greatest moment. for those who believe that character is the thing of paramount importance--amongst whom i count myself--the answer must be in the negative. nor is an affirmative reply entirely assured when the question is asked as to the results in the case of intellect and capacity. there are few who would claim that in either of these directions the general standard is now as high as it was, for example, in the last half of the last century. the great war brought to the front few personalities of the first class, and the peace that has followed has an even less distinguished record to date. we may say with truth, i think, that the last ten years have provided greater issues, and smaller men to meet them in the capacity of leaders, than any previous crisis of similar moment. the art of leadership, and the fact of leadership, have been lost, and without leadership any society, particularly a democracy, is in danger of extinction. here again one cannot charge education with our lack of men of character, intelligence and capacity to lead; as before, the causes lie far deeper, but the almost fatal absence at this time of the personalities of such force and power that they can captain society in its hours of danger from war or peace, must give us some basis for estimating the efficiency of our educational theory and practice, and again raise doubts as to whether here also we shall be well advised if we rely exclusively upon it as the ultimate saviour of society, while we are bound to ask whether its methods, even of developing intelligence and capacity, are the best that can be devised. another point worth considering is this. so long as we could lay the flattering unction to our souls that acquired characteristics were heritable, and that therefore if an outcast from posen, migrating to america, had taken advantage of his new opportunities and so had developed his character-potential, amassed money and acquired a measure of education and culture, he would automatically transmit something of this to his offspring, who would start so much the further forward and would tend normally to still greater advance, and so on _ad infinitum,_ so long we were justified in enforcing the widest measure of education on all and sundry, and in waiting in hope for a future when the cumulative process should have accomplished its perfect work. now, however, we are told that this hope is vain, that acquired characteristics are not transmitted by heredity, and that the old folk-proverb "it is only three generations between shirtsleeves and shirtsleeves," is perhaps more scientifically exact than the evolutionary dictum of the nineteenth century. which is what experience and history have been teaching, lo, these many years. the question then seems to divide itself into three parts; (a) are we justified in pinning our faith in ultimate social salvation to free, secular, and compulsory education carried to the furthest possible limits; (b) if not, then what precisely is the function of formal education; and (c) this being determined, is our present method adequate, and if not how should it be modified? it is unwise to speak dogmatically along any of these lines, they are too blurred and uncertain. i can only express an individual opinion. it seems to me that life unvaryingly testifies to the extreme disparity of potential in individuals and in families and in racial strains, though in the two latter the difference is not necessarily absolute and permanent, but variable in point of both time and degree. in individuals the limit of this potentiality is inherent, and it can neither be completely inhibited by adverse education and environment nor measurably extended by favourable education and environment. characteristics acquired _outside_ inherent limitations are personal and non-heritable, however intimately they may have become a part of the individual himself. if this is true, then the question of education becomes personal also; that is to say, we educate for the individual, and with an eye to the part he himself is to play in society. we do not look for cumulative results but in a sense deal with each personality in regard to itself alone. i think this has a bearing both on the extent to which education should be enforced and on the quality and method of education itself, and though the contention will receive little but ridicule, i am bound to say that i hold that _general_ education should be reduced in quantity and considerably changed in nature. if the limit of development is substantially determined in each individual and cannot be extended by human agencies (i say "human" because god in his wisdom and by his power can raise up a prophet or a saint out of the lowest depths, and frequently does so), then the quantity and extent of general education should be determined not by a period of years and the facilities offered by a government liberal in its expenditures, but entirely by the demonstrated or indicated capacity of the individual. our educational system should, so far as it is free and compulsory, normally end with the high school grade. free college, university and technical training should not be provided, except for those who had given unmistakable evidences that they could, and probably would, use it to advantage. this would be provided for by non-competitive scholarships, limited in number only by the number of capable candidates, and determination of this capacity would be, not on the basis of test examinations, but on an average record covering a considerable period of time. it is doubtful if even these scholarships should be wholly free; some responsibility should be recognized, for a good half of the value of a thing (perhaps all its value) lies in working for it. a grant without service, a favour accepted without obligations, privilege without function, both cheapen and degrade. let us now turn to the second question, i.e., what precisely is the function of formal education. for my own part i can answer this in a sentence. it is primarily the fostering and development of the character-potential inherent in each individual. in this process intellectual training and expansion and the furthering of natural aptitude have a part, but this is secondary to the major object which is the development of character. this is not in accordance with the practice or the theory of recent times, and in this fact lies one of the prime causes of failure. the one thing man exists to accomplish is character; not worldly success and eminence in any line, not the conquest of nature (though some have held otherwise), not even "adaptation to environment" in the _argot_ of last century science, but _character;_ the assimilation and fixing in personality of high and noble qualities of thought and deed, the furtherance, in a word, of the eternal sacramental process of redemption of matter through the operation of spiritual forces. without this, social and political systems, imperial dominion, wealth and power, a favourable balance of trade avail nothing; with it, forms and methods and the enginery of living will look out for themselves. and yet this thing which comprises "the whole duty of man" has, of late, fallen into a singular disregard, while the constructive forces that count have either been discredited and largely abandoned, as in the case of religion, or, like education, turned into other channels or reversed altogether, as has happened with the idea and practice of obedience, discipline, self-denial, duty, honour and unselfishness; surely the most fantastic issue of the era of enlightenment, of liberty and of freedom of conscience. as a matter of fact character, as the chief end of man and the sole guaranty of a decent society, has been neglected; it was not disregarded by any conscious process, but the headlong events that have followed since the fifteenth century have steadily distorted our judgment and confused our standards of value even to reversal. by an imperceptible process other matters have come to engage our interest and control our action, until at last we are confronted by the nemesis of our own unwisdom, and we entertain the threat of a dissolving civilization just because the forces we have engendered or set loose have not been curbed or directed by that vigorous and potent personal character informing a people and a society, that we had forgot in our haste and that alone could give us safety. formal education is but one of the factors that may be employed towards the development of character; you cannot so easily separate one force in life from another, assigning a specific duty here, a definite task there. that is one of the weaknesses of our time, the water-tight compartment plan of high specialization, the cellular theory of efficiency. life must be seen as a whole, organized as a whole, lived as a whole. every thought, every emotion, every action, works for the building or the unbuilding of character, and this synthesis of living must be reestablished before we can hope for social regeneration. nevertheless formal education may be made a powerful factor, even now, and not only in this one specific direction, but through this, for the accomplishing of that unification of life that already is indicated as the next great task that is set before us; and this brings me to a consideration of the last of the questions i have proposed for answer, viz.: is our present system of education adequate to the sufficient development of character, and if not, how should it be modified? i do not think it adequate, and experience seems to me to prove the point. it has not maintained the sturdy if sometimes acutely unpleasant character of the new england stock, or the strong and handsome character of the race that dwelt in the thirteen original colonies as this manifested itself well into the last century, and it has, in general, bred no new thing in the millions of immigrants and their descendants who have flooded the country since 1840 and from whom the public schools and some of the colleges are largely recruited. it is not a question of expanded brain power or applied aptitude, but of character, and here there is a larger measure of failure than we had a right to expect. and yet, had we this right? the avowed object of formal education is mental and vocational training, and by no stretch of the imagination can we hold these to be synonymous with character. we have dealt with and through one thing alone, and that is the intellect, whereas character is rather the product of emotions judiciously stimulated, balanced (not controlled) by intellect, and applied through active and varied experience. deliberately have we cut out every emotional and spiritual factor; not only religion and the fine arts, but also the studies, and the methods of study, and the type of text-books, that might have helped in the process of spiritual and emotional development. we have eliminated latin and greek, or taught them as a branch of philology; we have made english a technical exercise in analysis and composition, disregarding the moral and spiritual significance of the works of the great masters of english; we minimize ancient history and concentrate on european history since the french revolution, and on the history of the united states, and because of the sensitiveness of our endless variety of religionists (pro forma) text books are written which leave religion out of history altogether--and frequently economics and politics as well when these cannot be made to square with popular convictions; philosophy and logic are already pretty well discarded, except for special electives and post-graduate courses, and as for art in its multifarious forms we know it not, unless it be in the rudimentary and devitalized form of free-hand drawing and occasional concerted singing. the only thing that is left in the line of emotional stimulus is competitive athletics, and for this reason i sometimes think it one of the most valuable factors in public education. it has, however, another function, and that is the coordination of training and life; it is in a sense an _école d'application,_ and through it the student, for once in a way, tries out his acquired mental equipment and his expanding character--as well as his physical prowess--against the circumstances of active vitality. it is just this sort of thing that for so long made the "public schools" of england, however limited or defective may have been the curriculum, a vital force in the development of british character. at best, however, this seems to me but an indifferent substitute, an inadequate "extra," doing limitedly the real work of education by indirection. what we need (granting my assumption of character as the _terminus ad quem_) is an educational system so recast that the formal studies and the collateral influences and the school life shall be more coordinated in themselves and with life, and that the resulting stimulus shall be equally operative along intellectual, emotional and creative lines. it is sufficiently easy to make suggestions as to how this is to be accomplished, to lay out programmes and lay down curricula, but here as elsewhere this does not amount to much; the change must come and the institutions develop as the result of the operations of life. if we can change our view of the object of education, the very force of life, working through experience, will adequately determine the forms. it is not therefore as a meticulous and mechanical system that i make the following suggestions as to certain desirable changes, but rather to indicate more exactly what i mean by a scheme of education that will work primarily towards the development of character. now in the first place, i must hold that there can be no education which works primarily for character building, that is not interpenetrated at every point by definite, concrete religion and the practice of religion. as i shall try to show in my last two lectures, religion is the force or factor that links action with life. it is the only power available to man that makes possible a sound standard of comparative values, and with philosophy teaching man how to put things in their right order, it enters to show him how to control them well, while it offers the great constructive energy that makes the world an orderly unity rather than a type of chaos. until the reformation there was no question as to this, and even after, in the nations that accepted the great revolution, the point was for a time maintained; thereafter the centrifugal tendency in protestantism resulted in such a wealth of mutually antagonistic sects that the application of the principle became impracticable, and for this, as well as for more fundamental reasons, it fell into desuetude. the condition is as difficult today for the process of denominational fission has gone steadily forward, and as this energy of the religious influence weakens the strenuosity of maintenance strengthens. with our 157 varieties of protestantism confronting catholicism, hebraism, and a mass of frank rationalism and infidelity as large in amount as all others combined, it would seem at first sight impossible to harmonize free public education with concrete religion in any intimate way. so it is; but if the principle is recognized and accepted, ways and means will offer themselves, and ultimately the principle will be embodied in a workable scheme. for example; there is one thing that can be done anywhere, and whenever enough votes can be assembled to carry through the necessary legislation. at present the law regards with an austere disapproval that reflects a popular opinion (now happily tending towards decay), what are known as "denominational schools" and other institutions of learning. those that maintain the necessity of an intimate union between religion and education, as for example the great majority of roman catholics and an increasing number of episcopalians and presbyterians, are taxed for the support of secular public schools which they do not use, while they must maintain at additional, and very great, expense, parochial and other private schools where their children may be taught after a fashion which they hold to be necessary from their own point of view. again, state support is refused to such schools or colleges as may be under specific religious control, while pension funds for the teachers, established by generous benefactions, are explicitly reserved for those who are on the faculties of institutions which formally dissociate themselves from any religious influence. i maintain that this is both unjust and against public policy. under our present system of religious individualism and ecclesiastical multiplicity, approximations only are possible, but i believe the wise and just plan would be for the state to fix certain standards which all schools receiving financial support from the public funds must maintain, and then, this condition being carried out, distribute the funds received from general taxation to public and private schools alike. this would enable episcopalians, let us say, or roman catholics, or jews, when in any community they are numerous enough to provide a sufficiency of scholars for any primary, grammar, or high school, to establish such a school in as close a relationship to their own religion as they desired, and have this school maintained out of the funds of the city. this is not a purely theoretical proposition; after an agitation lasting nearly half a century, holland has this year put such a law in force. from every point of view we should do well to recognize this plan as both just and expedient. one virtue it would have, apart from those already noted, is the variation it would permit in curricula, text books, personnel and scholastic life as between one school and another. there is no more fatal error in education than that standardization which has recently become a fad and which finds its most mechanistic manifestation in france. of course this need for the fortifying of education by religion is recognized even now, but the only plan devised for putting it into effect is one whereby various ministers of religion are allowed a certain brief period each week in which they may enter the public schools and give denominational instruction to those who desire their particular ministrations. this is one of the compromises, like the older method of bible reading without commentary or exposition, which avails nothing and is apt to be worse than frank and avowed secularism. it is putting religion on exactly the same plane as analytical chemistry, psychoanalysis or salesmanship, (the latter i am told is about to be introduced in the massachusetts high schools) or any other "elective," whereas if it is to have any value whatever it must be an ever-present force permeating the curriculum, the minds of the teachers, and the school life from end to end, and there is no way in which this can be accomplished except by a policy that will permit the maintenance of schools under religious domination at the expense of the state, provided they comply with certain purely educational requirements established and enforced by the state. i have already pointed out what seems to me the desirability of a considerable variation between the curriculum of one school and another. this would be possible and probably certain under the scheme proposed, but barring this, it is surely an open question whether the pretty thoroughly standardized curriculum now in operation would not be considerably modified to advantage if it is recognized that the prime object of education is character rather than mental training and the fitting of a pupil to obtain a paying job on graduation. from my own point of view the answer is in a vociferous affirmative. i suggest the drastic reduction of the very superficial science courses in all schools up to and including the high school, certainly in chemistry, physics and biology, but perhaps with some added emphasis on astronomy, geology and botany. history should become one of the fundamental subjects, and english, both being taught for their humanistic value and not as exercises in memory or for the purpose of making a student a sort of dictionary of dates. this would require a considerable rewriting of history text books, as well as a corresponding change in the methods of teaching, but after all, are not these both consummations devoutly to be wished. there are few histories like mr. chesterton's "short history of england," unfortunately. one would, perhaps, hardly commend this stimulating book as a sufficient statement of english history for general use in schools, but its approach is wholly right and it possesses the singular virtue of interest. another thing that commends it is the fact that while it runs from caesar to mr. lloyd george, it contains, i believe, only seven specific dates, three of which are possibly wrong. this is as it should be--not the inaccuracies but the commendable frugality in point of number. dates, apart from a few key years, are of small historical importance; so are the details of palace intrigues and military campaigns. history is, or should be, life expressed in terms of romance, and it is of little moment whether the narrated incidents are established by documentary evidence or whether they are contemporary legend quite unsubstantiated by what are known (and overestimated) as "facts." there is more of the real middle ages in mallory's "mort d'arthur" than there is in all hallam, and the same antithesis can be established for nearly all other periods of history. the history of man is one great dramatic romance, and so used it may be made perhaps the most stimulating agency in education as character development. i do not mean romance in the sense in which mr. wells takes it, that is to say, the dramatic assembling and clever coördination of unsubstantiated theories, personal preferences, prejudices and aversions, under the guise of solemn and irrefutable truth attested by all the exact sciences known to man, but romance which aims like any other art at communicating from one person to another something of the inner and essential quality of life as it has been lived, even if the material used is textually doubtful or even probably apocryphal. the deadly enemy of good, sound history is scientific historical criticism. the true history is romantic tradition; the stimulating thing, the tale that makes the blood leap, the pictorial incident that raises up in an instant the luminous vision of some great thing that once was. i would not exchange kit marlowe's _"is this the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of ilium?"_ for all the critical commentaries of teutonic pedants on the character and attributes of helen of troy as these have (to them) been revealed by archaeological investigations. i dare say that bishop st. remi of reims never said in so many words "bow thy proud head, sicambrian; destroy what thou hast worshipped, worship what thou hast destroyed," and that the meroving monarch did not go thence to issue an "order of the day" that the army should forthwith march down to the river and be baptized by battalions; but _there_ is the clear, unforgettable picture of the times and the men, and it will remain after the world has forgotten that some one has proved that st. remi never met clovis, and that he himself was probably only a variant of the great and original "sun-myth." closely allied with the teaching of history and forming a link as it were with the teaching of english, is a branch of study at present unformulated and unknown, but, i am convinced, of great importance in education as a method of character development. life has always focused in great personalities, and formal history has recognized the fact while showing little discretion, and sometimes very defective judgment, in the choices it has made. a past period becomes our own in so far as we translate it through its personalities and its art; the original documents matter little, except when they become misleading, as they frequently do, when read through contemporary spectacles. now the great figures of a time are not only princes and politicians, conquerors and conspirators, they are quite as apt to be the knights and heroes and brave gentlemen who held no conspicuous position in church or state. i think we need what might be called "the golden book of knighthood"--or a series of text books adapted to elementary and advanced schools--made up of the lives and deeds (whether attested by "original documents," or legendary or even fabulous does not matter) of those in all times, and amongst all peoples, who were the glory of knighthood; the "parfait gentyl knyghtes" "without fear and without reproach." such for example, to go no farther back than the christian era, as st. george and st. martin, king arthur and launcelot and galahad, charles martel and roland, st. louis, godfrey de bouillon and saladin, the earl of strafford, montrose and claverhouse, the chevalier bayard, don john of austria, washington and robert lee and george wyndham. these are but a few names, remembered at random; there are scores besides, and i think that they should be held up to honour and emulation throughout the formative period of youth. after all, they became, during the years when these qualities were exalted, the personification of the ideals of honour and chivalry, of compassion and generosity, of service and self-sacrifice and courtesy, and these, the qualifications of a gentleman and a man or honour, are, with the religion that fostered them, and the practice of that religion, the just objective of education. much of all this can even now be taught through a judicious use of the opportunities offered instructors in english, whether this is through the graded "readers" of elementary education, or the more extended courses in colleges and universities. very frequently these opportunities are ignored, and will be until we achieve something of a new orientation in the matter of teaching english. now it may be i hold a vain and untenable view of this subject, but i am willing to confess that i believe the object of teaching english is the unlocking of the treasures of thought, character and emotion preserved in the written records of the tongue, and the arousing of a desire to know and assimilate these treasures on the part of the pupil. i am very sure that english should not be taught as a thing ending in "ology," not as an intricate science with all sorts of laws and rules and exceptions; not as a system whereby the little children of the ghetto, and the offspring of pittsburgh millionaires, and the spectacled infant elect of beacon hill may all be raised to the point where they can write with acceptable fluency the chiseled phrases of matthew arnold, the cadenced latinity of sir thomas browne, the sonorous measures of bolingbroke or the distinguished and resonant periods of the king james bible. such an aim as this will always result in failure. the english language is the great storehouse of the rich thought and the burning emotion of the english race, and all this, as it has issued out of character, works towards the development of character, when it is made operative in new generations. there is no other language but latin that has preserved so great a wealth of invaluable things, and english is taught in order that it all may be more available through that appreciation that comes from familiarity. there is no nobler record in the world: from chaucer down to the moderns is one splendid sequence of character-revelations through a perfect but varied art, for literature is also a fine art, and one of the greatest of all. is it not fair to say that the chief duty of the teacher of english is to lead the student to like great literature, to find it and enjoy it for himself, and through it to come to the liking of great ideas? in the old days there was an historical, or rather archaeological, method that was popular; also an analytical and grammarian method. there was also the philological method which was quite the worst of all and had almost as devastating results as in the case of latin. it almost seems as though english were being taught for the production of a community of highly specialized teachers. no one would now go back to any of those quaint and archaic ways digged up out of the dim and remote past of the xixth century. we should all agree, i think, that for general education, specialized technical knowledge is unimportant and scientific intensive methods unjustifiable. for one student who will turn out a teacher there are five hundred that will be just simple voters, wage-earners, readers of the saturday evening post and the new republic, members of the fourth presbyterian church or the ethical society, and respectable heads of families. the school of pedagogy has its own methods (i am given to understand), but under correction i submit they are not those of general education. shall i put the whole thing in a phrase and say that the object of teaching english is to get young people to like good things? you may say this is english literature, not english. are the two so very far apart? english as a language is taught to make literature available. "example is better than precept." reading good literature for the love of it will bring in the habit of grammatical speaking and writing far more effectively than what is known as "a thorough grounding in the principles of english grammar." i doubt if the knowledge of, and facility in, english can be built up on such a basis; rather the laws should be deduced from examples. philology, etymology, syntax are derivatives, not foundations. "practice makes perfect" is a saying that needs to be followed by the old scholastic defensive _"distinguo."_ practice in reading, rather than practice in writing, makes good english composition possible. the "daily theme" may be overdone; it is of little use unless _thought_ keeps ahead of the pen. i would plead then for the teaching of english after a fashion that will reveal great thoughts and stimulate to greater life, through the noble art of english literature and the perfectly illogical but altogether admirable english language. the function of education is to make students feel, think and act, after a fashion that increasingly reveals and utilizes the best that is in them, and increasingly serves the uses of society, and both history and english can be so taught as to help towards the accomplishment of these ends. there is another factor that may be so used, but i confess i shall speak of it with some hesitation. it is at present, and has been for ages, entirely outside the possibility even of consideration, and in a sense that goes beyond the general ignoring of religion, for while catholics, who form the great majority of christians, still hold to religion as a prime element in education, there are none--or only a minority so small as to be negligible--who give a thought to art in this connection. i bring forward the word, and the thing it represents, with diffidence, even apologetically: indeed, it is perhaps better to renounce the word altogether and substitute the term "beauty," for during the nineteenth century art got a bad name, not altogether undeservedly, and the disrepute lingers. so long as beauty is an instinct native to men (and it was this, except for very brief and periodic intervals, until hardly more than a century ago, though latterly in a vanishing form), it is wholesome, stimulating and indispensable, but when it becomes self-conscious, when it finds itself the possession of a few highly differentiated individuals instead of the attribute of man as such, then it tends to degenerate into something abnormal and, in its last estate, both futile and unclean. in its good estate, as for example in greece, byzantium, the middle ages, and in oriental countries until the last few decades, beauty was so natural an object of endeavour and a mode of expression, and its universality resulted in so characteristic an environment, it was unnecessary to talk about it very much, or to give any particular thought to the educational value of the arts which were its manifestation through and to man, or how this was to be applied. the things were there, everywhere at hand; the temples and churches, the painting and the sculpture and the works of handicraft; the music and poetry and drama, the ceremonial and costume of daily life, both secular and religious, the very cities in which men congregated and the villages in which they were dispersed. beauty, in all its concrete forms of art, was highly valued, almost as highly as religion or liberty or bodily health, but then it was a part of normal life and therefore taken for granted. now all is changed. for just an hundred years (the process definitely began here in america between 1820 and 1823) we have been eliminating beauty as an attribute of life and living until, during the last two generations, it is true to say that the instinctive impulse of the race as a whole is towards ugliness in those categories of creation and appreciation where formerly it had been towards beauty. of course the corollary of this was the driving of the unhappy man in whom was born some belated impulse towards the apprehending of beauty and its visible expression in some art, back upon himself, until, conscious of his isolation and confident of his own superiority, he not only made his art a form of purely personal expression (or even of exposure), but held himself to be, and so conducted himself, as a being apart, for whom the laws of the herd were not, and to whom all men should bow. the separation of art from life is only less disastrous in its results than the separation of religion from life, particularly since with the former went the separation of art (and therefore of beauty) from its immemorial alliance with religion. it was bad for art, it was bad for religion, and it was worst of all for life itself. beyond a certain point man cannot live in and with and through ugliness, nor can society endure under such conditions, and the fact is that, however it came to pass, modern civilization has functioned through explicit ugliness, and the environment it has made for its votaries and its rebels indifferently, is unique in its palpable hideousness; from the clothes it wears and the motives it extols, to the cities it builds, and the structures therein, and the scheme of life that romps along in its ruthless career within the sordid suburbs that take the place of the once enclosing walls. and the defiant and segregated "artists," mortuary art museums, the exposed statues and hidden pictures, the opera subsidized by "high society," and the "arts and crafts" societies and the "art magazines" and "art schools" and clubs and "city beautiful" committees, only seem to make the contrast more apparent and the desperate nature of the situation more profound. it is a new situation altogether, and nowhere in history is there any recorded precedent to which we can return for council and example, for nothing quite of the same sort ever happened before. it is also a problem of which formal education must take cognizance, for the lack is one which must somehow be supplied, while it reveals an astonishing _lacuna_ in life that means a new deficiency in the unconscious education of man that renders him ineffective in life; defective even, it may be, unless from some source he can acquire something of what in the past life itself could afford. indeed it is not merely a negative influence we deal with, but a positive, for, to paraphrase a little, "ugly associations corrupt good morals." youth is beaten upon at many points by things that not only look ugly, but are, and as in compassion we are bound to offer some new agency to fill a lack, so in self-defence we must take thought as to how the evil influence of contemporaneousness is to be nullified and its results corrected. i confess the method seems to me to lean more closely to the indirect influence rather than the direct. it is doubtful if "art" can really be taught in any sense; the inherent sense of beauty can be fostered and an inherent aptitude developed, but that is about all. as for the building up of a non-professional passion for art i am quite sure it cannot be done, and should hardly be attempted, and very likely the same is true of the application of beauty. text books on "how to understand" this art or that are interesting ventures into abstract theory, but they are little more. we must always remember that art is a result, not a product, and that sense of beauty is a natural gift and not an accomplishment. on the other hand, much can be accomplished by indirection, and by this i mean the buildings and the grounds and the cultural adjuncts that are offered by any school or college. the ordinary type of school-house--primary, grammar or high school--is, in its barren ugliness and its barbarous "efficiency," a very real outrage on decency, and a few braun photographs and plaster casts and potted plants avail nothing. private schools and some colleges--by no means all--are apt to be somewhat better, and here the improvement during the last ten years has been amazing, one or two universities having acquired single buildings, or groups, of the most astonishing architectural beauty. in no case, however, has as yet complete unity been achieved, while the arts of painting, sculpture, music and the drama, as vital and operative and pervasive influences, lag far behind, and formal religion with its liturgies and ceremonial, its constant and varied services and its fine and appealing pageantry--religion which is the greatest vitalizing and stimulating force in beauty is hardly touched at all. bad art of any kind is bad anywhere, but in any type of educational institution, from the kindergarten to the post graduate college, it is worse and less excusable than it is elsewhere, unless it be in association with religion, while the absence of beauty at the instigation of parsimony or efficiency is just as bad. i am firmly persuaded that we need, not more courses of study but more beautiful environment for scholars under instruction. i have touched cursorily on certain elements in education which need either a new emphasis or an altogether new interpretation; religion, history, art, but this does not mean that the same treatment should not be accorded elsewhere. there are certain studies that should be revived, such as formal logic, there are others that need immediate and complete restoration, as latin for example, there are many, chiefly along scientific and vocational lines, that could well be minimized, or in some cases dispensed with altogether: one might go on indefinitely on this line, however, weighing and testing studies in relation to their character-value, but certainly enough has already been said to indicate the point of view i would urge for consideration. before i close, however, i want to touch on two points that arise in connection with college education, if, even for the sake of argument, we admit that the primary object of all formal education is the "education" of the character-capacity in each individual. of these two, the first has to do with the college curriculum, but i need to devote little time to this for the principle has already been developed and applied in a singularly stimulating and lucid book called "the liberal college," by president meiklejohn of amherst, to which i beg to refer you. the scheme is a remarkable blending of the prescribed and the elective systems, and provides for the freshman year five compulsory studies, viz.: social and economic institutions, mathematics and formal logic, science, english and foreign languages; for the sophomore year european history, philosophy, science, literature, and one elective; for the junior year american history, history of thought and two electives, and for the senior year one required study, intellectual and moral problems, and one elective, the latter, which takes two-thirds of the student's time, must be a continuation of one of the four subjects included in the junior year. it seems to me that this is a singularly wise programme, since it not only determines the few studies which are fundamental, and imposes them on the student in diminishing number as he advances in his work, but it also provides for that freedom of choice which permits any student to find out and continue the particular line along which his inclinations lead him to travel, until his senior year is chiefly given over to the fullest possible development of the special subject. the fad for free electives all along the line was one of those curious phenomena, both humorous and tragic, that grew out of the evolutionary philosophy and the empirical democracy of the nineteenth century, and it wrought disaster, while the ironclad curriculum that preceded it was almost as bad along an opposite line. this project of dr. meiklejohn's seems to me to recognize life as a force and to base itself on this sure foundation instead of on the shifting sands of doctrinaire theory, and if this is so then it is right. for after all there is such a thing as life, and it is more potent than theory as it also has a way of disregarding or even smashing the machine. it is this force of life that should be more regarded in education, and more relied upon. it is the living in a school or a college that counts more than a curriculum; the association with others, students and teachers, the communal life, the common adventures and scrapes, the common sports, yes, and as it will be sometime, the common worship. it is through these that life works and character develops, and to this development and instigation of life the school and college should work more assiduously, minimizing for the moment the problems of curricula and pedagogic methods. if i am right in this there is no place for the "correspondence school," while the college or university that numbers its students by thousands becomes at least of doubtful value, and perhaps impossible. in any case it seems to me self-evident that a college, whatever its numbers, must have, as its primal and essential units, self-contained groups of not more than 150 students segregated in their own residential quad, with its common-room, refectory and chapel, and with a certain number of faculty members in residence, the whole being united under one "head." there may be perhaps no reason why, granting this unit system, these should not be multiplied in number until the whole student body is as great as that of a western state university today, but to me the idea is abhorrent of an "university" with five or ten thousand students all jostling together in one inchoate mass, eating in numerical mobs, assembling in social "unions" as large as a metropolitan hotel and almost as homelike, or taking refuge for safety from mere numbers in clubs, fraternities and secret societies. a college such as this is a mob, not an organism, and as a mob it ought to be put down. i said at the outset of this lecture that we could not lay the present failure of civilization to the doors of education, however great its shortcomings, for the causes lay deeper than this. i maintain that this is true; and yet formal education can not escape scatheless, for it has failed to admit this decline while acknowledging the claim set up for it that it could and would achieve this end. certainly it will incur a heavy responsibility if it does not at once recognize the fact that while it can not do the half that has been claimed for it, it can do far more than it is doing now, and that in a very large degree the future does depend for its honour or its degradation on the part formal education is to perform at the present crisis. to do this it must execute a _volte face_ and confess that it can only develop inherent potential, not create capacity, and that the primary object of its activities must be not the stall-feeding of intellect and the practical preparation for a business career, but the fostering and the building up of the personal character that denotes the christian gentleman. i do not think that i can do better for a conclusion than to quote from the "philosophy of education" by the late dr. thomas edward shields. "the unchanging aim of christian education is, and always has been, to put the pupil into possession of a body of truth derived from nature and from divine revelation, from the concrete work of man's hand and from the content of human speech, in order to bring his conduct into conformity with christian ideals and with the standards of the civilization of his day. "christian education, therefore, aims at transforming native instincts while preserving and enlarging their powers. it aims at bringing the flesh under the control of the spirit. it draws upon the experience and the wisdom of the race, upon divine revelation and upon the power of divine grace, in order that it may bring the conduct of the individual into conformity with christian ideals and with the standards of the civilization of the day. it aims at the development of the whole man, at the preservation of unity and continuity in his conscious life; it aims at transforming man's native egotism to altruism; at developing the social side of his nature to such an extent that he may regard all men as his brothers; sharing with them the common fatherhood of god. in one word, it aims at transforming a child of the flesh into a child of god." vii the problem of organic religion if philosophy is "the science of the totality of things," and "they are called wise who put things in their right order and control them well," then it is religion, above all other factors and potencies, that enters in to reveal the right relationships and standards of value, and to contribute the redemptive and energizing force that makes possible the adequate control which is the second factor in the conduct of the man that is "called wise." philosophy and religion are not to be confounded; religion is sufficient in itself and develops its own philosophy, but the latter is not sufficient in itself, and when it assumes the functions and prerogatives of religion, it brings disaster. religion is the force that relates action to life. of course it has other aspects, higher in essence and more impalpable in quality, but it is this first aspect i shall deal with, because i am not now speaking of religion as a purely spiritual power but only of its quality as the great coordinator of human action, the power that establishes a right ratio of values and gives the capacity for right control. whether we accept the religion of the middle ages or not; whether we look on the period as one of high and edifying christian civilization, or as a time of ignorance and superstition, we are bound to admit that society in its physical, intellectual and spiritual aspects was highly organized, and coordinated after a most masterly fashion. it was more nearly an unit, functioning lucidly and consistently, than anything the world has known since the roman empire. whatever its defects, lack of coherency was not one of them. life was not divided into water-tight compartments, but moved on as a consistent whole. failures were constant, for the world even then was made up of men, but the ideal was perfectly clear-cut, the principles exactly seen and explicitly formulated; life was organic, consistent, highly articulated, and withal as full of the passion of aspiration towards an ultimate ideal as was the gothic cathedral which is its perfect exemplar. the reason for this coherency and consistency was the universal recognition and acceptance of religion as the one energizing and standardizing force in life, the particular kind of religion that then prevailed, and the organic power which this religion had established; that is to say, the church as an operative institution. so long as this condition obtained, which was, roughly speaking, for three hundred years, from the "truce of god" in 1041 to the beginning of the "babylonian captivity" of the papacy at avignon in 1309, there was substantial unity in life, but as soon as it was shaken, this unity began to break up into a diversity that accomplished a condition of chaos, at and around the opening of the sixteenth century, which only yielded to the absolutism of the renaissance, destined in its turn to break up into a second condition of chaos under the influence of industrialism, puritanism and revolution. since the accomplishment of the reformation, this function of religion has never been restored to society in any degree comparable with that which it maintained during the middle ages. the counter-reformation preserved the institution itself in the mediterranean lands, but it did not restore its old spiritual power in its entirety. amongst the peoples that accepted the reformation the new religion assumed for a time the authority of the old, but the centrifugal force inherent in its nature soon split the reformed churches into myriad fragments, so destroying their power of action, while the abandonment of the sacramental system progressively weakened their dynamic force. as it had from the first compounded, under compulsion, with absolutism and tyranny, so in the end it compromised with the cruelty, selfishness, injustice and avarice of industrialism, and when finally this achieved world supremacy, and physical science, materialistic philosophy and social revolution entered the field as co-combatants, it no longer possessed a sufficient original power either of resistance or of re-creative energy. religion is in itself not the reaction of the human mind, under process of evolution, to certain physical stimuli of experience and phenomena, it is supernatural in that its source is outside nature; it is a manifestation of the grace of god, and as such it cannot be brought into existence by any conscious action of man or by any of his works. on the other hand, it can be fostered and preserved, or debilitated and dispersed, by these human acts and institutions, and in the same way man himself may be made more receptive to this divine grace, or turned against it, by the same agencies, the teachings of dr. john calvin to the contrary notwithstanding. this is part of the catholic doctrine of free-will as opposed to the sixteenth-century dogma of predestination which, distorted and degraded from the doctrine of st. paul and st. augustine, played so large a part in that transformation of the christian religion from which we have suffered ever since. god offers the free gift of religion and of faith to every child of man, but the recipient must cooperate if the gift is to be accepted. the church, that is to say, the supernatural organism that is given material form in time and space and operates through human agencies, is for this reason subject to great vicissitudes, now rising to the highest level of righteousness and power, now sinking into depths of unrighteousness and impotence. nothing, however, can affect the validity and the potency of its supernatural content and its supernatural channels of grace. these remain unaffected, whether the human organism is exalted or debased. the sacraments and devotions and practices of worship, are in themselves as potent if a borgia sits in the chair of st. peter as they are if a hildebrand, and innocent iii or a leo xiii is the occupant; nevertheless every weakening or degradation of the visible organism affects, and inevitably, the attitude of men towards the thing itself, and when this declension sets in and continues unchecked, the result is, first, a falling away and a discrediting of religion that sometimes results in general abandonment, and second--and after a time--a new outpouring of spiritual power that results in complete regeneration. the church, in its human manifestation, is as subject to the rhythmical rise and fall of the currents of life as is the social organism or man himself, therefore it is not to be expected that it will pursue a course of even exaltation, or maintain a status that is impeccable. now the working out of this law had issue in a great decline that began with the exile at avignon and was not terminated until the council of trent. in the depth of this catastrophe came the natural and righteous revolt against the manifold and intolerable abuses, but, like all reforming movements that take on a revolutionary character, reform and regeneration were soon forgotten in the unleashed passion for destruction and innovation, while the new doctrines of emancipation from authority, and the right of private judgment in religious matters, were seized upon by sovereigns chafing under ecclesiastical control, as a providential means of effecting and establishing their own independence, and so given an importance, and an ultimate victory that, in and by themselves, they could hardly have achieved. in the end it was the secular and autocratic state that reaped the victory, not the reformed religion, which was first used as a tool and then abandoned to its inevitable break-up into numberless antagonistic sects, some of them retaining a measure of the old faith and polity, others representing all the illiteracy and uncouthness and fanaticism of the new racial and social factors as these emerged at long last from the submergence and the oppression that had been their fate with the dissolution of mediaevalism. meanwhile the roman church which stood rigidly for historic christianity and had been preserved by the counter-reformation to the mediterranean states, continued bound to the autocratic and highly centralized administrative system that had become universal among secular powers during the decadence of mediaevalism, and from which it had taken its colour, and it kept even pace for the future with the progressive intensification of this absolutism. this was natural, though in many respects deplorable, and it can be safely said that adverse criticism of the catholic church today is based only on qualities it acquired during the period of renaissance autocracy and revived paganism; qualities that do not affect its essential integrity or authority but do misrepresent it before men, and work as a handicap in its adaptability and in its work of winning souls to christianity and re-establishing the unity of christendom. fortunately this very immobility has saved it from a surrender to the new forces that were developed in secular society during the last two centuries, as it did yield to the compulsion of those that were let loose in the two that preceded them. it has never subjected questions of faith and morals to popular vote nor has it determined discipline by parliamentary practice under a well developed party system, therefore it has preserved its unity, its integrity and its just standard of comparative values. on the other hand, it has held so stubbornly to some of the ill ways of renaissance centralization, which are in no sense consonant with its character, that it has failed to retard the constant movement of society away from a life wherein religion was the dominating and coordinating force, while at the present crisis it is as yet hardly more able than a divisive protestantism to offer the regenerative energy that a desperate case demands. i do not know whether secular society is responsible for the decadence of religion, or the decadence of religion is responsible for the failure of secular society, nor does it particularly matter. what i am concerned with is a condition amounting to almost complete severance between the two, and how we may "knit up this ravelled sleeve" of life so that once more we may have an wholesome unity in place of the present disunity; for until this is accomplished, until once more religion enters into the very marrow of social being, enters with all its powers of judgment and determination and co-ordination and creative energy, just so long shall we seek in vain for our way out into the great peace of righteous and consistent living. of course there is only one sure way, one method by which this, and all our manifold difficulties, can be resolved, and that is through the achieved enlightenment of the individual. as i have insisted in each of these lectures, salvation is not through machinery but through the individual soul, for it is life itself that is operating, not the instruments that man devises in his ingenuity. yet the mechanism is of great value for even itself may give aid and stimulus in the personal regenerative process, or, on the contrary, it may deter this by the confusing and misleading influences it creates. therefore we are bound to regard material reforms, and of these, as they suggest themselves in the field of organized religion, i propose to speak. no one will deny the progressive alienation of life from religion that has developed since the reformation and has now reached a point of almost complete severance. religion, once a public preoccupation, has now withdrawn to the fastnesses of the individual soul, when it has not vanished altogether, as it has in the case of the majority of citizens of this republic in so far as definite faith, explicit belief, application, practice and action are concerned. in the hermitage that some still make within themselves, religion still lives on as ardent and as potent and as regenerative as before, but in general, if we are to judge from the conduct of recent life, it is held, when it is accepted at all, with a certain formality, and is neither cherished with conviction nor allowed to interfere with the everyday life of the practical man. as a great english statesman remarked in the last century, "no one has a higher regard for religion than i, but when it comes to intruding it into public affairs, well, really--!" the situation is one not unnaturally to be anticipated, for the whole course of religious, secular and sociological development during the last few centuries has been such as to make any other result improbable. i already have tried to show what seem to me the destructive factors, secularly and sociologically. as for the factors in religious development that have worked towards the same end, they are, first, the shattering of the unity of christendom, with the denial by those of the reformed religions of the existence of a church, one, visible and catholic and infallible in matters of faith and morals; second, the denial of sacramental philosophy and abandonment of the sacraments (or all but one, or at most two of them) as instruments of divine grace; third, the surrender of the various religious organisms to the compulsion of the materialistic, worldly and opportunist factors in the secular life of modernism. the truths corresponding to these three errors are, unity, sacramentalism and unworldliness. until these three things are won back, christianity will fail of its full mission, society will continue aimless, uncoördinate and on the verge of disaster, life itself will lack the meaning and the reality that give both joy in the living and victory in achievement, while the individual man will be gravely handicapped in the process of personal regeneration. it is not my purpose to frame a general indictment against persons and movements, but rather to suggest certain ways and means of possible recovery, and in general i shall try to confine myself to that form of organized religion to which i personally adhere, that is to say, the anglican or episcopal church, partly because of my better knowledge of its conditions, and partly because whatever is said may in most cases be equally well applied to the protestant denominations. _the unity of the church._ it is no longer necessary to demonstrate this fundamental necessity. the old days of the nineteenth century are gone, those days when honest men vociferously acclaimed as honourable and glorious "the dissidence of dissent and the protestantism of the protestant religion." everyone knows now, everyone, that is, that accepts christianity, that disunion is disgrace if not a very palpable sin. the desire for a restored unity is almost universal, but every effort in this direction, whatever its source, meets with failure, and the reason would appear to be that the approach is made from the wrong direction. in every case the individual is left alone, his personal beliefs and practices are, he is assured, jealously guarded; all that is asked is that some mechanical amalgamation, some official approximation shall be effected. free interchange of pulpits, a system of reciprocal re-ordination, a "merger" of church property and parsons, an "irreducible minimum" of credal insistencies these, and others even more ingeniously compromising, are the well-meaning schemes that are put forward, and in the process one point after another is surrendered, as a _quid pro quo_ for the formal and technical capitulation of some other religious group. it is demonstrable that even if these well-meaning approximations were received with favour--and thus far nothing of the kind has appeared--the result, so far as essential unity is concerned, would be _nil._ there is a perfectly definite line of division between the catholic and the protestant, and until this line is erased there is no possible unity, even if this were only official and administrative. the catholic (and in respect to this one particular point i include under this title members of the roman, anglican and eastern communions) maintains and practices the sacramental system; the protestant does not. there is no reason, there is indeed grave danger of sacrilege, in a joint reception of the holy communion by those who look on it as a mere symbol and those who accept it as the very body and blood of christ. protestant clergy are urged to accept ordination at the hands of anglican bishops, but the plea is made on the ground of order, expediency, and the preservation of tradition; whereas the apostolical succession was established and enforced not for these reasons but in order that the grace of god, originally imparted by christ himself, may be continued through the lines he ordained, for the making and commissioning of priests who have power to serve as the channels for the accomplishing of the divine miracle of the holy eucharist, to offer the eternal sacrifice of the body and blood of christ for the quick and the dead, and to remit the penalty of sins through confession and absolution. if the laying on of hands by the bishop were solely a matter of tradition and discipline, neither rome nor the anglican communion would be justified in holding to it as a condition of unity; if it is for the transmission of the holy ghost for the making of a catholic priest, with all that implies and has always implied, then it is wrong, even in the interests of a formal unity, to offer it to those who believe neither in the priesthood nor in the sacraments in the catholic and historic sense. the conversion of the individual must take precedence of corporate action of any sort. when the secularist comes to believe in the godhead of christ he will unite himself with the rest of the faithful in a church polity, but he will not do this, he has too much self-respect, simply because he is told by some ardent but minimizing parson that he does not have to believe in the divinity of christ in order to "join the church." when a protestant comes to accept the sacramental system, to desire to participate in the holy sacrifice of the altar, to make confession of his sins and receive absolution, and to nourish and develop his spiritual nature by the use of the devotions that have grown up during nineteen hundred years, he will renounce his protestantism, when his self-respect would not permit him to do this just because he had been assured that he need not really change any of his previous beliefs in order to ally himself with a church that had better architecture and a more artistic ceremonial, and locally a higher social standing. when anglicans or the eastern orthodox come to believe that a vernacular liturgy and a married priesthood and provincial autonomy are of less importance than catholic unity, and when roman catholics can see that the same is of greater moment than a rigid preservation of renaissance centralization and a cold _"non possumus"_ in the matter of orders, then the way will be open for the reunion of the west, where this operation cannot be affected by formal negotiations looking towards some form of legalistic concordat. the evil heritage of the sixteenth century is still heavy upon us, and this heritage is one of jealousy and hate, not of charity and toleration. it is an heritage of legalism and technicalities, of self-will and individualism, of shibboleths that have become a dead letter, of prejudices that are fostered on distorted history and the propaganda of the self-seeking and the vain. the spirit of christ is not in it, but the malice of satan working upon the better natures of men and justifying in the name of conscience and principle what are frequently the workings of self-will and pride and intellectual obsession. this is the tragedy of it all; that protestants and anglicans and roman catholics are, so far as the majority are concerned, honestly convinced that they are right in maintaining their own divisiveness; in perpetuating an hundred protestant sects on the basis of some variation in the form of baptism or church government or the method of conversion; in splitting up the catholic church because of a thousand year old disagreement as to a clause in the creed which has a technical and theological significance only, or because one sector is alleged to have added unjustifiably to the faith while the other is alleged to have unjustifiably taken away. self-will and lack of charity, not love and the common will as these are revealed to the world through the divine will of christ, are working here. the momentary triumph of evil over good, the passing victory that yet means the banishment of religion from the world, and the assurance of disaster still greater than that which is now upon us unless every man bends all his energies to the task of making the will of god prevail, first in himself, and so in the secular and ecclesiastical societies in and through which he plays his part in the life of the world--these are the fruits of a divided christendom. i honestly believe that the first real step towards reunion would be a prompt cessation of the whole process of criticism, vilification and abuse, one of the other, that now marks the attitude of what are known as "church periodicals." roman, anglican, protestant, are all alike, for all maintain a consistent slanging of each other. i have in mind in particular weekly religious papers in the united states which maintain departments almost wholly made up of attacks on roman catholicism and the derision of incidents of bad taste or illiteracy in the protestant denominations, and others which lose no opportunity to discredit or abuse the episcopal church and the protestant denominations, and finally a curiously malevolent newspaper representing the worst type of protestant ignorance and prejudice, which exists on its libelous and indecent and dishonest assaults on catholicism wherever it may be found. these are not alone, for the condition of ascerbity and nagging is practically universal. it merely echoes the pulpit and a portion of the general public. we all know of the so called "church" in boston that is the forum of "escaped nuns" and "unfrocked priests," but in many places of better repute the sermon that bitterly attacks christian science, or "high church episcopalianism," or the errors of protestantism generally, or the "usurpations of rome" is by no means unknown, while elsewhere than in ireland, the public as a whole finds much pleasure in bating any religion that happens to differ from its own,--or offends its sense of the uselessness of all religion. let us have a new "truce of god," and for the space of a year let all clergy, lecturers, newspapers, religious journals, and private individuals, totally abstain from sneering and ill-natured attacks on other religions and their followers. could this be accomplished a greater step would be taken towards the reunion of christendom than could be achieved by any number of conferences, commissions, councils and conventions. it was the will and the intent of christ "that they all may be one, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me," and in disunity we deny christ. there is no consideration of inheritance, of personal taste, of interests, of intellectual persuasion that can stand in the way of an affirmative answer to this prayer. every man who calls himself a christian and yet is not praying and working to break down the self-will and the self-conceit that, so often under the masquerade of conscience, hold him back from a return, even if it is only step by step, to the original unity of the catholic faith, is guilty of sin, while it is sin of an even graver degree that stands to the account of those who consciously work to perpetuate the division that now exists. _sacramentalism._ the stumbling block, the apparently impassable barrier, is that which was erected when belief was substituted for faith; it is the intellectualizing of religion that has brought about the present failure of christianity as a vital and controlling force in man and in society. the danger revealed itself even in the middle ages, and through perhaps the greatest christian philosopher, and certainly one of the most commanding intellects, the world has known: st. thomas aquinas. in his case, and that of the others of his time, the intellect was still directed by spiritual forces, the chiefest of which was faith, therefore the inherent danger in the intellectualizing process did not clearly reveal itself or come into actual operation, but with the renaissance and the reformation it stood boldly forth, and since then as mind increased in its dominion faith declined. the reformation, in all its later phases, that is to say, after it ceased to be a protest against moral defects and administrative abuses and became a revolutionary invention of new dogmas and practices, was the result of clever, stupid or perverse minds working overtime on religious problems which could not be solved or even apprehended by the intellect, whether it was that of an acute and highly trained master such as calvin, or that of any one of the hundred founders of less savage but more curious and uncouth types of "reformed religion." what we need now for the recovery and re-establishment of christianity is not so much increased belief as it is a renewed faith; faith in christ, faith in his doctrine, faith in his church. we lost this faith when we abandoned the sacraments and sacramentalism as superstitions, or retained some of them in form and as symbols while denying to them all supernatural power. if we would aid the individual soul to regain this lost faith we could do no better than to restore the seven sacraments of the historic christian faith, and christian church to the place they once held for all christians, and still hold in the roman catholic church, the eastern orthodox churches and (with limitations) in the anglican church. faith begets faith; faith in christ brings faith in the sacraments, and faith in the sacraments brings faith in christ. it is disbelief in the efficacy of the sacraments and in the sacramental principle in life that is the essential barrier between protestantism and catholicism, and until this barrier is dissolved there can be neither formal unity nor unity by compromise. this is already widely recognized, and as well the actual loss that comes with the denial and abandonment of the sacraments. there is in the presbyterian church of scotland a strong tendency towards a reassertion of the full sacramental doctrine; the "free catholic" movement throughout great britain is made up of congregationalists, methodists, baptists, and other representatives of evangelical protestantism, and it is working unreservedly for the recovery and application of all the catholic sacraments, with the devotions and ritual that go with them. dr. orchard, the head, and a congregational minister, maintains in london a church where, as a methodist member of the "free catholic" organization wrote me the other day, "the blessed sacrament is perpetually reserved and 'high mass' is celebrated on sundays with the full catholic ceremonial." in my own practice of architecture i am constantly providing presbyterian, congregational, and even unitarian churches, by request, with chancels containing altars properly vested and ornamented with crosses and candles, while the almost universal demand is for church edifices that shall approach as nearly as possible in appearance to the typical catholic church of the middle ages. of course some of this is due to a revived instinct for beauty, that almost sacramental quality in life which was ruthlessly destroyed by protestantism, and also to a renewed sense of the value of symbol and ritual; but back of it all is the growing consciousness that, as dr. newman smythe says, protestantism has definitely failed, or at least become superannuated; that the essence of religion is spiritual not intellectual, affirmative not negative, and that the only measure of safety lies in a return towards, if not actually to, the catholic faith and practice from which the old revolt was affected. it is a movement both significant and full of profound encouragement. here then are two tendencies that surely show the way and demand encouragement and furtherance; recovery of the sense of christian unity in christ and through an united catholic church, and the re-acceptance of sacramentalism as the expression of that faith and as the method of that church. i feel very strongly that wherever these tendencies show themselves they must be acclaimed and cherished. the protestant denominations must be aided in every way in their process of recovery of the good things once thrown away; episcopalians must be persuaded that nothing can be wrong that leads souls to christ, and that therefore they must cease their opposition to reservation of the blessed sacrament explicitly for adoration, to such devotions as benediction and the rosary simply because they have not explicit apostolic sanction, or to vestments, incense and holy water because certain prescriptive laws passed four hundred years ago in england have never been repealed. above all is it necessary that the episcopal church should declare itself formally for the reinstitution of the seven catholic sacraments, with the mass as the one supreme act of worship, obligatory as the chief service on sundays and holy days, and both as communion and as sacrifice. in this connection there is one reform that would i think be more effective than any other, (except the exaltation of the holy eucharist itself) and that is the complete cessation of the practice of commissioning lay readers and using them for mission work and clerical assistance. a mission can be established and made fruitful only on the basis of the sacraments, and chiefly on those of the holy eucharist and penance. it is not enough to send a zealous and well intentioned layman to "a promising mission field" in order that he may read morning and evening prayer and some sermon already published. what is needed is a priest to say mass and hear confessions, and nothing else will serve as a substitute. how this is to be accomplished, now when the candidates for holy orders are constantly falling off in number, with no immediate prospect of recovery, is a question. perhaps we may learn something from the old custom of ordaining "mass priests," without cure of souls and with a commission to celebrate the holy mysteries even while they continue their own secular work in the world. for my own part i am persuaded that the best solution lies in the establishing of diocesan monasteries where men may take vows for short terms, and, during the period of these vows, remain at the orders of the bishop to go out at any time and anywhere in the diocese and to do such temporary or periodical mission work as he may direct. _unworldliness:_ i have referred to the great falling off in the number of candidates for the priesthood in the episcopal church; the same phenomenon is apparent in all the protestant denominations, so far as i know, but it has not shown itself in the roman catholic church. this defection parallels the falling-off of membership in the various churches (except again the roman catholic) in proportion to the increase in population. we are told that the diminution of the ministry is due to the starvation wages that are paid in the vast majority of cases, and of course it is true that where a married clergy is allowed, men who believe they have a calling both to ministerial and to domestic life will think twice before they follow the call of the first when the pecuniary returns are such as to make the second impossible, which is, generally speaking, the situation today. to obviate this difficulty many religious bodies have recently established pension funds, but even this form of clerical insurance, together with the increase that has been effected in clerical stipends, has shown no results in an increase of students in theological seminaries and in candidates for orders. the man who has enough of faith in god and a strong enough call to the ministry of christ, will answer the call even if he does think twice before doing so. the trouble lies, i believe, in the very lack of faith and in a failure of confidence in organized religion largely brought about by organized religion itself through the methods it has pursued during the last two or three generations. there is a widespread belief that it is compromising with the world; that it is playing fast and loose with faith and discipline in a vain opportunism that voids it of spiritual power. even where distrust does not reach this disastrous conclusion, there is a growing feeling of repugnance to the methods now being adopted in high quarters to "sell religion" to the public, as is the phrase which is sufficient in itself to explain the falling away that now seems to be in process. the attempt to win unwilling support by the methods of the "institutional church," the rampant advertising, so frequently under the management of paid "publicity agents"; the setting apart of half the sundays in the year for some one or other special purpose, usually the raising of money for a specific and frequently worthy object; the "drives" for millions, the huge and impressive organizations, "scientifically" conducted, for rounding up lapsed communicants, or doubtful converts, or cash and pledges for missions, or pensions, or the raising of clergy stipends; the "nation-wide campaign," the "inter-church world movement"; these--not to speak of the growing policy of "making it easy" for the hesitant to "come into the church" by minimizing unpopular clauses in the creeds or loosening-up on discipline, and of attracting "advanced" elements by the advocacy and exploiting of each new social or industrial or political fad as it arises--are strong deterrents to those who honestly and ardently hunger for religion that _is_ religion and neither social service nor "big business." christ said "you _cannot_ serve both god and mammon," and this is one of the few cases where he stated a moral condition as a fact instead of indicating the right or the wrong possibility in action. organized christianity has for some time been trying to render this dual service, and the penalty thereof is now on the world. this consideration seems to me so important and so near the root of our troubles, and not in the field of organized religion alone, that i am going to quote at length from the rev. fr. duffy of the american "society of the divine compassion." what he has said came to me while i was preparing this lecture, and it is so much better than anything i could say that for my present purpose i make it my own. "to the thoughtful person, and the need of reformation will appeal only to the thoughtful person, it must on reflection become abundantly evident that the chief necessity of our times in the religious world is the recovery of faith. probably lack of the true measure of faith has been the story of every generation, with few exceptions, in the long history of christianity, but there possibly never has been a time when men talked more of it and possessed less than in our own day. * * * *" "christianity is a new thing of splendid vision for each and every generation of men, unique in its promise and unapproached in its attraction. and yet how small a factor we have made it in the world's moulding compared with what it might be. we have not achieved a tiny part of what we might have achieved, because we lack the essentials of achievement; faith and faith's vision. obsessed, after centuries of discussion and persecution, with the notion that faith is made up of mere belief, we have lost the secret of that victorious power that overcomes the world, and are weakly dependent upon the world's means for what spiritual operation we undertake. and so content have we grown with things as they are, that what they might be comes only as a dream that passes away quickly with the night; blind to our appalling money-dependency in modern religion, satisfied that the kingdom of heaven is as nigh to us as is possible under present conditions of society, we practically have substituted for the theological virtues, faith, hope and charity, the ascending degrees of belief, resignation, money. this is partly due to our religious inheritance and partly to mental and spiritual sloth which dislikes the effort of thinking, preferring easy acquiescence in conditions that are the resultants of blinded vision. for dependency upon money is not something merely of the present, but a condition in the spiritual sphere that is largely a product of a long past. the really inexcusable thing is our willingness, in a day of greater light and knowledge, to close our eyes to the true nature of the unattractive, anaemic thing we _call_ faith, which would be seen as powerless to achieve at all, if taken out of the soil of material means in which it has been planted." he then gives various instances of methods actually put in practice amongst the churches and denominations which indicate the renunciation of faith and an exclusive reliance on worldy agencies and he then continues: "the joint commission on clergy pensions, appointed by the general convention of 1913, made as the basis for apportionment, not the services of self-denial of, but the amount of stipend received by, the clergy eligible for pension, thus penalizing the priest who, for the love of god, sacrificed a larger income to accept work in the most needed places where toil is abundant and money scarce. it must be evident, of course, that the motive of the commission is not an endorsement of the blasphemous gospel of success, by adding penalty to the self-denying clergy; what is painfully obvious is their apparent unbounded confidence that there are no clergy sufficiently foolish to sacrifice stipend at the call of faith's venture! and since the armistice, the only real activity in organized religion has been a series of "drives" for vast sums of money, in most cases professionally directed. "a consideration of a few facts such as the forgoing must readily convince even the most unimaginative person that whatever power faith might have had in the past, it counts for little today; that its secrets, its very meaning have been forgotten. otherwise there could not be this extraordinary exaggeration of the place of money in spiritual operation, and the unblushing, tacit admission that mammon, which christ so warned against, had been recognized as the master of spiritual situation, instead of the willing servant and useful adjunct of faith it was designed to be in the christian vision. indeed they all speak of that, largely unconscious, atmosphere of distrust of god which is so all-prevailing among christian people today. if the great, positive vice of the age is covetousness, the great negative one is distrust of god; the two invariably go together as parts of a whole--one is the reverse side of the other--for, it is not that we _must_ not, or _ought_ not, but that we "_cannot_ serve god and mammon." and this atmosphere is one in which faith cannot exist, it is stifled, crushed, killed, except it breathe the pure, sweet air of god, with which it can alone surround itself when human hearts will. "it is not surprising that out of such conditions should grow false values, and that spirituality should be measured by the world's standard. thus we have fallen into the vicious habit of adjudging qualifications for spiritual leadership among the clergy by the amount of their stipends, and measuring their potentialities for usefulness in the kingdom of god by the amount of their yearly incomes; among the laity, the men of power are ever the men of material means, whom we permit to play the part of providence in feeding and sustaining the church from large purses, the filling of which will not always bear close investigation, and the really successful parish is always the one that, no matter what its spiritual condition, rejoices in abundant material means. so evident is it that the means of spiritual life have been so confused with the purely material, that it occasions no surprise when a neighbourhood having changed from the residence district of the comparatively well-to-do to the very poor, the vestry feels bound to consider the moving of the church to a more 'desirable' quarter. "these, of course, are hard facts to face, and it is not strange that we should seek to evade them by a false optimism that thinks evil is eliminated by merely contemplating good. the point is, _they must be faced,_ and at a time when there is some evidence of a little awakening, it must more and more force itself into the consciousness of the thoughtful that the dead spiritual conditions of today are due to the shifting of faith from god to material things as the means of achieving. the only hope lies in the apparent unconsciousness of the error. this is invariably the atmosphere that prevails when ecclesiastical history repeats itself in corruption; it had been true of more than two or three generations, though obviously unseen save by a few of those contemporary with the times, that in jerusalem, 'the heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money; yet will they lean upon the lord, and say: is not the lord among us? none evil can come upon us.' corporate unconsciousness, in greater or less measure, of these conditions, may influence the degree of guilt, but never can acquit of the sin. and the cold, naked truth is that today we stand almost helpless before a world of peculiar problems. "what is there here to reflect the _power_ and _might_ of christianity, such as the early church, especially, possessed, and subsequent generations, in times of great faith, really knew so much of--the power to heal the sick, to cast out devils, to achieve wonders out of christ's poverty, to experience the thrilling joy of religion in the ever-abiding divine presence, and witness the marvels of faith in the conquering of the world? how is it we are no longer able to communicate the secrets to the suffering world which are able to transmute the people's want into god's plenty, and attract and hold the hearts of men with the joys of the vision splendid? why is it that hope has given way to resignation, that the preaching of forgiveness has been dwarfed by the insistence upon penalty, that distinct evils in the physical sphere are attributed to god and, because of that, held up to religious estimation as good; the day of miracles is regarded as belonging to a far distant past, the answering of prayer looked upon as the exception instead of the rule, and the old melody of joy in religion exchanged for the wail of despair in an interpretation of 'thy will be done' that is only associated with human calamity? the reply is as simple as, to the thoughtful person, it is obvious: we have lost knowledge of a living, vital, conquering faith that is rooted in god himself, and have satisfied the hunger of human sense by placing trust in the things of the earth which we see and touch, and in so doing lost the power spiritually to achieve. "now we can only approach, in the hope of a day of better things, the great practical and intellectual problems of our times from the standpoint of faith's recovery, for it is only in their relationship to faith they can be viewed intelligently by the christian. and it will be found that at the root of all our difficulties and all our negligences--so many of them unconscious--and as the cause of our vain expediencies and attempts to justify the corporate spiritual situation, is the absence of vital faith and a _whole_ obedience to which god alone has conditioned results. we need sorely to reconsider what faith really is, and when we have recovered in some measure that knowledge of it in experience, which declared its unspeakable worth in the early church and in later periods of ecclesiastical history which stand out before all others, we shall look back upon our past distrust of god and his promises with shame and wonderment, and proceed to revise our cataloguing of spiritual values and degrees of sin. for the really destructive thing, _before all others,_ is a weakened faith that compromises in a half obedience to christ and a search for earthly props. the work of satan has even been the prompting of distrust of god in the human family, just as the work of redemption means so largely the re-establishing of it in the person of jesus christ. from the first temptation of man to the present moment, all the forces of evil have concentrated upon breaking man's trust in god and his promises; every sin has had that as its ultimate end, and every disaster, ill and trial, in the world and individual life, is subtly presented by the enemy of god and man (knowing our haziness of vision), so as to place the appearances against the creator in a blind disregard for the created; just as in the life of the incarnate son all the great power of the forces of darkness were brought to bear unsuccessfully upon the snapping of his faith in his father--from the time he was tempted to believe himself forgotten, when hungering and physically reduced in the wilderness after his long fast, until the dreadful cry of dereliction from the cross at the very end. "the call for reformation today, then, is to the doing of things left undone, the search for and recovery of almost lost spiritual powers that alone lastingly can achieve for god and hasten man's salvation. and this requires the venture and daring that breaks from the world, withdraws from compromise, and that, rightly estimating the character and attitude of god, refuses longer to believe him the author of evils we resignedly accept today by calling them good; and instead, claims the powers of the divine promises for the utter destruction of the world's ills by a strict dependence upon spiritual forces and weapons for the accomplishment of results. above all, this means a change and reform in corporate conduct as the end of repentance, for the present almost total disregard of the laws and principles of christian living as given in the sermon on the mount." these are hard sayings and strong doctrine, but will any one say they are not true? the weakening of religion, with the consequent decline of civilization, is ultimately to be traced back to _organized_ religion, not to religion itself, and still less to any inherent defects in christianity. where organized religion has failed it deserved to fail, because it countenanced disunion, forsook the saving sacraments, and finally compromised with worldliness and materialism. with each one of these false ventures faith began to weaken amongst the mass of people until at last this, which can always save, and alone can save, ceased to have either the power or the will to force the organism to conform to the spirit. if we have indeed accomplished the depth of our fall, then the time is at hand when we may hope and pray for a new outpouring of divine grace that will bring recovery. there are wide evidences that men earnestly desire this. i have already spoken of the great corporate movements towards unity, and these mean much even though they may at present take on something of the quality of mechanism instead of depending on the individual and the grace of god working in him. the "world conference on faith and order," the just effected federation of the presbyterians, methodists and congregationalists in canada, above all the eirenic manifesto of the bishops at the last lambeth conference, all indicate a new spirit working potently in the souls of men. concrete results are not as yet conspicuous, but the spirit is there and a beginning has been made. even more significant is the wide testimony to the need for definite, concrete and pervasive religion that is daily given by men whose names have hitherto been quite dissociated from matters of this kind; scientists, educators, men of business and men of public life. it may be testimony in favour of some new invention, some synthetic product of curious and abnormal ingredients; as a matter of fact it frequently is, and we confront such remarkable products as mr. wells has given us, for example. the significant thing, however, is the fact of the desire and the avowal; if we have this i think we may leave it to god to see that the desire is satisfied in the end by heavenly food and not by the nostrums of ingenuity. for the same reason we may look without dismay on certain novel phenomena of the moment. in their divergence from "the faith once delivered to the saints" and left in the keeping of the church christ founded as a living and eternal organism through which his spirit would work forever, they are wrong and therefore they cannot endure, but each testifies to the passionate desire in man for religion as a reality, and no one of them comes into existence except as the result of desperate action by men to recover something that had been taken from them and that their souls needed, and would have at any cost. each one of these strange manifestations is a reaction from some old error that had become established belief or custom. no one who holds to historic christianity is interested in them, but those who have found religion intellectualized beyond endurance and transformed either by materialism or rationalism, seek for the mysticism they know to be a reality (to employ a paradox) in the ultra mysticism of oriental cults; those who revolt against the exaggeration of evil and its exaltation to eminence that rivals that of god himself, which is the legacy of one powerful movement in the reformation, rush to the other extreme and deny the existence of evil and even the reality of matter, while spiritism, the most insidious, perilous and fatal of all the spiritual temptations that beset the world at this time, gains as its adherents those who have been deprived of the catholic belief in the communion of saints and have been forbidden to pray for the dead or to ask for their prayers and intercessions. however strange and erroneous the actual manifestation, there is no question as to the reality and prevalence of the desire for the recovery of spiritual power through the channels of religion. it shows itself, as it should, first of all in the individual, and it is only recently that organized religion, catholic or protestant, has begun to show a sympathetic consciousness and to take the first hesitant steps towards meeting the demand. because of this the seekers for reality have been left unshepherded and have wandered off into strange wildernesses. the call is now to the churches, to organized religion, and if the call is heeded our troubles are well on the road to an end. if the old way of jealousy, hatred and fear is maintained, then humanly speaking, our case is hopeless. if the older way of brotherhood, charity and loving-kindness is followed the future is secure in the great peace. nothing is wrong that leads men to christ, and this is true from the salvation army at one end of the scale to the seven sacraments of catholicity at the other. the world demands now not denial but affirmation, not protest and division but the ringing "credo" of catholic unity. viii personal responsibility not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the lord of hosts. we have tried to approach each subject in this course of lectures in the spirit of peace, and the greatest contributory factor in the achieving of the great peace is the individual himself, on whom, humanly speaking, rests the final responsibility. "not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the lord of hosts." not by majestical engines and curious devices and mass-action, nor yet by an imposed human authority enforced by arms and the law, but by the holy spirit of god working through the individual soul and compelling the individual will. peace is one of the promised fruits of the holy spirit, and like the others is manifested through human lives; therefore on us rests the preëminent responsibility of showing forth in ourselves, first of all, those things we desire for others and for society. we have experienced the great war, we endure its aftermath, and amidst the perils and dangers that follow both there is none greater than that which attaches to exterior war, viz., that the attention of both combatants is focussed on the faults and the weaknesses and the crimes of the opponent, with the result that both become destructive critics rather than constructive examples. chesterton rightly says, "what is wrong with the critic is that he does not criticise himself * * * rather he identifies himself with the ideal." seeing evil in others and flattering one's self is the antithesis of the spirit that would lead to the great peace, for in that spirit the field of warfare is transferred from the external to the internal, and the interior contest, which alone establishes lasting results, necessitates a recognition of our own error and the need of amendment of our own life. if our modern devices have failed; if the things we invented with a high heart and high hope, in government, industry, society, education, philosophy have in the end brought disappointment, disillusionment, even despair, it is less because of their inherent defects than because the individual failed, and himself ceased to act as the sufficient channel for the divine power which alone energizes our weak little engines and which acts through the individual alone. there is no better demonstration of this essential part played by the personal life of man than the fact that god, for the redemption of the world, took on human form and became one man amongst many men. there is no better demonstration of the fact that it is through the personal lives of individuals that the great peace is to be achieved, both directly and indirectly, than the fact that peace, the gift of the holy spirit, was promised to the individual man, by christ himself, as the legacy he left to his disciples after his resurrection and ascension. since then the world has been under the dispensation of the holy spirit, the "guide and comforter" that was promised, even though it has blindly and from time to time rejected the guidance and therefore known not the comfort. the old law of "thou shalt not" was followed by the new law of "thou shalt," and this in turn by the law of the third person of the trinity which does not supersede the dispensations of the father and of the son, but fulfills them in that it affords the spiritual power, if we will, to abide by the inhibitions and to carry out the commands. our search is for peace, the great peace, "the peace of god which passeth all understanding," and we shall achieve this for ourselves and for the world only through ourselves as individuals, and so for the society of which we are a part, and in so far as we bring ourselves into contact with the spirit of god. there is deep significance in the fact that the first time christ used the salutation "peace be unto you," was after his resurrection. it would seem that this special gift of the holy spirit had to be withheld from man until after the human life of god the son had been brought to an end in accomplishment, for he says "peace i leave with you, my peace i give unto you: not as the world giveth give i unto you. let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." "it is expedient for you that i go away; for if i go not away, the comforter will not come unto you: but if i depart i will send him unto you. when he, the spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth." "ye shall receive power after that the holy ghost is come upon you." it is the spirit that quickeneth. after god had revealed the law and given to us the great redeeming and atoning life, he saw that we had need of a further manifestation before we should be able to keep the law and live the life. therefore the holy spirit was sent to quicken us and give us power to do what we had both heard and seen. today we accept the moral law, we recognize the perfection of chirst's life, but we need to be reminded again that the power to be "sons of god" is present with us if we will but use it. as this power is a spirit it can only be apprehended spiritually; when our minds and hearts are set on material things, even on good material things, the "still small voice" of the spirit remains unheard: but if we listen first to that inward voice and then use the means of grace afforded us, we are enabled to lift up our hearts and minds to the creator and then to use in his service all the material universe which is also his creation. we can not get a right philosophy by working for right philosophy, but only by living in the right relationship as individuals: then as a by-product of religion a right philosophy will come. we can not get a right industrial system by searching for a right industrial system, but if we show forth in our lives the christian virtues, a right industrial system will come as one of the by-products of religion. so with each one of our so-called "problems." life rightly lived has no problems. this is a hard saying for an intellectual age whose temptation is to trust in its own power rather than in the power of god, but "except ye become as little children" and walk by faith and not by sight the kingdom of god is withheld. a soldier who suffered in the late war, and out of his suffering found peace, says, "christ's hardest work is to teach the wise: those who are entrusted with authority and responsibility will be the least prepared to make the venture of the spirit, however much they may believe in it. they are sacrificing least now: they will have to sacrifice most when the spirit comes. they have so much to unlearn: children and working men have so little. the whole of our world today is rooted and grounded in intellect. our machinery, our institutions, our great systems, the entire body of enterprise is governed by brains. it is this that will alter. just behind intellect there is a vision that is purer, keener, more powerful than the vision of your eyes, than the hearing of your ears, than the touch of your hands. this world is being transformed into another which comes into being at our spiritual touch. the world needs something personal, something from the heart. it is sick to death with the cold machinery of the intellect. but before men see this they must change their view of life, they must _be born again._ the scientists, the historians and theologians, the philosophers, have made the universe too big. it is not a big place: it is very tiny. life is so simple, really. our wise men have made it so difficult, so ugly. it is only children who can see the risen christ; children, perhaps, out of whom seven devils have been cast. the world needs not critics, but teachers, and children are waiting everywhere to teach, but men, shutting the windows of their souls, try rather to mould these little ones to fit into the vacant spaces of their own stupid world. are not children the true artists? they won't tolerate anything but beauty. they see beauty everywhere, not because it is there, but because they want it there. everything they touch turns into something far more precious than gold: every word they utter is a song of praise. you are almost in heaven every time you look into the eyes of a child." remember, please, these are the words of a man who has faced the horrible realities of modern warfare, and so do not dismiss them as mere poetry, or with nicodemus' question, "how can a man be born again?", but listen to a modern interpretation of the answer to that question:--("the life indeed.") "we must be born again even to see the spiritual kingdom, must be born of water and the spirit to enter its gates at all. so to his little audience of disciples our lord says it is not an affair of legislation, of discovery, of which men say, 'lo here, lo there! but the kingdom of heaven is _within you._ why a second birth? this is a second birth because it must needs supervene at a point where two elements can work together, the element of an appealing, vitalizing spirit from the unseen and the element of free human choice. being of the spirit, it is the birth into freedom: it is the soul emerging from its prison into the open air of liberty and light and life." note the element of free choice. our first birth is outside our choice and the gifts are unconditioned; our second birth, when again we become as little children, demands our response to the holy spirit and our persevering cooperation with him to make his influence effectual for ourselves and for the "communion of saints" and the corporate religion into which the spirit also baptizes us. in a recent sermon a bishop of the episcopal church says, "this is the creed of the church--the divine father and forgiveness: the divine son and redemption: the divine spirit and abundant life. therefore the church still insists upon the creation of moral rectitude and spiritual character as the end and purpose of religion, aye, as the basic problem underlying all questions relating to human life--social, industrial, civic, and political. the church still preaches the gospel of the grace of god, the obligation and blessing of worship, the meaning and virtue of the christian sacraments." also "my brethren, we shall not be content to criticize and find fault with our own age and time, but rather we shall pray for the power to see within its questionings, unrest and discontent--aye, its recklessness and apparent failures--the strivings of the spirit of god. but each man has to voice for himself the conviction of the reality of the spiritual order and the spiritual life. therefore, let us believe in and practice the worship of god, 'praying always' as st. paul says, 'with all prayer and supplication in the spirit,' or as st. jude says, 'building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the holy spirit.'" let us accept this suggestion and try to find in the unrest of our own time evidences of "the strivings of the spirit of god," waiting our perception and response. the soldier of the great war, having faced death and imprisonment and suffering in many forms says, "compared with the depth of good in the world the evil is shallow." the first evidence of good in our own day is the almost universal discontent with evils and the desire to find a better way. the humility which recognizes that so widespread a condition cannot be the fault of any one nation or group but is rather the responsibility of each one of us, is cause for hope. some of us believe that war can breed only war, hatred only hatred; that governments cannot make peace, but can only cause cessation of open hostilities, and that the real peace, the great peace, must await the action of the spirit. this spirit, of love and forgiveness, breeds love and forgiveness, indeed is far more potent than the spirit of hate. because of this very strength and potency its evidences are not so immediately apparent, but they are deeper-rooted. perhaps in this material sphere we human beings must see, and to a certain extent experience, hate, before we can really know love, and consciously and freely choose it. when that choice is made, when we, knowing all that hate and evil and malice can accomplish, yet deliberately choose to love our enemies, we have slain the adversary and made hate and evil powerless. of course we have not power of ourselves to do this but only through the grace of god. when we try god's way, not waiting for the other person to reform or to be generous or to speak gently or to forgive, then and only then do we deserve the name of christians; then and only then are we walking in love; then and only then are we really praying effectually "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." we have tried the way of the world, the way of reprisals, the way of distrust, and, thank god, we are none of us satisfied with the results. perhaps now we may be ready to try the way of god by making the great adventure of faith, each one in his own person; faith in himself and faith in the future. the way of the world has bred fear that has issue in hate, and hate that has issue in fear; but the better way, that of faith, breeds trust that has issue in fellowship, and fellowship that has issue in trust. there is no problem of labour, of politics, of society that is insoluble if once it is approached in the spirit of faith and fellowship and trust, but none of these is susceptible of solution where the controlling motives are hate, distrust and fear. the modern policy of centralization and segregation has resulted in dealing with men as groups and not as individuals. when, for example, iron-bound cults (they are no less than this) meet as "capital" and as "labour," both merge the individuality of their members in a thing which has no real or necessary existence but is an artificial creation of thought operating under the dominion of ephemeral, almost accidental conditions. as a member of an "interest" or a cult, where humanity and personality are, so to speak, "in commission," a man does not hesitate to do those things he would never think of doing for himself, knowing them to be selfish, cruel, unjust and uncharitable. a case in point--if we need one, which is hardly probable since they are of daily occurrence--is the pending contest between the mine operators and mine workers in great britain, where both parties, with government thrown in, are guilty of maintaining theories and perpetrating acts for which an individual would be, even now, excoriated and outlawed. the irish imbroglio is another instance of the same kind. in a personal letter from a consulting engineer who has had unusual opportunities, by reason of his official position, to come closely in contact with the conditions governing industry and finance both in america and europe since the war, i find this illuminating statement of a matured judgment. "as a practical matter, and facing the issue, i would preach the practice of de-centralization in government and business which will in time develop the individual and accomplish the desired end. * * * decentralization should be carried to such an extent that the units of business would be of such size that the head could again have a personal relation with each individual associated with him. * * * with the personal relation again established, unionism as at present practiced would again be unnecessary, and the unions would become once more guilds for the development and advancement of the individual." it is this nullification of the human element, of the person as such, the introduction of the gross aggregate with its artificial corporate quality, and the attempt to establish a correspondence between these unnatural things, the whole being intensified by the emotions of fear, distrust and hate, which produces the contemporary insistence on "rights" and the rank injustice, cruelty and disorder that follow the blind contest. to quote again from the soldier who achieved illumination through the recent war, "my friends, there is no protection of rights in heaven. when we speak of rights we are blinded by the light of this world of rule and order and intellectual conceits. it is not justice we need, it is mercy." if we honestly endeavour to bring about something more nearly approaching the kingdom of god on earth, we should do well to achieve a little more of the quality of child-like trust which knows that through the petition to father or mother, or to a guardian angel, or directly to god, the result will surely follow. we long passionately to see a good, _our_ good as we see it, accepted here and now, but whatever we offer, no mater how righteous or how salutary, is but a small part of the great good, a limited and partial showing forth of only one element, while the final and comprehensive good is the result of many contributions, and in the end is not ours, but god's, and by his overruling providence it may look very unlike what we had predetermined and anticipated. moreover, the condition even of our own small good becoming effective, is _faith,_ and neither sight nor action. there is a faith that can move mountains, and it is faith in fellowship, in the underlying, indestructible good in man, above all in the desire and the intent of god to deal mercifully with us and beyond the dictates of justice and the claims of our own deserts. when we know and accept this power of faith, placing it above the efficiency of our own feeble works, then indeed we may become the patient, hopeful, joyful and faithful christians we were intended to be, and therefore the creators of the spirit of peace. nothing permanent can be achieved except in coöperation with god; any work of man alone (or of the devil) has in it the seed of decay and must perish, this knowledge relieves us of the gloomy responsibility of destroying or trying to destroy every evil thing we see or think we see. if it is really evil it is already dying unless nourished by evil within ourselves. here is a buddhist legend which has a lesson for each of us--"the watcher in the shrine of buddha rushed in to the holy fathers one morning with tidings of a horrible demon who had usurped the throne of our lord buddha. the fathers ran to the throne room, each one more infuriated than the other, and declaimed against the insolence of the demon, who grew huger and more hideous at every angry word that hurtled through the air. at last arrived the oldest and most saintly of the monks and threw himself on his knees before the demon and said, "we thank thee, o master, for teaching us how much anger and wrath and jealousy was still hidden in our hearts." at every word he said, the demon grew smaller and smaller and at last vanished. he was am anger-eating demon, and anger-rousing words and even thoughts of ill-feeling nourished him. the belief that in comparison with the depth of good in the world the evil is shallow may also be expressed in the statement that god is lord of eternity while the devil is prince only of this world. as this evil spirit has power, and as a part of this power is the ability to appear as an angel of light, so to deceive us, we are bound by self-examination, constantly indulged in, to scrutinize those things, so common in our own lives we do not notice them, which may be but the illusions of this spirit of darkness showing as a fictitious spirit of light: hurry and carelessness both in thought and in action; snap-judgment at short range; compromise with the spirit of the time in the interest of "good business," "practical considerations" or "sound policy"; worship of the doctrine of "get results," acceptance of the horrible principle: that it is every man's business to "sell" something to another, from a patent medicine or "gilt edged" bonds to a new philosophy or an old religion; the estimating of values by size, number, cost. it is common parlance among christian people to speak of what a man "is worth" meaning how much money he has. we speak of a man's "making a living" meaning only how much money he makes, when by making only money he would be killing his living. do we not speak of the call of a missionary from an unshepherded flock to a large city parish as a call to "a wider sphere of usefulness"? when you or i conceive of any piece of work as "important" is it not because it involves either great numbers or great sums of money? then we hear much today of the need for leaders. the need could not be exaggerated, but does not this lack exist, in part, because we have forgot that the christian's first duty is to be a follower, and that only from amongst real followers can god (not man, least of all the man himself) raise up a leader? these are small matters, you may say, but "straws show which way the wind blows," and the spirit, like the wind, manifests itself first in small matters. every life is made up largely of small things, "the little, nameless unremembered acts of kindness and of love" which some one has called "the noblest portion of a good man's life." with this brief glance at some of the possible manifestations of the spirit of evil which we believe to be temporary and therefore of secondary importance only, let us consider some of the requisites of the christian life as exemplified in the life of christ, especially those of which we need to be reminded today. we have already spoken of that child-likeness which takes the faith simply and applies it to the common things of daily life--christ's life of ministry, of good works (which was, in proportion to the time given to preparation for activity and preaching, of very short duration), full of injunctions to those who were with him to "tell no man"; therefore the good works which are done "in his likeness" must not be done in public. if we are "seen of men," verily we have our reward. christ's life ended in apparent failure, in ignominious death on the cross. the world worships today's success and immediate publicity, the christian, to be worthy of his lord, must accept apparent failure and must offer his best work in secret: "and my father which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly." a touching poem of francis thompson's pictures the marveling of a soul on his rewards in paradise which, in his humility, he thinks undeserved. the man asks of god: _o when did i give thee drink erewhile, or when embrace thine unseen feet? what gifts thee give for my lord christ's smile, who am a guest here most unmeet?_ and is answered _when thou kissedest thy wife and children sweet (their eyes are fair in my sight as thine) i felt the embraces on my feet. (lovely their locks in thy sight and mine.)_ a necessary reminder of the fact that for each of us, charity, which is love, begins at home, and that we love and serve god best in his holy human relationships--if we love not our brother whom we have seen how can we love god whom we have not seen? again, the individual christian life must, like its great original, suffer for others. when we suffer as a result of our own wrongdoing we are but meeting our just reward; but if patiently and humbly and voluntarily we bear pain, even unto death, for others, we are transcending justice, the pagan law, and exemplifying mercy, the christian virtue. no sensitive soul in this generation, conscious of the sacrifice of the millions of young lives who "stormed heaven" in their willingness to die that others might live, can doubt this. the essence of love is sacrifice; voluntary, nay eager sacrifice. before our blessed lord died he was mocked and ridiculed, he suffered physical hardship, falling under the weight of the cross, and he was lifted up, crucified, to suffer the ignominious death of a felon. he was made a spectacle for the jests and laughter of the multitude. in our own time and amongst ourselves, except for periods of war, there is little necessity for physical suffering for our faith, but the need to endure ridicule is as great as ever, perhaps even greater because of the absence of physical suffering. since we are trying to apply these things in small and simple ways to the individual life let us each one consider how much moral courage it takes to defend christian virtues when they are sneered at under the guise of "jokes." let us exercise charity by not quoting instances, but let us be watchful of our laughter and our fellowship, which are both gifts of god, and see that we do not confuse pagan pleasure with christian joy, the evil sneer with the tender recognition of the absurd in ourselves and in others. it is mr. chesterton again who points out the fact that the pagan virtues of justice and the like which he calls the "sad virtues" were superseded, when the great christian revelation came, by the "gay and exuberant virtues," the virtues of grace, faith, hope and charity; and who says, "the pagan virtues are the reasonable virtues, and the christian virtues of faith, hope and charity are in their essence as unreasonable as they can be. charity means pardoning what is unpardonable or it is no virtue at all. hope means hoping when things are hopeless or it is no virtue at all. and faith means believing the incredible or it is no virtue at all." if you say this is a paradox i reply: it must be so, since it requires faith to accept a paradox. the realm of reason is the one in which we walk by sight, and of this fact our age in its pride of intellect has need to be reminded. if christ be not the son of god, and his revelation of the "faith once delivered" be not the divine and final guide, fulfilling, completing and at the same time reversing every other ethic, religion and moral code, then these things be indeed foolishness, for there is no explaining them on the ground of logic or philosophy. but if, by the gift of grace, we have faith, we remember "i thank thee, father, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes: even so, father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." again, and if as persons we are to grow in relationship to a personal god, we must both speak and listen to our father; in other words we must use the great dynamic of prayer. "more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of." we are told that one of the requisites of the really good talker is to be a good listener; the apparently good talker is in reality a monologuist. in our prayer-life today do we recognize sufficiently the need for _listening_ to god? we are perhaps ready enough to ask for blessings and mercies, but that is only a part of the full life of prayer which must include also thanksgiving, lifting of the heart and mind, and quiet listening or interior prayer. there was an age in the world when this interior prayer was so much more joyful and natural a thing than the world of matter that it had to be taught "to labour is to pray." today, when we accept the necessity of labour, and even worship activity for its own sake, do we not need to be reminded that to pray is to labour? if you doubt this, try to make that concentrated form of prayer known as meditation, out of which springs a resolve and determination to do better; try to do this faithfully for fifteen minutes a day and it may prove the hardest work you have ever undertaken. a great servant of god has said, "i believe no soul can be lost which faithfully practices meditation for fifteen minutes a day." nor must we forget that in this work of prayer we are companioned by the holy spirit, the peace-maker, who maketh intercession for us "with groanings which can not be uttered" and "who leads us ever gently but surely into that closer communion with god whose result is life more abundant." after prayer it is easier to realize that "to be spiritually minded is life and peace"; it is easier to obey the injunction "and grieve not the holy spirit of god whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice, and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as god, for christ's sake, hath forgiven you." and for those that seek after peace it must be _all_ wrath, _all_ anger and _all_ evil speaking which are put away: this leaves no room for what the world calls "just wrath" "righteous anger," or speaking evil of evil doers. let us call to mind the incident in the early life of st. john, afterwards the great disciple of love, when he wanted to call down wrath on the wicked inhabitants of a city and was rebuked by our lord who said, "ye know not in what spirit ye speak." after love had supplanted wrath, and the good spirit had taken the place of the evil in st. john's heart, he was sent to convert the people he would have destroyed. yes, it is the spirit that matters, the wrath that is wrong and that must be put away before we can love god or our neighbour as ourself, for the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. when we understand that the object of life and of education is the creation of a spirit and not the doing of things, we are freed from the tyranny of results in this world as a final test and come to realize that judgment belongs only to god who as a spirit judges the effort. of course this does not mean that we are freed from the moral law, that certain evil things in ourselves and in others are not always the results of an evil spirit, but rather that in addition to avoiding and shunning those things which are obviously evil, we must with equal care avoid doing even good things in a bad spirit. the commandments still stand, the moral law is abated not one jot, but in christianity and in christianity alone are we given power to fulfill the law and to add the new commandment, the summing up of them all, of love to god and man. no human soul comes into the world without some desire to be good, because each human soul is a child of god. to each one, not blinded by pride (and surely it should be easy in these days to be humble) comes, sooner or later, the realization of his own inability of himself to do what he would, the need for a power outside himself, the power which is available and of which we have heard "i am come that ye might have life and more abundantly." let us examine how the apostles set about living this abundant life. in dr. genung's "the life indeed" we read, "one and all they made it a matter of the spirit that is the man, but the spirit they recognized was not an abstraction, or a theory, but a present person and helper who was witnessing with their spirits. st. john makes the matter equally definite: 'the son of god,' he says, 'was manifest that he might destroy the works of the devil,' and st. paul, mindful of the inner subtleties of the conflict, warns his readers that satan has changed his tactics and has transformed himself into an angel of light. i am not sure that we have gained greatly by letting our notions of spiritual life grow dim and abstract. perhaps for this very reason the rebellious, negative, designing spirit that is so prone to invade the hearts of us all is the more free to gain a foot-hold and go about controlling the tone of our life. there is real advantage in bringing the large issues of life to a point where not only our mind but, as it were, our senses, can lay hold on them. it is the impulse of simple-minded men like those early disciples, and if we continue straight-seeing we do not outgrow it. what makes these views of life so deep is not that they are less simple than those of others, but that they are more simple. to st. john the reality that has come to win the world is not the promise of salvation, or prophecy of an eventual life eternal, but just life without modification or limitation, life absolute, full-orbed, pulsating through worlds seen and unseen alike. 'i am the life,' he makes christ say, not, 'i am working to secure it.' st. john it is who preserves to us that conception of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the son of man. no philosopher in the world, we may roundly say, would ever have put it so, and yet how effectually is thus revealed what it means to get the power of the new life thoroughly incorporated with our blood and breath. he it is who identifies the most inner values of life with the simplest acts and experiences, reducing it to terms of eating bread and drinking water, and walking in daylight, and bearing fruit like the branches of a vine and following like sheep the voice of a shepherd, and entering a door and finding pasture." let us cease trying materialistic and intellectual means for supplying the power to live the spiritual life and let us each one establish the needful relationship with the true source of power. may our time not be likened to the oriental traveler, who, appreciating the convenience and force of electricity as seen in a room he occupied, fitted his palace, on his return, with a set of elaborate fixtures and was surprised to find no illumination therefrom! we are torches who can not shine in themselves, but who, when connected with the great central source of power, the blessed trinity in its three glorious manifestations, can show forth the light of the world. christians should be torch bearers, and the true torch bearer lights not his own path so much as the path of those who come after him. and this brings us to the fundamental reason for personal responsibility. our motive in seeking personal righteousness it not, as might hastily be thought, because of a selfish desire to save our own souls, or to withdraw either here or hereafter from other souls, but for "their sakes" to sanctify ourselves; for the lives we live today create the spiritual atmosphere of tomorrow. from spain come the following suggestive thoughts in regard to the value of the person. "the individual is the real purpose of the universe. we may seek the hero of our thought in no philosopher who lived in flesh and blood, but in a being of fiction and of action, more real than all the philosophers. he is don quixote. one cannot say of don quixote that he was strictly idealistic. he did not fight for ideas: he was of the spirit and he fought for the spirit. quixotism is a madness descended from the madness of the cross; therefore it is despised by reason; don quixote will not resign himself to either the world or its truth, to science or logic, to art or aesthetics, to morals or ethics. and what did he leave behind him? one may ask. i reply that he left himself, and that a man, a man living and immortal, is worth all theories and all philosophies. other countries have left us institutions and books: spain has left soul. st. theresa is worth all institutions whatever, or any 'critique of pure reason.'" yes, this is i think the lesson we have to learn, now at this turning point in history with the epoch of intellect crumbling about our ears, and the great world's fair of multiplied, ingenious mechanisms we have called "modern civilization" at a point of practical bankruptcy. it is the spirit that counts, the soul of "man living and immortal," and only through our own living, and the spiritual force that we can command, and through ourselves apply, shall we be able to compass that social regeneration that is the only alternative to social degeneration and catastrophe. the man who does not live his belief is powerless to redeem or to create, though he were a solon, a charlemagne, a napoleon or a washington; the man who lives his belief, even if he is a mill-hand in fall river, is contributing something of energizing force to the task of re-creation. "not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the lord of hosts." fantastic and paradoxical as it may seem to link together don quixote and st. theresa, i am not sure that we could do better than to accept them as models. the loud laughter of an age of intellectual ribaldry and self-conceit dies away and the gaunt figure of the last of the crusaders still stands before us heroic in his childlike refusal of compromise, his burning compassion, his deafness to ridicule. in a sense we must all be ready to accept the jeering and the scorn that were poured out on the knight of la mancha, if like him we are to fight, even foolishly, for the things that are worth fighting for--either that they may be destroyed, or restored. and with st. theresa we must be willing to endure obloquy, suspicion, malice, if like her we live in faith, subjecting our will to the divine will, and then sparing nothing of ourselves in the labour of saving the world for god in the twentieth century as st. theresa laboured to save it in the sixteenth century. the call today is for personal service through the right living that follows the discovery of a right relationship to god. not a campaign but a crusade; and the figures of st. louis and st. francis and st. theresa, together with all the knights and crusaders of christendom, rise up before us to point the way. we would find the great peace, the world would find the great peace also, but _the way is all so very plain that we may lose the way._ we have been told: "seek ye first the kingdom of god and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you, for your heavenly father knoweth ye have need of these things." if we go forth on this new and knightly quest--quest indeed in these latter days, for the holy grail, lost long since and hidden away from men--we may, by the grace of god, achieve. then, "suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye," and before we are aware, for "the kingdom of god cometh not with watching," we and even the world, shall find that we have compassed the great peace, and if we do not live to see it, yet in our "certain hope" we shall know that it will come, if not in our time, yet in god's good time; if not in our way, yet in his more perfect way. in these lectures i have from time to time, and perhaps beyond your patience, criticised and condemned many of those concrete institutions which form the working mechanism of life, even suggesting possible substitutes. in ending i would say as in beginning; this is not because salvation may be found through any device, however perfect, but because this itself, by reason of its excellence on the one hand or its depravity on the other, is, under the law of life, contributory to the operation of the divine spirit (which is the sole effective energy) or a deterrent. i have tried at long last to gather up this diffuse argument for the supremacy of spiritual force as it works through the individual, and to place it before you in this concluding lecture. perhaps i can best emphasize my point thus. the evil of the institutions which now hold back the progress that must be made towards social recovery and the great peace, is far less the quality of wrongness in themselves and the ill influence they put in operation, than it is the revelation they make of personal character. it is not so much that newspapers are what they are as that there should be men who are pleased and content to make them this, in apparently honest ignorance of what they are doing, and that there should be others in sufficient number to make them profitable business propositions by giving them their appreciation and support. it is not so much that government should be what it is as that character should have so far degenerated in the working majority of citizens that these qualities should show themselves as a fixed condition, and that there should be no body of men of numerical distinction, who regard the situation with sentiments much more active than those of indifference and amused toleration. it is not so much that the industrial situation should be what it is, as that there should be on both sides moral wrong, and that this condition could not have come about, nor could it still be maintained, except through character degeneration in the individual. it is not so much that many forms of religion are what they are, as it is that they should progressively have become this through their exponents and adherents, and that there should be so many who are still willing to defend them in this case. every ill thing reveals through its very quality the defects of the individual man, and as upon him must rest the responsibilities for the fault, so on him must be placed the responsibility for the recovery. the failures we have recorded, the false gods we have raised up in idolatry, even the great war itself, are revelations of failure in personal and individual character. we may recognize this, but recognition is not enough. we may found societies and committees and write books and deliver lectures, but corporate action is not enough, nor intellectual assent. there is but one way that is right, sufficient and effective, and that is the right living of each individual, which is the incarnation and operation of faith by the grace of god. it is my desire to close this course of lectures not with my own words but with those of one of the great personalities revealed by the war. first, however, i wish to say this. if there is any thought or word in what i have said that seems to you true, then i ask you to use it not as a matter for discussion but as an impulse toward personal action. if there is anything that is of the nature of explicit error, then i pray that the spirit of truth may make deaf your ears that you hear not, and blot out of your memory the record of what i have said. if there is anything that is not consonant with the christian religion, as this has been revealed to the world and as it is guarded and interpreted by the church to which these powers were committed, then i retract and disavow it explicitly and _ex animo._ there are two great spiritual figures that have been revealed to us through the great war: cardinal mercier, the great confessor, who held aloft the standard of spiritual glory through the war itself, and bishop nicholai of serbia who has testified to eternal truth and righteousness in the wilderness the war has brought to pass. it is with his inspired words that i will make an ending of the things i have been impelled to say. "christ is merciful, but at last he comes as the judge. * * * he comes now not to preside in the churches only but to be in your homes, in your shops, to be everywhere with you. he wants to be first; he has become last in europe, * * * civilization passes like the winds, but the soul remains. christianization is the only good and constructive civilization. americanization without christianization means bolshevism. europe is suffering today for her sins. christ has forgiven seventy times seven, and now it seems that he is the judge, turning away, rejected, leaving europe and going through the gate of serbia to asia. pray for us. * * * send us not your gold and silver for food so much as send us converted men. convert your politicians, your members of the press, your journalists, to preach christ. "christ is choosing the perfect stones, the marble of all the churches, to complete his mystical body in heaven. he thinks only of one church, made from those true to him of all the churches here. civilizations are moving pictures, made by man. without god they perish. the soul, the spirit, lives. the war is not against externals; the war is against ourselves." appendix a from the point attained in the lecture on "a working philosophy," a point i believe to be clearly indicated by christian philosophy and sharply differentiated from that of paganism or modernism, i would adventure further and even into a field of pure theory where i can adduce no support or justification from any other source. speculation along this line may be dangerous, even unjustifiable; certainly it introduces the peril of an attempt to intellectualize what cannot be apprehended by the intellectual faculty, an effort which has been the obsession of modernism and has resulted in spiritual catastrophe. on the other hand we are confronted by a definite and plausible system worked out by those who were without fear of these consequences, and while this already is losing something of its common acceptance, it is still operative, indeed is the only working system and consistent theory of the majority of thinking men outside the limits of catholicism. i think it wrong both in its assumptions and its inferences, and it certainly played a deplorable part in the building up of the latest phase of modern civilization, while its persistence is, i am persuaded, a barrier to recovery or advance. this theory, which has gradually been deduced from the wonderful investigations, tabulations and inferences of darwin, tyndall, huxley, spencer and others of the great group of british intellectuals and scientists of the nineteenth century, is known under the general title of evolution. the following suggestions are offered with extreme diffidence, and only as uncertain and indeterminate approximations. in some respects they seem not inconsistent with the most recent scientific research which already is casting so much doubt on many of the assumed factors behind evolution and on the accepted methods of its operation. the true solution, if it is found, will result from the cooperation of scientists, philosophers and theologians, illuminated by the fire of the divine wisdom--hagia sophia--for in such a problem as this, almost the final secret of the cosmos, no single human agency acting alone can hope to achieve the final revelation, while all acting together could hardly escape falling into "the falsehoods of their own imaginings" if they relied solely on their unaided efforts in the intellectual sphere. assuming then that life is an enduring process of the redemption of matter through the interpenetration of spirit, what is a possible method of action? to explain what i mean i must use a diagrammatic figure, but i admit this must be not only inadequate but misleading, for instead of the two dimensions of a diagram, we must postulate three, with time added as a vital element, and, i dare say, a "fourth dimension" as well. confessing inadequacy in the symbol, let us conceive of a space divided into four strata. the lowest of these is the primary unknowable, the region of pure spirit, pure spirit itself, the creative energy of the universe, the unconditioned absolute, in the terms of christian theology, almighty god. the second is the plane of matter, an area of potential, but in itself inert and indeterminate. the third is the space of what we call life in all its forms, the area in which the transformation and redemption take place. the fourth is the ultimate unknowable, that is to say, that which follows on after life and receives the finished product of redemption. [illustration: diagram no. 1. the interpenetration of matter by spirit. _x,_ the primary unknowable; _x',_ the ultimate unknowable; _[greek: alpha],_ the plane of matter; _[greek: beta],_ the plane of life.] now there is eternally in process a penetration of the stratum of matter by jets of the _élan vital_ from the realm of pure spirit, each as it were striving to detach from the plane of matter some small portion, which is transformed in its passage through life and achieves entrance into the ultimate unknowable, when the process of redemption is, for this small particle, completed. always, however, is exerted the gravitational pull of matter, and the energy that drove through, instead of pursuing a right line, tends to bend in a parabolic curve, like the trajectory of a cannon ball. in the completion of the process some portion of redeemed matter "gets by," so to speak, but other portions do not; they return to their source of origin and are reabsorbed in matter, becoming subject to the operation of future interpenetrating jets of spiritual energy. the upward drive of the _élan vital_ constitutes what may properly be known as evolution, the declining fall the process of devolution or degeneration. evolution then is only one part of the cosmic process, it is inseparable from degeneration. this process holds in the case of individuals, of families, of races, of states and of eras, or definite and completed periods of time. as man is begotten, born, developed to maturity and then is brought downward to the grave, so in the case of races and nations and the clearly defined epochs into which the history of man divides itself. there is no mechanical system of "progress," no cumulative wisdom and power that in the end will inevitably lead to earthly perfection and triumph. for every individual there is the possibility of spiritual evolution within the time allotted that will open for him the gates that bar the frontiers of the world of reality and of redemption that lies beyond that world of earthly life which is the field of contest between unredeemed matter and redeeming spirit, of contest and of victory--or of failure. in the case of races and nations and epochs there is the same conflict between material factors and spiritual energy; the same crescent youth with all its primal vitality, maturity with its assurance and competence, and the dying fall of dissipating energies. in each case death is the concomitant of life but there is always something that lasts over, and that is the spiritual achievement, the precious residuum that remains, defying death and dissolution, that infuses the plane of life with its redemptive ardour, and is the heritage of lives that come after, acting with the sacramental agencies of religion in coöperation with god who ordained and compassed them both, in that great process of redemption and salvation that is continually taking place and will continue until matter, and time which is but the ratio of the resistance of matter to the redeeming power of spirit, shall be no more. i confess the hopelessly mechanical quality in this vain attempt to put into words something that by its very nature must transcend all modes of expression that are intellectually apprehendable. taken literally it would be entirely false and probably heretical from a theological point of view, as it certainly is more than inadequate as a philosophical proposition. it is intended only as a symbol, and a gross symbol at that, but as such i will let it stand. now if there is indeed a possible truth hidden somewhere within somewhat clumsy approximations, it must modify some of our generally accepted ideas. the life-process will appear, not a slow, interrupted, but substantially forward development from lower and simpler organisms to higher and more complex, with the end (if there be an end), beyond the very limits of eternity, but rather a swift creation of some of the highest forms through the first energy of the creative force, with the throwing off of ever lower and lower forms as the curve of the trajectory descends. so through a mass of low and static vitality comes the sudden and enormous power that produces at the very beginnings of our own recorded history of man, the almost superhuman intelligence and capacity of the greeks and the egyptians. so each of the definite eras of civilization opens with the releasing of great energies, the revealing of great figures of paramount character and force. so, conversely, as the energy declines, men appear less and less potent and in a descending scale. this is the case with the greek states, with the roman republic and the empire, with byzantium, with mediaevalism, and with our modern era. i do not know of any other theory that claims to explain the perpetual and rhythmical fluctuations of history, as violent in their degree as they are approximately regular in their rhythm. following the idea a little further, it may even appear that many of the lower, and particularly the more distorted, forms of animal life, instead of being abortive or undeveloped stages in a continuous evolutionary progress, are actually the product of a diminishing energy, stages in a process of degeneration, and therefore leading not upward to ever higher stages of development having issue at last in a completed perfection, but rather downward to ultimate extinction. geology records this process in sufficient quantity, so far as many members of the animal kingdom are concerned, and we, in our own day, have seen the extinction of the dodo as well as the threatened disappearance of other species. creeping and crawling creatures too, that we could crush with the heel, are but the last and puny descendants of mighty and terrible monsters that once rolled and crashed through the fetid forests of the carboniferous era. so there are races of men today, amongst others the pygmies of africa and the australian bushmen, as well as some nearer in a certain degree to the dominant races of the world, whom large-hearted optimists regard as stages of retarded development, capable, under tutelage, of advance to a level with the caucasian, but who, in this view of the case, would be but the weakening product of the "dying fall" of the energy that produced the greek, the semite and the nordic stocks. so in the last instance, the ape and the lemur and all their derivatives may be, not records of some of the many stages through which man has passed in his process of evolution, sidetracked by the upward rush of one highly favoured or fortunate line, nor yet an abortive branch from the common trunk from which sprang both man and ape, but rather the last degradation of a primaeval energy, producing in its declension these strange caricatures of the man in whose production it found its achievement. in other words, the old evolutionary idea is exactly reversed, and those phenomena once looked on as passed stages of growth, become the memorials of a creative process that has already achieved, and is now returning, with its fantastic manifestations in terms of declining life, even to that primordial mystery whence it had emerged. granting this theory, the search for the "missing link," whether in the geological strata below those that revealed the piltdown skull, or in the fastnesses of central asia, is as vain a quest as it has always been. primaeval man, as he is grudgingly revealed to us, may have been the degenerate remainder of an earlier and fully developed race whose records are buried in the sunken fastnesses of some vanished atlantis or lemuria, as the races of the south sea islands may be less metamorphosed remnants of the same stock. into this infinitely degraded residuum of a vanished race entered the new energizing force when the divine creative energy came once more into operation, in the fullness of time, and the minoan, the egyptian and the greek came almost in an hour to their highest perfection. so through the unnumbered ages of the world's history, god has from time to time created man in his own image, out of the dust of the earth, and man so made "a little lower than the angels" has, also in time, fallen and forfeited his inheritance. yet the process goes on without ceasing, and in conformity with some law of divine periodicity; but it is _man_ that is created in the beginning, of his full stature, even as is symbolically recorded in the book of genesis; not a hairy quadrumana that by the operation of the laws of natural selection and the survival of the fittest, ultimately and through endless ages, and by the most infinitesimal changes, becomes at last plato and caesar, leonardo and dante, st. louis and shakespeare and st. francis. now in this process of the interpenetration of matter by spirit there must be a certain periodicity, if it is a constant process and not one accomplished once and for all time in the very beginnings of the world. this rhythmical action, which is exemplified by every phenomenon of nature, the vibratory process of light, sound, heat, electricity, the pulsation of the heart, the motion of the tides, has never escaped the observation even of primitive peoples, and always attempts have been made to determine its periodicity. may it not be infinitely complex, as the ripple rises on the wave that lifts on the swell of the underlying tide? certainly we are now being forced back to a new consideration of this periodical beat, in history at least, for now that our own era, which came in by the power of the renaissance and the reformation and received its final energizing force through the revolutions of the eighteenth century and the industrial revolution of the nineteenth, is so manifestly coming to its end, we look backward for precedents for this unexpected debacle and lo, they appear every five hundred years back as far as history records. 500 b.c., anno domini; 500 a.d., 1000 a.d., and 1500 a.d. are all, to the point of very clear approximation, nodal points, where the curve of the preceding five centuries, having achieved its crest, curves downward, and in its fall meets the curve of rising energy that is to condition the ensuing era. the next nodal point, calculated on this basis, comes about the year 2000. are we not justified, in plotting our trajectory of modernism, in placing the crest in the year 1914, and in tracing the line of fall from that moment? i have plotted this curve, or series of curves, after a rough and ready fashion (diagram no. 2) and though the personal equation must, in any subjective proposition such as this, enter largely into account, i think the diagram will be accepted in principle if not in details, and not wholly in its relationships. i have made no effort to estimate or indicate comparative heights and depths, giving to each five-hundred year epoch a similar level of rise and depth of fall. perhaps the actual difference here would, rightly estimated, be less than we have been led to believe, though certainly few would lift the carolingian crest to the level of that of hellenism or of the middle ages, nor assign to the end of this latter period as low a fall as that accomplished during the tenth century in continental europe. [illustration: diagram no. 2. the rise and fall of the line of civilization; showing also the nodal points at the christian era and at the years 500, 1000, 1500 and 2000 (?)] in a third cut (diagram no. 3) i have roughly indicated in conventional form a phenomenon which seems to me to show itself around the nodal point when a descending curve of energy meets and crosses the descending line. as the _élan vital_ that has made and characterized any period declines, it throws off reactions, the object of which is if possible to arrest, or at least delay, the fatal _glissade._ these are, in intent and in fact, reforms; conscious efforts at saving a desperate situation by regenerative methods. trace back their lines of procedure, and in every case they will be found to issue out of the very force which is even then in process of degeneration, therefore they are poisoned at the source and no true or vital reforms, for the sudden energy that urges them is, after all, in no respect different from that which is already a failing force. [illustration: diagram no. 3. the reactions thrown off by (a) the descending line of vital force, (b) by the ascending line.] this, i conceive, is why today the multitudinous and specious "reforms," which beat upon us from all sides, and find such ready acceptance in the enactments of law, are really no reforms at all, since each one of them is but an exaggeration or distortion of the very principles and methods that already are bending downward the curve of our progression until it disappears in the nether-world of failure, as did those of every preceding epoch of equal duration. an example of what i mean is the astute saying, frequently heard nowadays: "the cure for democracy is more democracy." now while one curve descends and throws off its reformative reactions in the process, the other is ascending, preparatory to determining the coming era for its allotted space of five centuries. in this process it also throws off its own reactions, but these are for the purpose of lifting the line more rapidly, bringing its force into play before its determined time. these also are exaggerations, over-emphasized qualities that are inherent in the ascending force, and they are no more to be accepted as authoritative than are the others. they have their value however, for they are prophetic, and even in their exaggeration there is the clear forecast of things to be. trace them in turn to the source. what is their source? the new power issues out of obscurity and its character is veiled, but we can estimate it from the very nature of the exaggerated reactions we _can_ see. if something shows itself, in sociology, economics, politics, religion, art, what you will, that is especially a denial of what has been a controlling agency during the past four or five hundred years: if it is by common consent impractical and "outside the current of manifest evolutionary development," then, shorn of its exaggerations, reduced to its essential quality, it is very probably a clear showing forth of what is about to come to birth and condition human life for the next five hundred years. this, i suppose, explains the comprehensive return to medievalism that, to the scorn of biologists, sociologists and professors of political economy, is flaunting itself before us today, at the hands of a very small minority, in all the categories i have named, as well as in many others besides. a glance at the diagram will show a curious pattern round about the nodal point. one may say that the reactions are somewhat mixed. quite so. at this moment we are beaten upon by numberless reforms, both "radical" and "reactionary." materialism, democracy, rationalism, anarchy contending against medievalism of twenty sorts, and strange mysticisms out of the east. which shall we choose, _if_ we choose, and do not content ourselves with an easier inertia that allows nature to take its course? it is simply the question; on which wave will you ride; that which is descending to oblivion or that which has within itself the power and potency to control man's destiny for the next five hundred years? appendix b certain books suggested for collateral reading adams, henry mont saint-michel and chartres. adams, henry degradation of the democratic dogma. baudrillart, a. catholic church, renaissance and protestantism. bell, bernard iddings right and wrong after the war. belloc, hilaire the servile state. bryce, viscount modern democracies. bull, paul b. the sacramental principle. chesterton, g.k. orthodoxy. chesterton, g.k. what's wrong with the world. chesterton, g.k. the napoleon of notting hill. conklin, e.g. the direction of human evolution. cram, r.a. the nemesis of mediocrity. cram, r.a. walled towns. cram, r.a. the ministry of art. cram, r.a. the great thousand years. faguet, e. the cult of incompetence. ferrero, g. europe's fateful hour. figgis, j.n. civilization at the cross roads. figgis, j.n. the will to freedom. figgis, j.n. political aspects of st. augustine's "city of god." genung, j.f. the life indeed. graham, stephen priest of the ideal. harrison, mcveigh daily meditations. hubbard, a.j. the fate of empires. ireland, alleyne democracy and the human equation. lebon, g. the world in revolt. meiklejohn, alexander the liberal college. morris, william the dream of john ball. peck, w.g. from chaos to catholicism. penty, a.j. old worlds for new. penty, a.j. the restoration of the guild system. phillipps, l. march form and colour. phillipps, l. march europe unbound. porter, a. kingsley beyond architecture. powell, f.c. a person's religion. raupert, g. human destiny and the new psychology. shields, thomas e. the philosophy of education. tawney, r.h. the acquisitive society. walsh, james j. the thirteenth, greatest of centuries. walsh, james j. education, how old the new. worringer, w. form problems of the gothic. dewulf, m. history of mediaeval philosophy. sociology and modern social problems by charles a. ellwood, ph. d. professor of sociology, university of missouri preface this book is intended as an elementary text in sociology as applied to modern social problems, for use in institutions where but a short time can be given to the subject, in courses in sociology where it is desired to combine it with a study of current social problems on the one hand, and to correlate it with a course in economics on the other. the book is also especially suited for use in university extension courses and in teachers' reading circles. this book aims to teach the simpler principles of sociology concretely and inductively. in chapters i to viii the elementary principles of sociology are stated and illustrated, chiefly through the study of the origin, development, structure, and functions of the family considered as a typical human institution; while in chapters ix to xv certain special problems are considered in the light of these general principles. inasmuch as the book aims to illustrate the working of certain factors in social organization and evolution by the study of concrete problems, interpretation has been emphasized rather than the social facts themselves. however, the book is not intended to be a contribution to sociological theory, and no attempt is made to give a systematic presentation of theory. rather, the student's attention is called to certain obvious and elementary forces in the social life, and he is left to work out his own system of social theory. to guide the student in further reading, a brief list of select references in english has been appended to each chapter. methodological discussions and much statistical and historical material have been omitted in order to make the text as simple as possible. these can be found in the references, or the teacher can supply them at his discretion. the many authorities to whom i am indebted for both facts and interpretations of facts cannot be mentioned individually, except that i wish to express my special indebtedness to my former teachers, professor willcox of cornell and professors small and henderson of the university of chicago, to whom i am under obligation either directly or indirectly for much of the substance of this book. the list of references will also indicate in the main the sources of whatever is not my own. charles a. ellwood. university of missouri. contents chapter i: the study of society chapter ii: the bearing of the theory of evolution upon social problems chapter iii: the function of the family in social organization chapter iv: the origin of the family chapter v: the forms of the family chapter vi: the historical development of the family chapter vii: the problem of the modern family chapter viii: the growth of population chapter ix: the immigration problem chapter x: the negro problem chapter xi: the problem of the city chapter xii: poverty and pauperism chapter xiii: crime chapter xiv: socialism in the light of sociology chapter xv: education and social progress index sociology and modern social problems chapter i the study of society what is society?--perhaps the great question which sociology seeks to answer is this question which we have put at the beginning. just as biology seeks to answer the question "what is life?"; zoölogy, "what is an animal?"; botany, "what is a plant?"; so sociology seeks to answer the question "what is society?" or perhaps better, "what is association?" just as biology, zoölogy, and botany cannot answer their questions until those sciences have reached their full and complete development, so also sociology cannot answer the question "what is society?" until it reaches its final development. nevertheless, some conception or definition of society is necessary for the beginner, for in the scientific discussion of social problems we must know first of all what we are talking about. we must understand in a general way what society is, what sociology is, what the relations are between sociology and other sciences, before we can study the social problems of to-day from a sociological point of view. the word "society" is used scientifically to designate the reciprocal relations between individuals. more exactly, and using the term in a concrete sense, a society is any group of individuals who have more or less conscious relations to each other. we say conscious relations because it is not necessary that these relations be specialized into industrial, political, or ecclesiastical relations. society is constituted by the mental interaction of individuals and exists wherever two or three individuals have reciprocal conscious relations to each other. dependence upon a common economic environment, or the mere contiguity in space is not sufficient to constitute a society. it is the interdependence in function on the mental side, the contact and overlapping of our inner selves, which makes possible that form of collective life which we call society. plants and lowly types of organisms do not constitute true societies, unless it can be shown that they have some degree of mentality. on the other hand, there is no reason for withholding the term "society" from many animal groups. these animal societies, however, are very different in many respects from human society, and are of interest to us only as certain of their forms throw light upon human society. we may dismiss with a word certain faulty conceptions of society. in some of the older sociological writings the word society is often used as nearly synonymous with the word nation. now, a nation is a body of people politically organized into an independent government, and it is manifest that it is only one of many forms of human society. another conception of society, which some have advocated, is that it is synonymous with the cultural group. that is, a society is any group of people that have a common civilization, or that are bearers of a certain type of culture. in this case christendom, for example, would constitute a single society. cultural groups no doubt are, again, one of the forms of human society, but only one among many. both the cultural group and the nation are very imposing forms of society and hence have attracted the attention of social thinkers very often in the past to the neglect of the more humble forms. but it is evident that all forms of association are of equal interest to the sociologist, though, of course, this is not saying that all forms are of equal practical importance. any form of association, or social group, which may be studied, if studied from the point of view of origin and development, whether it be a family, a neighborhood group, a city, a state, a trade union, or a party, will serve to reveal many of the problems of sociology. the natural or genetic social groups, however, such as the family, the community, and the nation, serve best to exhibit sociological problems. in this text we shall make particular use of the family, as the simplest and, in many ways, the most typical of all the forms of human association, to illustrate concretely the laws and principles of social development. through the study of the simple and primary forms of association the problems of sociology can be much better attacked than through the study of society at large, or association in general. from what has been said it may be inferred that _society_ as a scientific term means scarcely more than the abstract term _association_, and this is correct. association, indeed, may be regarded as the more scientific term of the two; at any rate it indicates more exactly what the sociologist deals with. a word may be said also as to the meaning of the word _social_. the sense in which this word will generally be used in this text is that of a collective adjective, referring to all that pertains to or relates to society in any way. the word social, then, is much broader than the words industrial, political, moral, religious, and embraces them all; that is, social phenomena are all phenomena which involve the interaction of two or more individuals. the word social, then, includes the economic, political, moral, religious, etc., and must not be thought of as something set in opposition to, for instance, the industrial or the political. society and its products.--beneath all the forms and processes of human society lies the fact of association itself. industry, government, and civilization itself must be regarded as expressions of collective human life rather than _vice versa_. industry, for example, is one side or aspect of man's social life, and must not be mistaken for society itself. industry, government, religion, education, art, and the like, are all products of the social life of man. among these coördinate expressions of collective human life, industry, being concerned with the satisfying of the material needs of men, is perhaps fundamental to the rest. but this must not lead to the mistaken view that the social life of man can be interpreted completely through his industrial life; for, as has just been said, beneath industry and all other aspects of man's collective life lies the biological and psychological fact of association. this is equivalent to saying that industry itself must be interpreted in terms of the biology and psychology of human association. in other words, industrial problems, political problems, educational problems, and the like must be viewed from the collective or social standpoint rather than simply as detached problems by themselves. we must understand the biological and psychological aspects of man's social life before we can understand its special phases. the origin of society.--from the definition of society that we have given it is evident that society is something which springs from the very processes of life itself. it is not something which has been invented or planned by individuals. life, in its higher forms at least, could not exist without association. from the very beginning the association of the sexes has been necessary for reproduction and for the care and rearing of offspring, and it has been not less necessary for the procuring of an adequate food supply and for protection against enemies. from the association necessary for reproduction has sprung family life and all the altruistic institutions of human society, while from the association for providing food supply have sprung society's industrial institutions. neither society nor industry, therefore, has had a premeditated, reflective origin, but both have sprung up spontaneously from the needs of life and both have developed down to the present time at least with but little premeditated guidance. it is necessary that the student should understand at the outset that social organization is not a fabrication of the human intellect to any great degree, and the old idea that individuals who existed independently of society came together and deliberately planned a certain type of social organization is utterly without scientific validity. the individual and society are correlatives. we have no knowledge of individuals apart from society or society apart from individuals. what we do know is that human life everywhere is a collective or associated life, the individual being on the one hand largely an expression of the social life surrounding him and on the other hand society being largely an expression of individual character. the reasons for these assertions will appear later as we develop our subject. what is sociology?--the science which deals with human association, its origin, development, forms, and functions, is sociology. briefly, sociology is a science which deals with society as a whole and not with its separate aspects or phases. it attempts to formulate the laws or principles which govern social organization and social evolution. this means that the main problems of sociology are those of the organization of society on the one hand and the evolution of society on the other. these words, _organization_ and _evolution_, however, are used in a broader sense in sociology than they are generally used. by organization we mean any relation of the parts of society to each other. by evolution we mean, not necessarily change for the better, but orderly change of any sort. sociology is, therefore, a science which deals with the laws or principles of social organization and of social change. put in more exact terms this makes sociology, as we said at the beginning, the science of the origin, development, structure, and function of the forms of association. we may pass over very rapidly certain faulty conceptions of sociology. the first of these is that it is the study of social evils and their remedies. this conception is faulty because it makes sociology deal primarily with the abnormal rather than the normal conditions in society, and secondly, it is to be criticized because it makes sociology synonymous with scientific philanthropy. it is rather the science of philanthropy, which is an applied science resting upon sociology, that studies social evils and their remedies. this is not saying, of course, that sociology does not consider social evils, but that it considers them as incidents in the normal processes of social evolution rather than as its special matter. a second conception of sociology which is to be dismissed as inadequate is the conception that it is the science of social phenomena. this conception is not incorrect, but is somewhat vague, as there are manifestly other sciences of social phenomena, such as economics and political science. such a conception of sociology would make it include everything in human society. a third faulty conception is that it is the science of human institutions. this is faulty because it again is too narrow. an institution is a _sanctioned_ form of human association, while sociology deals with the ephemeral and unsanctioned forms, such as we see in the phenomena of mobs, crazes, fads, fashions, and crimes, as well as with the sanctioned forms. a fourth conception which might be criticized is that sociology is the science of social organization. this makes sociology deal with the laws or principles of the relations of individuals to one another, and of institutions to one another. it is to be criticized as faulty because it fails to emphasize the evolution of those relations. all science is now evolutionary in spirit and in method and believes that things cannot be understood except as they are understood in their genesis and development. it would, therefore, perhaps be more correct to define sociology as the science of the evolution of human interrelations than to define it simply as the science of social organization. the problems of sociology.--the problems of sociology fall into two great classes; first, problems of the organization of society, and second, problems of the evolution of society. the problems of the organization of society are problems of the relations of individuals to one another and to institutions. such problems are, for example, the influence of various elements in the physical environment upon the social organization; or, again, the influence of various elements in human nature upon the social order. these problems are, then, problems of society in a hypothetically stationary condition or at rest. for this reason comte, the founder of modern sociology, called the division of sociology which deals with such problems _social statics_. but the problems which are of most interest and importance in sociology are those of social evolution. under this head we have the problem of the origin of society in general and also of various forms of association. more important still are the problems of social progress and social retrogression; that is, the causes of the advancement of society to higher and more complex types of social organization and the causes of social decline. the former problem, social progress, is in a peculiar sense the central problem of sociology. the effort of theoretical sociology is to develop a scientific theory of social progress. the study of social evolution, then, that is, social changes of all sorts, as we have emphasized above, is the vital part of sociology; and it is manifest that only a general science of society like sociology is competent to deal with such a problem. inasmuch as the problems of social evolution are problems of change, development, or movement in society, comte proposed that this division of sociology be called _social dynamics_. the relations of sociology to other sciences. [footnote: for a fuller discussion of the relations of sociology to other sciences and to philosophy see my article on "sociology: its problems and its relations" in the _american journal of sociology_ for november, 1907.]--(a) _relations to biology and psychology._ in attempting to give a scientific view of social organization and social evolution, sociology has to depend upon the other natural sciences, particularly upon biology and psychology. it is manifest that sociology must depend upon biology, since biology is the general science of life, and human society is but part of the world of life in general. it is manifest also that sociology must depend upon psychology to explain the interactions between individuals because these interactions are for the most part interactions between their minds. thus on the one hand all social phenomena are vital phenomena and on the other hand nearly all social phenomena are mental phenomena. every social problem has, in other words, its psychological and its biological sides, and sociology is distinguished from biology and psychology only as a matter of convenience. the scientific division of labor necessitates that certain scientific workers concern themselves with certain problems. now, the problems with which the biologist and the psychologist deal are not the problems of the organization and evolution of society. hence, while the sociologist borrows his principles of interpretation from biology and psychology, he has his own distinctive problems, and it is this fact which makes sociology a distinct science. sociology is not so easily distinguished from the special social sciences like politics, economics, and others, as it is from the other general sciences. these sciences occupy the same field as sociology, that is, they have to do with social phenomena. but in general, as has already been pointed out, they are concerned chiefly with certain very special aspects or phases of the social life and not with its most general problems. if sociology, then, is dependent upon the other general sciences, particularly upon biology and psychology, it is obvious that its relation to the special sciences is the reverse, namely, these sciences are dependent upon sociology. this is only saying practically the same thing as was said above when we pointed out that industry, government, and religion are but expressions of human social life. in other words, sociology deals with the more general biological and psychological aspects of human association, while the special sciences of economics, politics, and the like, generally deal with certain products or highly specialized phases of society. (b) _relations to history._ [footnote: for a discussion of the practical relations between the teaching of history and of sociology, see my paper on "how history can be taught from a sociological point of view," in education for january, 1910.] a word may be said about the relation of sociology to another science which also deals with human society in a general way, and that is history. history is a concrete, descriptive science of society which attempts to construct a picture of the social past. sociology, however, is an abstract, theoretical science of society concerned with the laws and principles which govern social organization and social change. in a sense, sociology is narrower than history inasmuch as it is an abstract science, and in another sense it is wider than history because it concerns itself not only with the social past but also with the social present. the facts of contemporary social life are indeed even more important to the sociologist than the facts of history, although it is impossible to construct a theory of social evolution without taking into full account all the facts available in human history, and in this sense history becomes one of the very important methods of sociology. upon its evolutionary or dynamic side sociology may be considered a sort of philosophy of history; at least it attempts to give a scientific theory which will explain the social changes which history describes concretely. (c) relations to economics. economics is that special social science which deals with the wealth-getting and wealth-using activities of man. in other words, it is concerned with the commercial and industrial activities of man. as has already been implied, economics must be considered one of the most important of the special social sciences, if not the most important. yet it is evident that the wealth-getting and wealth-using activities of man are strictly an outgrowth of his social life, and that economics as a science of human industry must rest upon sociology. sometimes in the past the mistake has been made of supposing that economics dealt with the most fundamental social phenomena, and even at times economists have spoken of their science as alone sufficient to explain all social phenomena. it cannot be admitted, however, that we can explain social organization in general or social progress in terms of economic development. a theory of progress, for example, in which the sole causes of human progress were found in economic conditions would neglect political, religious, educational, and many other conditions. only a very one-sided theory of society can be built upon such a basis. economics should keep to its own sphere of explaining the commercial and industrial activities of man and not attempt to become a general science dealing with social evolution. this is now recognized by practically all economists of standing, and the only question which remains is whether economics is independent of sociology or whether it rests upon sociology. the view which has been presented thus far and which will be adhered to is that economics should rest upon sociology. that economics does rest upon sociology is shown by many considerations. the chief problem of theoretical economics is the problem of economic value. but economic value is but one sort of value which is recognized in society, moral and aesthetic values being other examples of the valuing process, and all values must express the collective judgment of some human group or other. the problem of economic value, in other words, reduces itself to a problem in social psychology, and when this is said it is equivalent to making economics dependent upon sociology, for social psychology is simply the psychological aspect of sociology. again, industrial organization and industrial evolution are but parts or phases of social evolution in general, and it is safe to say that industry, both in its organization and evolution, cannot be understood apart from the general conditions, psychological and biological, which surround society. again, many non-economic forces continually obtrude themselves upon the student of industrial conditions, such as custom, invention, imitation, standards, ideals, and the like. these are general social forces which play throughout all phases of human social life and so show the dependence of industry upon society in general, and, therefore, of economics upon sociology. much more might be said in the way of concretely illustrating these statements, but the purpose of this text precludes anything but the briefest and most elementary statement of these theoretical facts. (d) _relations to politics._ we have already said that the state is one of the chief forms of human association. the science which treats of the state or of government is known as political science or politics. it is one of the oldest of the social sciences, having been more or less systematized by aristotle. the problems of politics are those of the origin, nature, function, and development of government. it is manifest that politics, both on its practical and theoretical sides, has many close relations to sociology. while the state or nation must not be confused with society in general, yet because the state is the most imposing, if not the most important, form of human association, the relations of politics and sociology must be very intimate. on the one hand, political scientists can scarcely understand the origin, nature, and proper functions of government without understanding more or less about the social life generally; and, on the other hand, the sociologist finds that one of the most important facts of human society is that of social control, or of authority. while political science deals only with the organized authority manifested in the state, which we call government, yet inasmuch as this is the most important form of social control, and inasmuch as political organization is one of the chief manifestations of social organization, the sociologist can scarcely deal adequately with the great problems of social organization and evolution without constant reference to political science. an important branch of political science is jurisprudence, or the science of law. this, again, is closely related with sociology, on both its theoretical and practical sides. law is, perhaps, the most important means of social control made use of by society, and the sociologist needs to understand something of the principles of law in order to understand the nature of the existing social order. on the other hand, the jurist needs to know the principles of social organization and evolution in general before he can understand the nature and purpose of law. (e) _relations to ethics._ [footnote: for a full statement of my views regarding the relations of sociology and ethics, see my article on "the sociological basis of ethics," in the _international journal of ethics_ for april, 1910.] ethics is the science which deals with the right or wrong of human conduct. its problems are the nature of morality and of moral obligation, the validity of moral ideals, the norms by which conduct is to be judged, and the like. while ethics was once considered to be a science of individual conduct it is now generally conceived as being essentially a social science. the moral and the social are indeed not clearly separable, but we may consider the moral to be the ideal aspect of the social. this view of morality, which, for the most part, is indorsed by modern thought, makes ethics dependent upon sociology for its criteria of rightness or wrongness. indeed, we cannot argue any moral question nowadays unless we argue it in social terms. if we discuss the rightness or wrongness of the drink habit we try to show its social consequences. so, too, if we discuss the rightness or wrongness of such an institution as polygamy we find ourselves forced to do so mainly in social terms. this is not denying, of course, that there are religious and metaphysical aspects to morality,--these are not necessarily in conflict with the social aspects,--but it is saying that modern ethical theory is coming more and more to base itself upon the study of the remote social consequences of conduct, and that we cannot judge what is right or wrong in our complex society unless we know something of the social consequences. ethics must be regarded, therefore, as a normative science to which sociology and the other social sciences lead up. it is, indeed, very difficult to separate ethics from sociology. it is the business of sociology to furnish norms and standards to ethics, and it is the business of ethics as a science to take the norms and standards furnished by the social sciences, to develop them, and to criticize them. this text therefore, will not attempt to exclude ethical implications and judgments from sociological discussions, because that would be futile and childish. (f) _relations to education._ among the applied sciences, sociology is especially closely related to education, for education is not simply the art of developing the powers and capacities of the individual; it is rather the fitting of individuals for efficient membership, for proper functioning, in social life. on its individual side, education should initiate the individual into the social life and fit him for social service. it should create the good citizen. on the social or public side, education should be the chief means of social progress. it should regenerate society, by fitting the individual for a higher type of social life than at present achieved. we must have a socialized education if our present complex civilization is to endure. social problems touch education on every side, and, on the other hand, education must bear upon every social problem. it is evident, therefore, that sociology has a very great bearing upon the problems of education; and the teacher who comes to his task equipped with a knowledge of social conditions and of the laws and principles of social organization and evolution will find a significance and meaning in his work which he could hardly otherwise find. (g) _relations to philanthropy._[footnote: this topic is more fully discussed in my article on "philanthropy and sociology" in the survey for june 4, 1910.] the great science which deals directly with the depressed classes in society and with their uplift may be called the science of philanthropy. it may be regarded as an applied department of sociology. the science of philanthropy is especially concerned with the prevention, as well as with the curative treatment, of dependency, defectiveness, and delinquency. that part which deals with the social treatment of the criminal class is generally called penology, while the subdivision which treats of dependents and defectives is generally known as "charities" or "charitology." it is evident that there are very close relations between the science of philanthropy and sociology. the elimination of hereditary defects, the overcoming of the social maladjustment of individuals, and the correction of defective social conditions, the three great tasks of scientific philanthropy, all require great knowledge of human society. the social or philanthropic worker, therefore, requires thorough equipment in sociology that he may approach his tasks aright. the relation of sociology to socialism.--curiously enough sociology is often confused with socialism by those who pay but little attention to scientific matters. this comes from the fact that some of the adherents of socialism claim that socialism is a science. as a matter of fact, socialism is primarily a party program. it is the platform of a social and political party that has as the main tenet of its creed the abolition of private property in the means of production. socialism, in other words, is a scheme to revolutionize the present order of society. it cannot claim to be a science in any sense, though it may rest upon theories which its adherents believe to be scientific. sociology, on the other hand, is a science, and is concerned not with revolutionizing the social order, but with studying and understanding social conditions, especially the more fundamental conditions upon which social organization and social changes depend. as a science it aims simply at understanding society, at getting at the truth. it is no more related logically to socialism than to the platform of the republican or the democratic party. the theories upon which revolutionary socialism rest may be proved or disproved by scientific sociology. it is perhaps too early to say finally whether sociology will pronounce the theoretical assumptions of socialism correct or incorrect; but so far as we can see it seems probable that the theories of social evolution advocated by the marxian socialists at least will be pronounced erroneous. in any case, there is no logical connection between sociology as a science and socialism as a program for social reconstruction. nevertheless, there has been a close connection between sociology and socialism historically. it has been largely the agitations of the socialists and other radical social reformers which have called attention to the need of a scientific understanding of human society. the socialists and other radical reformers, in other words, have very largely set the problem which sociology attempts to solve. practically, moreover, the indictments and charges of the socialists and anarchists against the present social order have made necessary some study of that order to see whether these charges were well founded or not. in this sense sociology may be said to be a scientific answer to socialism, not in the sense that sociology is devoted to refuting socialism, but in the sense that sociology has been devoted very largely to inquiring into many of the theoretical assumptions which revolutionary socialism makes. the further relations of sociology to socialism will be taken up later. here we are only concerned to have the reader see that there is a sharp distinction between the sociological movement on the one hand, that is, the movement to obtain fuller and more accurate knowledge concerning human social life, and the socialist movement, the movement to revolutionize the present social and economic order. moreover, it may be remarked that while socialism seems to be mainly an economic program, it involves such total and radical reconstruction of social organization that in the long run the claims of socialism to a scientific validity must be passed upon by sociology rather than by economics. the relation of sociology to social reform.--from what has been said it is also evident that sociology must not be confused with any particular social reform movement or with the movement for social reform in general. sociology, as a science, cannot afford to be developed in the interest of any social reform. certain social reforms, sociology may give its approval to; others it may designate as unwise; but this approval or disapproval will be simply incidental to its discovery of the full truth about human social relations. this is not saying, of course, that social theory should be divorced from social practice, or that the knowledge which sociology and the other social sciences offer concerning human society has no practical bearing upon present social conditions. on the contrary, while all science aims abstractly at the truth, all science is practical also in a deeper sense. no science would ever have been developed if it were not conceived that the knowledge which it discovers will ultimately be of benefit to man. all science exists, therefore, to benefit man, to enable him to master his environment, and the social sciences not less than the other sciences. the physical sciences have already enabled man to attain to a considerable mastery over his physical environment. when the social sciences have been developed it is safe to say that they will enable man not less to master his social environment. therefore, while sociology and the special social sciences present as yet no program for action, aiming simply at the discovery of the abstract truth, they will undoubtedly in time bring about vast changes for the betterment of social conditions. select references _for brief reading:_ ward, _outlines of sociology,_ chaps. i-viii. ross, _the foundations of sociology,_ chaps. i and ii. dealey, _sociology, its simpler teachings and applications,_ chap. i. _for more extended reading:_ giddings, _the principles of sociology,_ 3d edition. small, _general sociology._ spencer, _the study of sociology._ stuckenberg, _sociology: the science of human society._ ward, _pure sociology._ _american journal of sociology_, many articles. for a fairly extensive bibliography on sociology, consult howard's general sociology: an analytical reference syllabus. chapter ii the bearing of the theory of evolution upon social problems since darwin wrote his _origin of species_ all the sciences in any way connected with biology have been profoundly influenced by his theory of evolution. it is important that the student of sociology, therefore, should understand at the outset something of the bearing of darwin's theory upon social problems. we may note at the beginning, however, that the word _evolution_ has two distinct, though related, meanings. first, it usually means darwin's doctrine of descent; secondly, it is used to designate spencer's theory of universal evolution. let us note somewhat in detail what evolution means in the first of these senses. the darwinian theory of descent.--darwin's theory of descent is the doctrine that all forms of life now existing or that have existed upon the earth have sprung from a few simple primitive types. according to this theory all forms of animals and plants have sprung from a few primitive stocks, though not necessarily one, because even in the beginning there may have existed a distinction at least between the plant and the animal types. so far as the animal world is concerned, then, this theory amounts to the assertion of the kinship of all life. from one or more simple primitive unicellular forms have arisen the great multitude of multicellular forms that now exist. popularly, darwin's theory is supposed to be that man sprang from the apes, but this, strictly speaking, is a misconception. darwin's theory necessitates the belief, not that man sprang from any existing species of ape, but rather that the apes and man have sprung from some common stock. it is equally true, however, that man and many other of the lower animals, according to this theory, have come from a common stock. as was said above, the theory is not a theory of the descent of man from any particular animal type, but rather the theory of the kinship, the genetic relationship, of all animal species. it is evident that if we assume darwin's theory of descent in sociology we must look for the beginnings of many peculiarly human things in the animal world below man. human institutions, according to this theory, could not be supposed to have an independent origin, or human society in any of its forms to be a fact by itself, but rather all human things are connected with the whole world of animal life below man. thus if we are, according to this theory, to look for the origin of the family, we should have to turn first of all to the habits of animals nearest man. this is only one of the many bearings which darwin's theory has upon the study of social problems; but it is evident even from this that it revolutionizes sociology. so long as it was possible to look upon human society as a distinct creation, as something isolated, by itself in nature, it was possible to hold to intellectualistic views of the origin of human institutions. but some one may ask: why should the sociologist accept darwin's theory? what proofs does it rest upon? what warrant has a student of sociology for accepting a doctrine of such far-reaching consequences? the reply is, that biologists, generally, during the last fifty years, after a careful study of darwin's arguments and after a careful examination of all other evidence, have come substantially to agree with him. there is no great biologist now living who does not accept the essentials of the doctrine of descent. five lines of proof may be offered in support of darwin's theories, and it may be well for us, as students of sociology, briefly to review these. (1) the homologies or similarities of structure of different animals. there are very striking similarities of structure between all the higher animals. between the ape and man, for example, there are over one hundred and fifty such anatomical homologies; that is, in the ape we find bone for bone, and muscle for muscle, corresponding to the structure of the human body. even an animal so remotely related to man as the cat has many more resemblances to man in anatomical structure than dissimilarities. now, the meaning of these anatomical homologies, biologists say, is that these animals are genetically related, that is, they had a common ancestry at some remote period in the past. (2) the presence of vestigial organs in the higher animals supplies another argument for the belief in common descent. in man, for example, there exist over one hundred of these vestigial or rudimentary organs, as the vermiform appendix, the pineal gland, and the like. many of these vestigal organs, which are now functionless in man, perform functions in lower animals, and this is held to show that at some remote period in the past they also functioned in man's ancestors. (3) the facts of embryology seem to point to the descent of the higher types of animals from the lower types. the embryo or fetus in its development seems to recapitulate the various stages through which the species has passed. thus the human embryo at one stage of its development resembles the fish; at another stage, the embryo of a dog; and for a long time it is impossible to distinguish between the human embryo and that of one of the larger apes. these embryological facts, biologists say, indicate genetic relation between the various animal forms which the embryo in its different stages simulates. (4) the fossil remains of extinct species of animals are found in the earth's crust which are evidently ancestors of existing species. until the doctrine of descent was accepted there was no way of explaining the presence of these fossil remains of extinct animals in the earth's crust. it was supposed by some that the earth had passed through a series of cataclysms in which all forms of life upon the earth had been many times destroyed and many times re-created. it is now demonstrated, however, that these fossils are related to existing species, and sometimes it is possible to trace back the evolution of existing forms to very primitive forms in this way. for example, it is possible to trace the horse, which is now an animal with a single hoof, walking on a single toe, back to an animal that walked upon four toes and had four hoofs and was not much larger than a fox. it is not so generally known that it is also possible to trace man back through fossil human remains that have been discovered in the earth's crust to the time when he is apparently just emerging from some apelike form. the latest discovery of the fossil remains of man made by dr. dubois in java in 1894 shows a creature with about half the brain capacity of the existing civilized man and with many apelike characteristics. thus we cannot except even man from the theory of evolution and suppose that he was especially created, as alfred russel wallace, darwin's contemporary and colaborer, and others, have supposed. (5) the last line of argument in favor of the belief that all existing species have descended from a few simple primitive forms is found in the fact of the variation of animals through artificial selection under domestication. for generations breeders have known that by carefully selecting the type of animal or plant which they have desired, it is possible to produce approximately that type. thus have originated all the breeds or varieties of domestic plants and animals. now, darwin conceived that nature also exercises a selection by weeding out those individuals that are not adapted to their environment. in other words, nature, though unconscious, selects in a negative way the stronger and the better adapted. animals vary in nature as well as under domestication from causes not yet well understood. the variations that were favorable to survival, darwin argued, would secure the survival, through the passing on of these variations by heredity of the better adapted types of plants and animals. the natural process of weeding out the inferior or least adapted through early death, or through failure to reproduce, darwin called "natural selection", and likened it in its effect upon organisms to the artificial selection which breeders consciously use to secure types of plants or animals that they desire. the only great addition to darwin's theories which has been made since he wrote is that of the dutch botanist, hugo de vries, who has shown that the variations which are fruitful for the production of new species are probably great or discontinuous variations, which he terms "mutations," instead of the small fluctuating variations which darwin thought were probably most important in the production of new species. de vries' theory in no way affects the doctrine of descent, nor does it take away from the importance of natural selection in fixing the variations. darwin's theory, therefore, stands in all of its essentials to-day unquestioned by men of science, and it must be assumed by the student of sociology in any attempt to explain social evolution. spencer's theory of universal evolution.--a second meaning given to the word _evolution_ is that which spencer popularized in his _first principles_. this is a philosophical theory of the universe which asserts that not only have species of animals come to be what they are through a process of development, but everything whatsoever that exists, from molecules of matter to stars and planets. it is the view that the universe is in a process of development. evolution in this wider sense includes all existing things whatsoever, while evolution in the sense of darwin's theory is confined to the organic world. while the theory that all things existing have through a process of orderly change come to be what they are, is a very old one, yet it was undoubtedly spencer's writings which popularized the theory, and to spencer we also owe the attempt in his synthetic philosophy to trace the working of evolution in all the different realms of phenomena. the belief in universal evolution which spencer popularized has also come to be generally accepted by scientific and philosophical thinkers. while spencer's particular theories of evolution may not be accepted, some form of universal evolution is very generally believed in. the thought of evolution now dominates all the sciences,--physical, biological, psychological, and sociological. it is evident that the student of society, if he accepts fully the modern scientific spirit, must also assume evolution in this second or universal sense. the different phases of universal evolution.--it may be well, in order to correlate our knowledge of social evolution with knowledge in general, to note the different well-marked phases of universal evolution. (1) _cosmic evolution._ this is the phase the astronomer and the geologist are particularly interested in. it deals with the evolution of worlds. in this phase we are dealing merely with physical matter, and it is supposed that the active principle which works in this phase of evolution is the attraction of particles of matter for one another. this leads to the condensation of matter into suns and their planets, and the geological evolution of the earth, for example. laplace's nebular hypothesis is an attempt to give an adequate statement of the cosmic phase of evolution. while this hypothesis has been much criticized of late, in its essentials it seems to stand. we are not, however, as students of society, concerned with this phase of evolution. (2) _organic evolution._ this is the phase of evolution with which darwin dealt and which biology, as a science of evolution of living forms, deals with. the great merit of darwin's work was that he showed that the active principle in this phase of evolution is natural selection; that is, the extermination of the unadapted through death or through failure to reproduce. types unsuited to their environment thus die before reproduction. the stronger and better fitted survive, and thus the type is raised. natural selection may be regarded, then, as essentially the creative force in this phase of evolution. (3) _the evolution of mind._ this might be included in organic evolution, but all organisms do not apparently have minds. it is evident that among animals those that would stand the best chance of surviving would not be simply those that have the strongest brute strength, but rather those that have the keenest intelligence and that could adapt themselves quickly to their environment, that could see approaching danger and escape it. natural selection has, therefore, favored in the animal world the survival of those animals with the highest type of intelligence. it cannot be said, however, that natural selection is the only force which has created the mind in all its various expressions. (4) _social evolution._ by social evolution we mean the evolution of groups, or, in strict accordance with our definition of society, groups of psychically interconnected individuals. groups are to be found throughout the animal world, and it is in the human species, as we have already seen, that the highest types of association are found. this is not an accident. association, or living together in groups, has been one of the devices by which animal species have been enabled to survive. it is evident that not only would intelligence help an animal to survive more than brute strength, but that ability to cooperate with one's fellows would also help in the same way. consequently we find a degree of combination or coöperation almost at the very beginning of life, and it is without doubt through coöperation that man has become the dominant and supreme species upon the planet. man's social instincts, in other words, have been perhaps even more important for his survival than his intelligence. the man who lies, cheats, and steals, or who indulges in other unsocial conduct sets himself against his group and places his group at a disadvantage as compared with other groups. now, natural selection is continually operating upon groups as well as upon individuals, and the group which can command the most loyal, most efficient membership, and has the best organization, is, other things being equal, the group which survives. natural selection is, then, active in social evolution as well as in general organic evolution. but the distinctive principle of social evolution is coöperation. in other words, it is sympathetic feeling, altruism, which has made the higher types of social evolution possible. while the same factors are at work in the higher phases of evolution which are at work in the lower phases, yet it is evident that the higher phases have new and distinct factors. sociology, being especially concerned with social evolution, has a new and distinct factor at work which we may call association, coöperation, or combination, and this it is which gives sociology its distinct place in the list of general sciences. factors in organic evolution.--as has already been said, the factors which are at work in organic evolution generally are also at work in social evolution. we need, therefore, to note these factors carefully and to see how they are at work in human society as well as in the animal world below man. while these factors are not all of the factors which are at work in social evolution, still they are the primitive factors, and are, therefore, of fundamental importance. let us see what these factors are. (1) _the multiplication of organisms in some geometric ratio through reproduction._ it is a law of life that every species must increase so that the number of offspring exceeds the number of parents if the species is to survive. if the offspring only equal in number the parents, some of them will die before maturity is reached or will fail to reproduce, and so the species will gradually become extinct. every species normally increases, therefore, in some geometric ratio. now, this tendency to reproduce in some geometric ratio, which characterizes all living organisms, means that any species, if left to itself, would soon reach such numbers as to occupy the whole earth. darwin showed, for example, that though the elephant is the slowest breeding of all animals, if every elephant lived its normal length of life (one hundred years) and to every pair were born six offspring, then, at the end of seven hundred years there would be nineteen million living elephants descended from a single pair. this illustration shows the enormous possibilities of any species reproducing in geometric ratio, as all species in order to survive must do. that this tendency to increase in some geometric ratio applies also to man is evident from all of the facts which we know concerning human populations. it is not infrequent for a people to double its numbers every twenty-five years. if this were continued for any length of time, it is evident that a single nation could soon populate the whole earth. (2) _heredity._ heredity in organic evolution secures a continuity of the species or racial type. by heredity is meant the resemblance between parent and offspring. it is the law that like begets like. offspring born of a species belong to that species, and usually resemble their parents more closely even than other members of the species. it is evident that heredity is at work also in human society as well as in the animal world. we do not expect that the children born of parents of one race, for example, will belong to another race. racial heredity is one of the most significant facts of human society, and even family heredity counts in its influence far more than some have supposed. (3) _variation._ this factor in organic evolution means that no two individuals, even though born of the same parents, are exactly like each other. neither are they of a type exactly between their two parents, as theoretically they should be, since inheritance is equal from both parents. every new individual born in the organic world, while it resembles its parents and belongs to its species or race, varies within certain limits. this variation so runs through organic nature that we are told that there are no two leaves on a single tree exactly alike. the result of this variation, the causes of which are not yet well understood, is that some individuals vary in favorable directions, others in unfavorable directions. some are born strong, some weak; some inferior, some superior. it is evident that variation characterizes the human species quite as much as other species, and indeed the limits of variation are wider, probably, in the human species than in any other species. man is the most variable of all animals, and human individuality and personality owe not a little of their distinctiveness to this fact. (4) _the struggle for existence._ individuals in all species, as we have seen, are born in larger numbers than is necessary. the result is that a competition is entered into between species and individuals within the species for place and for existence. this competition or struggle results in the dying out of the inferior, that is, of those who are not adapted to their environment. the gradual dying out of the inferior or unadapted through competition results in the survival of the superior or better adapted, and ultimately in the survival of the fittest or those most adapted. thus the type is raised, and we have evolution through natural selection, that is, through the elimination of the unfit. some have thought that this struggle for existence which is so evident in the animal world does not take place in human society. this, however, is a mistake. the struggle for existence in human society is not an unmitigated one, as it seems to be very often in the animal world, but it is nevertheless a struggle which has the same consequences. in the human world the competition, except in the lower classes, is not so much for food, as it is for position and for supremacy. but this struggle for place and power results in human society in the weak and inferior going to the wall, and therefore ultimately in their elimination. in all essential respects, then, the struggle for existence goes on in human society as it does in the animal world. this means that in society, as in the animal world, progress comes primarily through the elimination of unfit individuals. the unfit in human society, as we shall see, are especially those who cannot adapt themselves to their social environment. progress in society, in a certain sense, waits upon death, as it does in all the rest of the animal world. death is the means by which the stream of life is purged from its inferior and unfit elements. (5) _another factor in organic evolution is coöperation_, or altruism, as we have already called it. as henry drummond has said, this is the struggle not for one's own life but for the lives of others. really, however, it is a device which enables a group of individuals to struggle more successfully with the adverse factors in their environment. something of coöperation,--that is, a group of individuals carrying on a common life,--is found almost at the beginning of life, and, as we rise in the scale of animal creation, the amount of coöperation and of altruistic feelings which accompany it very greatly increases. perhaps the chief source of this coöperation is to be found in the rearing of offspring. the family group, even in the lower animals, seems to be the chief source of altruism. at any rate, sympathetic or altruistic instincts grow up in all animals, probably chiefly through the necessities of reproduction. it is only in human social life that coöperation, or altruism, attains its full development. human society is characterized by the protection it affords to its weaker members, and in human society the natural process of eliminating the inferior often seems reversed. as huxley has pointed out, human society tries to fit as many as possible to survive, and we may add, not only to survive, but to live well. altruism and its resulting coöperation have come especially to characterize human social evolution. to some extent this is due, no doubt, to the necessities of group survival; for only that nation, for example, can survive that can maintain the most loyal citizenship, the best institutions, and the largest spirit of self-sacrifice in its members. human social groups, therefore, try to fit as many individuals as possible for the most efficient membership, and this necessitates caring for the temporarily weak, and also for the permanently incapacitated, in order that the sentiments of social solidarity may be strengthened to their utmost. it is evident, then, that all the factors at work in organic evolution are at work also in social evolution, though in some part modified and varying in degree. the struggle for existence in human society, for example, has been greatly modified from the condition in the early animal world, while coöperation, or altruism, is much more highly developed. nevertheless, these factors of organic evolution are at work in social evolution and must be taken into full account by the student of social problems. social evolution rests upon organic evolution. some effects upon industry.--these factors in organic evolution express themselves more or less in the industrial phase of human society. thus, the first factor, the multiplication of organisms through reproduction in some geometric ratio, was first studied by malthus, an economist in the beginning of the nineteenth century, and exclusively with reference to its effect upon economic conditions. malthus perceived the tendency for human beings to multiply in some geometric ratio where food supply was sufficiently abundant, and argued from this that if better wages, and so a larger food supply, were given the lower classes, they would multiply so much more rapidly that worse poverty would result than before. there is no doubt that in certain classes of human society there is a tendency for population to press against food supply, and it is in these classes that the struggle for existence takes on its most animal-like forms. again, the struggle for existence is continually illustrated in the world of human industry. not only do individuals lose place and power because they are unadapted to their environment, but also economic groups, such as corporations, show the natural competition or struggle for existence sometimes in its most intense form. the result in all cases is the dying out of the least adapted and the survival of the better adapted. thus, through competition and the survival of the better adapted we secure in industry the evolution of higher types of industrial organization, industrial methods, and the like, just as higher types are secured in the same way in the animal world. again, in economic matters, as in other social affairs, coöperation continually comes in to modify competition and to lift it to a higher plane. just as the higher type of societies has been characterized by higher types of coöperation, so it is safe to say that the higher types of industry are characterized by higher types of coöperation. and while, as we shall see later, coöperation can never displace competition in industry any more than elsewhere in life, yet increasing coöperation characterizes the higher types of industry as well as the higher types of society. a word of caution is perhaps necessary against confusing the economic struggle as it exists in modern society with the natural struggle under primitive conditions. it is evident that in present society the economic struggle has been greatly changed in character from the primitive struggle, and therefore can no longer have the same results. laws of inheritance, of taxation, and many other artificial economic conditions, have greatly interfered with the natural struggle. the rich and economically successful are therefore by no means to be confused with the biologically fit. on the contrary, many of the economically successful are such simply through artificial advantageous circumstances, and from the standpoint of biology and sociology they are often among the less fit, rather than the more fit, elements of society. a brief survey of social evolution from the biological standpoint.--in order to sum up and make clear some of the principal applications to social evolution of the biological principles just stated we shall endeavor to state in a brief way some of the salient features of social evolution from the biological standpoint. from the very beginning there has been no such thing as unmitigated individual struggle among animals. nowhere in nature does pure individualism exist in the sense that the individual animal struggles alone, except perhaps in a few solitary species which are apparently on the way to extinction. the assumption of such a primitive individual struggle has been at the bottom of many erroneous views of human society. the primary conflict is between species. a secondary conflict, however, is always found between the members of the same species. usually this conflict within the species is a competition between groups. the human species exactly illustrates these statements. primitively its great conflict was with other species of animals. the supremacy of man over the rest of the animal world was won only after an age-long conflict between man and his animal rivals. while this conflict went on there was apparently but little struggle within the species itself. the lowest groups of which we have knowledge, while continually struggling against nature, are rarely at war with one another. but after man had won his supremacy and the population of groups came to increase so as to encroach seriously upon food supply, and even on territorial limits of space, then a conflict between human groups, which we call war, broke out and became almost second nature to man. it needs to be emphasized, however, that the most primitive groups are not warlike, but only those that have achieved their supremacy over nature and attained considerable size. in other words, the struggle between groups which we call war was occasioned very largely by numbers and food supply. to this extent at least war primitively arose from economic conditions, and it is remarkable how economic conditions have been instrumental in bringing about all the great wars of recorded human history. the conflict among human groups, which we call war, has had an immense effect upon human social evolution. five chief effects must be noted. (1) intergroup struggle gave rise to higher forms of social organization, because only those groups could succeed in competition with other groups that were well organized, and especially only those that had competent leadership. (2) government, as we understand the word, was very largely an outcome of the necessities of this intergroup struggle, or war. as we have already seen, the groups that were best organized, that had the most competent leadership, would stand the best chance of surviving. consequently the war leader or chief soon came, through habit, to be looked upon as the head of the group in all matters. moreover, the exigencies and stresses of war frequently necessitated giving the war chief supreme authority in times of danger, and from this, without doubt, arose despotism in all of its forms. the most primitive tribes are republican or democratic in their form of government, but it has been found that despotic forms of government rapidly take the place of the primitive democratic type, where a people are continually at war with other peoples. (3) a third result of war in primitive times was the creation of social classes. after a certain stage was reached groups tried not so much to exterminate one another as to conquer and absorb one another. this was, of course, after agriculture had been developed and slave labor had reached a considerable value. under such circumstances a conquered group would be incorporated by the conquerors as a slave or subject class. later, this enslaved class may have become partially free as compared with some more recently subjugated or enslaved classes, and several classes in this way could emerge in a group through war or conquest. moreover, the presence of these alien and subject elements in a group necessitated a stronger and more centralized government to keep them in control, and this was again one way in which war favored a development of despotic governments. later, of course, economic conditions gave rise to classes, and to certain struggles between the classes composing a people. (4) not only was social and political organization and the evolution of classes favored by intergroup struggle, but also the evolution of morality. the group that could be most efficiently organized would be, other things being equal, the group which had the most loyal and most self-sacrificing membership. the group that lacked a group spirit, that is, strong sentiments of solidarity and harmonious relations between its members, would be the group that would be apt to lose in conflict with other groups, and so its type would tend to be eliminated. consequently in all human groups we find recognition of certain standards of conduct which are binding as between members of the same group. for example, while a savage might incur no odium through killing a member of another group, he was almost always certain to incur either death or exile through killing a member of his own group. hence arose a group code of ethics founded very largely upon the conceptions of kinship or blood relationship, which bound all members of a primitive group to one another. (5) a final consequence of war among human groups has been the absorption of weaker groups and the growth of larger and larger political groups, until in modern times a few great nations dominate the population of the whole world. that this was not the primitive condition, we know from human history and from other facts which indicate the disappearance of a vast number of human groups in the past. the earth is a burial ground of tribes and natrons as well as of individuals. in the competition between human groups, only a few that have had efficient organization and government, loyal membership and high standards of conduct within the group, have survived. the number of peoples that have perished in the past is impossible to estimate. but we can get some inkling of the number by the fact that philologists estimate that for every living language there are twenty dead languages. when we remember that a language not infrequently stands for several groups with related cultures, we can guess the immense number of human societies that have perished in the past in this intergroup competition. even though war passes away entirely, nations can never escape this competition with one another. while the competition may not be upon the low and brutal plane of war, it will certainly go on upon the higher plane of commerce and industry, and will probably be on this higher plane quite as decisive in the life of peoples in future as war was in the past. while the primary struggle within the human species has been in the historic period between nations and races, this is not saying, of course, that struggle and competition have not gone on within these larger groups. on the contrary, as has already been implied, a continual struggle has gone on between classes, first perhaps of racial origin, and later of economic origin. also there is within the nation a struggle between parties and sects, and sometimes between "sections" and communities. usually, however, the struggle within the nation is a peaceful one and does not come to bloodshed. again, within each of these minor groups that we have mentioned struggle and competition in some modified form goes on between its members. thus within a party or class there is apt to be a struggle or competition between factions. there is, indeed, no human group that is free from struggle or competition between its members, unless it be the family. the family seems to be so constituted that normally there is no competition between its members,--at least, there is good ground tor believing that competition between the members of a family is to be considered exceptional, or even abnormal. from what has been said it is evident that competition and coöperation are twin principles in the evolution of social groups. while competition characterizes in the main the relation between groups, especially independent political groups, and while coöperation characterizes in the main the relation of the members of a given group to one another, still competition and coöperation are correlatives in practically every phase of the social life. some degree of competition, for example, has to be maintained by every group between its members if it is going to maintain high standards of efficiency or of loyalty. if there were no competition with respect to the matters that concern the inner life of groups, it is evident that the groups would soon lose efficiency in leadership and in membership and would sooner or later be eliminated. consequently society, from certain points of view, presents itself to the student at the present time as a vast competition, while from other standpoints it presents itself as a vast coöperation. it follows from this that competition and coöperation are both equally important in the life of society. it has been a favorite idea that competition among human beings should be done away with, and that coöperation should be substituted to take its place entirely. it is evident, however, that this idea is impossible of realization. if a social group were to check all competition between its members, it would stop thereby the process of natural selection or of the elimination of the unfit, and, as a consequence, would soon cease to progress. if some scheme of artificial selection were substituted to take the place of natural selection, it is evident that competition would still have to be retained to determine who were the fittest. a society that would give positions of trust and responsibility to individuals without imposing some competitive test upon them would be like a ship built partially of good and partially of rotten wood,--it would soon go to pieces. this leads us to emphasize the continued necessity of selection in society. no doubt natural selection is often a brutal and wasteful means of eliminating the weak in human societies, and no doubt human reason might devise superior means of bringing about the selection of individuals which society must maintain. to some extent it has done this through systems of education and the like, which are, in the main, selective processes for picking out the most competent individuals to perform certain social functions. but the natural competition, or struggle between individuals, has not been done away with, especially in economic matters, and it is evidently impossible to do away with it until some vast scheme of artificial selection can take its place. such a scheme is so far in the future that it is hardly worth talking about. the best that society can apparently do at the present time is to regulate the natural competition between individuals, and this it is doing increasingly. what people rightfully object to is, not competition, but unregulated or unfair competition. in the interest of solidarity, that is, in the interest of the life of the group as a whole, all forms of competition in human society should be so regulated that the rules governing the competition may be known and the competition itself public. it is evident that in politics and in business we are very far from this ideal as yet, although society is unquestionably moving toward it. a word in conclusion about the nature of moral codes and standards from the social point of view. it is evident that moral codes from the social point of view are simply formulations of standards of conduct which groups find it convenient or necessary to impose upon their members. even morality, in an idealistic sense, seems from a sociological standpoint to be those forms of conduct which conduce to social harmony, to social efficiency, and so to the survival of the group. groups, however, as we have already pointed out, cannot do as they please. they are always hard-pressed in competition by other groups and have to meet the standards of efficiency which nature imposes. morality, therefore, is not anything arbitrarily designed by the group, but is a standard of conduct which necessities of social survival require. in other words, the right, from the point of view of natural science, is that which ultimately conduces to survival, not of the individual, but of the group or of the species. this is looking at morality, of course, from the sociological point of view, and in no way denies the religious and metaphysical view of morality, which may be equally valid from a different standpoint. finally, we need to note that natural selection does not necessitate in any mechanical sense certain conduct on the part of individuals or groups. rather, natural selection marks the limits of variation which nature permits, and within those limits of variation there is a large amount of freedom of choice, both to individuals and to groups. human societies, therefore, may be conceivably free to take one of several paths of development at any particular point. but in the long run they must conform to the ultimate conditions of survival; and this probably means that the goal of their evolution is largely fixed for them. human groups are free only in the sense that they may go either backward or forward on the path which the conditions of survival mark out for them. they are free to progress or to perish. but social evolution in any case, in the sense of social change either toward higher or toward lower social adaptation, is a necessity that cannot be escaped. sociology and all social science is, therefore, a study not of what human groups would like to do, but of what they must do in order to survive, that is, how they can control their environment by utilizing the laws which govern universal evolution. from this brief and most elementary consideration of the bearings of evolutionary theory upon social problems it is evident that evolution, in the sense of what we know about the development of life and society in the past, must be the guidepost of the sociologist. human social evolution, we repeat, rests upon and is conditioned by biological evolution at every point. there is, therefore, scarcely any sanity in sociology without the biological point of view. select references _for brief reading:_ fairbanks, _introduction to sociology,_ chaps. xiv.-xv. jordan, _foot-notes to evolution,_ chaps. i.-iii. ely, _evolution of industrial society._ part ii, chaps. i.-iii. _for more extended reading:_ darwin, _descent of man._ fiske, _outlines of cosmic philosophy._ wallace, _darwinism._ _on the religious aspects of evolution:_ drummond, _ascent of man._ fiske, _the destiny of man._ fiske, _through nature to god._ chapter iii the function of the family in social organization instead of continuing the study of social evolution in general it will be best now, before we take up some of the problems of modern society, to study the evolution of some important social institution, because in so doing we can see more clearly the working of the biological and psychological forces which have brought about the evolution of human institutions. an institution, as has already been said, is a sanctioned grouping or relation in society. now, there can be scarcely any doubt that the two most important institutions of human society are the family and property. in western civilization these take the form of the monogamic family and of private property. it is upon these two institutions that our civilization rests. the state is a third very important institution in society, but it exists largely for the sake of protecting the family and property. of the two institutions, the family and property, the family is without doubt prior in time and more fundamental,--more important in human association. we shall, therefore, study very briefly the origin and development of the family as a human institution in order to illustrate some of the principles of social evolution in general. but before we can take up the question of the origin of the family it will be well for us to see just what the function of this institution is in the human society of the present, in order to justify the assertion just made that it is the most important and fundamental institution of humanity. the family the primary social institution.--let us note first of all that in society, as it exists at present, the family is the simplest group capable of maintaining itself. it is, therefore, we may say, the primary social structure. because it contains both sexes and all ages it is capable of reproducing itself, and so of reproducing society. for the same reason it contains practically all social relations in miniature. it has therefore often been called, and rightly, "the social microcosm". the relations of superiority, subordination, and equality, which enter so largely into the structure of all social institutions, are especially clearly illustrated in the family in the relations of parents to children, of children to parents, of parents to each other, and of children to one another. comte, for this reason, claimed that the family was the unit of social organization, not the individual. however this may be, it is evident that families do enter, as units, very largely into our social and industrial life. while the tendency may be to make the individual the unit of modern society, it is nevertheless true that the family remains the simplest social structure in society, and from it, in some sense, all other social relations whatsoever are evolved. _the family differs from all other social institutions_, however, in two respects: first, its members have their places fixed in the family group by their organic natures, that is, the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, rest upon biological differences and relations, so that one may say that the family is almost as much a biological structure as it is a social structure. this is not, to any extent, true of other institutions. secondly, the family is not a product, so far as we can see, of other forms of association, but rather it itself produces these other forms of association. the family, in other words, is not a result of social organization in general, but seems rather to antedate both historically and logically the forms of social life. it is not a product of society, but it itself produces society. the primary function of the family is continuing the life of the species; that is, the primary function of the family is reproduction in the sense of the birth and rearing of children. while other functions of the family have been delegated in a large measure to other social institutions, it is manifest that this function cannot be so delegated. at least we know of no human society in which the birth and rearing of children has not been the essential function of the family. from a sociological point of view the childless family is a failure. while the childless family may be of social utility to the individuals that form it, nevertheless from the point of view of society such a family has failed to perform its most important function and must be considered, therefore, socially a failure. the function of the family in conserving the social order.--the family is still the chief institution in society for transmitting from one generation to another social possessions of all sorts. property in the form of land or houses or personal property, society permits the family to pass along from generation to generation. thus, also, the material equipment for industry, that is capital, is so transmitted. while it is obvious that the material goods of society are thus transmitted by the family from one generation to another, it is perhaps not quite so obvious, but equally true, that the spiritual possessions of the race are also thus transmitted. for example, language is very largely transmitted in the family, and students tell us that each family has its own peculiar dialect. literature, ideas, beliefs on government, law, religion, moral standards, artistic tastes and appreciation--all of these are still largely transmitted in society from one generation to another through the family. while public institutions, such as libraries, art galleries, universities, scientific museums, and the like, are often adopted to conserve and transmit these spiritual possessions of the race, yet it is safe to say that if it were possible for society to depend upon these institutions to transmit knowledge, artistic standards, and moral ideals, there would be great discontinuity in social life. the family has been in the past, and is still, the great conserving agency in human society, preserving and transmitting from generation to generation both the material and spiritual possessions of the race. the function of the family in social progress.--while the conservative function of the family is very obvious, its function in furthering social progress is perhaps not so obvious. nevertheless, this is one of the greatest functions of the family life, because the family is the chief or almost sole generator of altruism in human society, and it is upon altruism that society depends for every upward advance in coöperation. it is in the family that children learn to love and obey, to be of service, and to respect one another's rights. the amount of altruism in a given group has a very close relation to the quality of its family life. if the family fails to teach the spirit of service and self-sacrifice to its members, it is hardly probable that they will get very much of that spirit from society at large. the ideal of a human brotherhood has no meaning unless family affection gives it meaning. if the family is the chief generator of altruism in human society and if society depends upon altruism for each forward step in moral progress, then the family is the chief source of social progress. what we have said is a brief presentation of the claims of the family in modern society to count not only as the primary but also as the most important human institution. the family, it is evident, is charged by society with the most important task, not only of producing the new individuals in society, but of training each individual as he comes on the stage of life, adjusting him to society in all of its aspects, such as industry, government, and religion. if the family fails to perform these important functions the chances are that unsocialized individuals will take important places in society, and this means ultimately social anarchy. _the family life may be regarded as a school for socializing the individual._ we need not trace in detail how the family does this for the child. it is evident that the rudiments of morality, of government, of religion, and even of industry and knowledge, must be learned by the child in the family group. if the child fails, for example, to learn morality, to get moral standards and ideals from his family life, he stands but poor chance of getting them later in society. again, if the child fails to learn what law is and to get proper ideals of the relation of the citizen to the state in his family life, there are good prospects of his being numbered among the lawless elements of society later. in the family, we repeat, the child first experiences all the essential relations of society, learns the meaning of authority, obedience, loyalty, and all the human virtues. moreover, the family life furnishes the moral and religious concepts which human society has set before it as its goal. the ideal of human brotherhood, for example, is manifestly derived from the family life; so also the religious idea of the divine fatherhood. if a nation's family life fails to illustrate these concepts, it is safe to say that they will not have great influence in society generally. the nation whose family life decays, therefore, rots at the core, dries up the springs of all social and civic virtues. the family and industry.--from what has been said in general terms it is evident that the family has a very important relation to the industrial activities of society, and industry a very important bearing upon the family. primitively all industry centered in the family. modern industry, as has been well said, is but an enormous expansion of primitive housekeeping; that is, the preparation of food and clothing and shelter by the primitive family group for its own existence is the germ out of which all modern industry has developed. the very word _economics_ means the science or the art of the household. in primitive communities and in newly settled districts the family often carries on all essential industrial activities. it produces all the raw material, manufactures the finished products, and consumes the same. but with the growth of complex societies there has come a great industrial division of labor, and the family has delegated industrial activity after activity to some other institution until at the present time the modern family performs scarcely any industrial activities, except the preparation of food for immediate consumption. even this, however, in modern cities seems about to be delegated to some other institution. all that need be said at present about the delegation of the industrial activities of the family to other industrial institutions is that the movement is not one which need cause any anxiety so long as it does not interfere with the essential function of the family, namely, the birth and rearing of children. even though children can no longer learn the rudiments of industry in their home life, still it is possible through manual and industrial training in our public schools to teach all children this. and the removal of industries from the home, even such essential industries as the preparation of food, is to be regarded as a boon if it gives more time to the parents, especially to the mother, for the proper care and bringing up of their children. but the removal of industries from the family group has not always had the beneficent effect of simply giving more time to the parents for the proper care of their children. on the contrary, the removal of these industries has often been followed by the removal of the parents themselves from the home and the practical disintegration of the family. this has been particularly the case where married women have gone into factories. under such circumstances children have often been neglected, allowed to grow up on the streets, and to grow up as unsocialized individuals in general. it would seem that the labor of married women outside of the home should be forbidden by the state, except in certain instances, with a view to assuring to the state itself a better citizenship. the labor of children in factories and other industrial institutions has sprung very largely from the same general causes. while child labor may have the merit of giving the child some industrial training, still it has been shown that it dwarfs the child in body and mind, produces a one-sided development, fails to prepare for citizenship in the higher sense, and so must be regarded as altogether an evil. even the labor of the young unmarried women in factories and shops, when they should be preparing for the duties of wifehood and motherhood, is to some extent an evil in society, though not by any means of the same proportions as the labor of married women. _the subordination of industry to the family life_ is necessary, therefore, from a social point of view. industry, as we have seen, was primitively an adjunct of the family life, and all modern industry, if rightfully developed, should be but an adjunct to the family life. industrial considerations must be, therefore, subordinate to domestic considerations, that is, to considerations of the welfare of parents and their children in the family group. one trouble with modern society is that industry has come to dominate as an independent interest that oftentimes does not recognize its reasonable and socially necessary subordination to the higher interests of society. there can be no sane and stable family life until we are willing to subordinate the requirements of industry, that is, of wealth-getting, to the requirements of the family for the good birth and proper rearing of children. select references _for brief reading:_ henderson, _social elements_, chap. iv. dewey and tufts, _ethics_, chap. xxvi. adler, _marriage and divorce_, lecture i. _for more extended reading:_ bosanquet, _the family_. saleeby, _parenthood and race culture_. chapter iv the origin of the family we must understand the biological roots of the family before we can understand the family as an institution, and especially before we can understand its origin. let us note, then, briefly the chief biological facts connected with the family life. the biological foundations of the family.--(1)_the family rests upon the great biological fact of sex._ while sex does not characterize all animal forms, still it does characterize all except the simplest forms of animal life. these simplest forms multiply or reproduce by fission, but such asexual reproduction is almost entirely confined to the unicellular forms of life. it may be inferred, therefore, that the higher animal types could not have been evolved without sexual reproduction, and something of the meaning or significance of sex in the whole life process will, therefore, be helpful in understanding all of the higher forms of evolution. biologists tell us that the meaning or purpose of sexual reproduction is to bring about greater organic variation. now variation, as we have seen, is the raw material upon which natural selection acts to create the higher types. the immense superiority of sexual reproduction over asexual reproduction is due to the fact that it multiplies so greatly the elements of heredity in each new organism, for under sexual reproduction every new organism has two parents, four grandparents, and so on, each of which perhaps contributes something to its heredity. the biological meaning of sex, then, is that it is a device of nature to bring about organic variation. from the point of view of the social life we may note also that sex adds greatly to its variety, enriching it with numerous fruitful variations which undoubtedly further social evolution. the bareness and monotony of a social life without sex can readily be imagined. while the differences between the sexes have been mainly elaborated through the differences of reproductive function, yet these differences have come to be fundamental to the whole nature of the organism. in the higher animals, therefore, the sexes differ profoundly in many ways from each other. biologists tell us that the chief difference between the male and female organism is a difference in metabolism, that is, in the rapidity of organic change which goes on within the body. in the male metabolism is much more rapid than in the female; hence the male organism is said to be more katabolic. in the female the rapidity of organic change is less; hence the female is said to be more anabolic. put in more familiar terms, the male tends to expend energy, is more active, hence also stronger; the female tends more to store up energy, is more passive, conservative, and weaker. these fundamental differences between the sexes express themselves in many ways in the social life. the differences between man and woman, therefore, are not to be thought of as due simply to social customs and usages, the different social environment of the two sexes, but are even more due to a radical and fundamental difference in their whole nature. the belief that the two sexes would become like each other in character if given the same environment is, therefore, erroneous. that these differences are original, or inborn, and not acquired, may be readily seen by observing children of different sex. even from their earliest years boys are more active, restless, energetic, destructive, untidy, and disobedient, while little girls are quieter, less restless, less destructive, neater, more orderly, and more obedient. these different innate qualities fit the sexes naturally for different functions in human society, and there is, therefore, a natural division of labor between them from the first. indeed, the division of labor between the two sexes may be said to be the fundamental division of labor in human society. the causes which produce sex in the individual are not known to any extent and are probably beyond the control of man. in each species the relative number of the two sexes is fixed by nature, probably through some obscure working of natural selection, and in practically all of the higher species of animals, man included, the number of the two sexes is relatively equal. in human society much depends upon this relative numerical equality of the two sexes. hence it can be readily seen that it is fortunate that man does not know how to control the sex of offspring, for if he did the numerical equality of the two sexes might be disturbed and serious social results would follow. (2) _the influence of parental care._ sex alone could never have produced the family in the sense of a relatively permanent group of parents and offspring. we do not begin to find the family until we get to those higher types where we find some parental care. in the lowest types the relation between the sexes is momentary and the survival of offspring is secured simply through the production of enormous numbers. thus the sturgeon, a low type of fish, produces between one and two million of eggs at a single spawning, from which it is estimated that not more than a dozen individuals survive till maturity is reached. thus sexual reproduction of itself necessitates no parental care and in itself could give rise in no way to the family; but quite low in the scale of life we begin to find some parental care as a device to protect immature offspring and secure their survival without the expenditure of such an enormous amount of energy in mere physiological reproduction. even among the fishes we find some that watch over the eggs after they are spawned and care for their young by leading them to suitable feeding grounds. in such cases a much smaller number of young need to be produced in order that a few may survive until maturity is reached. in the mammals the mother, obviously, must care for the young for some time, since mammals are animals that suckle their young. but this care of the young by a single parent only foreshadows the family as we understand it. among the mammals it is not until we reach the higher types that we find care of offspring by both parents,--a practice, however, which is common among the birds. it is evident that as soon as both parents are concerned in the care of the offspring they have a much better chance of survival. hence, natural selection favors the growth of this type of group life and develops powerful instincts to keep male and female together till after the birth and rearing of offspring. such we find to be the condition among many of the higher mammals, such as some of the carnivora, and especially among the monkeys and apes and man. if it is allowable at this point to generalize from the facts given, it must be said that the family life is essentially a device of nature for the preservation of offspring through a more or less prolonged infancy. the family group and the instincts upon which it rests were undoubtedly, therefore, instituted by natural selection. summing up, we may say, then, the animal family group owes its existence, first, to the production of child or immature forms that need more or less prolonged care; secondly, to the prolongation of this period of immaturity in the higher animals, and especially in man; thirdly, to the development, parallel with these two causes, of parental instincts which keep male and female together for the care of the offspring. it is evident, then, that the family life rests, not upon sex attraction, but upon the fact of the child and the corresponding psychological fact of parental instinct. the family, then, has been created by the very conditions of life itself and is not a man-made institution. the origin of the family in the human species.--two great theories of the origin of the family in the human species have in the past been more or less accepted, and these we must now examine and criticize. first, the traditional theory that the human family life was from the beginning a pure monogamy. secondly, the so-called evolutionary theory that the human family life arose from confused if not promiscuous sex relations. the first of these theories, favored both by the bible and aristotle, held undisputed sway down to the middle of the nineteenth century. then, after the publication of darwin's _origin of species_ in 1859, certain social theorists began to put forward the second theory in the name of evolution. in order that we may see precisely what the origin of the human family life was, and its primitive form, we must now proceed to criticize these two theories, especially the last, which is known as the hypothesis of a primitive state of promiscuity. _the habits of the higher animals_. we have already spoken of the origin of the family group in the animal world generally, but it must be admitted that there are some difficulties in arguing directly from the lower animals to man. man is so separated from the lower animals through having passed through many higher stages of an independent evolution that in many respects his life is peculiar to itself. this is true especially of his family life. if we survey the whole range of animal life and then the whole range of human life, we find that there are but two or three striking similarities between the family life of man and that of the brutes, but a great many striking dissimilarities. the similarities may be summed up by saying that man exhibits in common with all the animals the phenomena of courtship, that is, of the male seeking to win the female, also the phenomenon of male jealousy, and we may perhaps add an instinctive aversion to crossing with the other species. these characteristics of his family life man shares with the brutes below him. there are, however, many things peculiar to the human family life that are found in no animal species below man. the most striking of these differences may be mentioned. (1) man has no pairing season, as practically all other animals have. (2) the number of young born in the human species is on the whole much smaller than in any other animal species. (3) the dependence of offspring upon parents is far longer in the human species than in any other species. (4) man has an antipathy to incest or close inbreeding which seems to be instinctive. this is not found clearly in any animal species below man. (5) there is a tendency among human beings to artificial adornment during the period of courtship, but not to natural ornament to any extent, as among many animal species. (6) the indorsement of society is almost invariably sought, both among uncivilized and civilized peoples, before the establishment of a new family--usually through the forms of a religious marriage ceremony. (7) chastity in women, especially married women, is universally insisted upon, both among uncivilized and civilized peoples, as the basis of human family life. (8) there is a feeling of modesty or of shame as regards matters of sex among the human beings. (9) in humanity we find, besides animal lust, spiritual affection, or love, as a bond of union between the two sexes. none of these peculiarities of human family life are found in the family life of any animal species below man. it might seem, therefore, that man's family life must be regarded as a special creation unconnected with the family life of the brutes below him. but this view is hardly probable, rather is impossible from the standpoint of evolution. we must say that these peculiarities of human family life are to be explained through the fact that man has passed through many more stages of evolution, particularly of intellectual evolution, than any of the animals below him. if we examine these peculiarities of man's family life carefully, we will see that they all can be explained through natural selection and man's higher intellectual development. that man has no pairing season, has fewer offspring born, and a longer period of dependence of the offspring upon parents, and the like, is directly to be explained through natural selection; while seeking the indorsement of society before forming a new family, sexual modesty, tendencies to artificial adornment, and the like, are to be explained through man's self-consciousness and higher intellectual development, also through the fuller development of his social instincts. the gap between the human family life and brute family life is, therefore, not an unbridgeable one. that this is so, we see most clearly when we consider the family life of the anthropoid or manlike apes--man's nearest cousins in the animal world. all of these apes, of which the chief representatives are the gorilla, orangutan, and the chimpanzee, live in relatively permanent family groups, usually monogamous. these family groups are quite human in many of their characteristics, such as the care which the male parent gives to the mother and her offspring, and the seeming affection which exists between all members of the group. such a group of parents and offspring among the higher apes is, moreover, a relatively permanent affair, children of different ages being frequently found along with their parents in such groups. so far as the evidence of animals next to man, therefore, goes, there is no reason for supposing that the human family life sprang from confused or promiscuous sex relations in which no permanent union between male and female parent existed. on the contrary, there is every reason to believe, as westermarck says, that human family life is an inheritance from man's apelike progenitor. the evidence from the lower human races.--the evidence afforded by the lowest peoples in point of culture even more clearly, if anything, refutes the hypothesis of a primitive state of promiscuity. the habits or customs of the lowest peoples were not well known previous to the nineteenth century. therefore it was possible for such a theory as the patriarchal theory of the primitive family to remain generally accepted, as we have already said, down to the middle of the nineteenth century. this was the theory that the oldest or most primitive type of human family life is that depicted in the opening pages of the book of genesis, namely, a family life in which the father or eldest male of the family group is the absolute ruler of the group and practically owner of all persons and property. the belief that this was the primitive type of the human family life was first attacked by a german-swiss philologist by the name of bachofen in a work entitled _das mutterrecht_ (the matriarchate), published in 1861, in which he argued that antecedent to the patriarchal period was a matriarchal period, in which women were dominant socially and politically, and in which relationships were traced through mothers only. bachofen got his evidence for this theory from certain ancient legends, such as that of the amazons, and other remains in greek and roman literature, which seemed to point to a period antecedent to the patriarchal. in 1876 mr. j.f. mclennan, a scotch lawyer, put forth, independently, practically the same theory, basing it upon certain legal survivals which he found among many peoples. with bachofen, he argued that this matriarchal period must have been characterized by promiscuous relations of the sexes. in 1877 mr. lewis h. morgan, an american ethnologist and sociologist, put forth again, independently, practically the same theory, basing it upon an extensive study of the north american indian tribes. morgan had lived among the iroquois indians for years and had mastered their system of relationship, which previously had puzzled the whites. he found that they traced relationship through mothers only, and not at all along the male line. this method of reckoning relationship, moreover, he found also characterized practically all of the north american indian tribes, and he argued that the only explanation of it was that originally sexual relations were of such an unstable or promiscuous character that they would not permit of tracing descent through fathers. from these theories sociological writers put forth the conclusion that the primitive state was one of promiscuity, or, as sir john lubbock called it in his _origin of civilization_, one of "communism in women." post, a german student of comparative jurisprudence, for example, summed up the theory by saying that "monogamous marriage originally emerged everywhere from pure communism in women, through the intermediate stages of limited communism in women, polyandry, and polygyny." even herbert spencer in his _principles of sociology_, while he avoided accepting such an extreme theory, asserted that in the beginning sex relations were confused and unregulated, and that all forms of marriage--polyandry, polygyny, monogamy, and promiscuity-existed alongside of one another and that monogamy survived through its being the superior form. before giving a criticism in detail of this theory let us note whether the evidence from the lowest peoples confirms it. the lowest peoples in point of culture are not the north american indians nor the african negroes, but certain isolated groups that live almost in a state of nature, without any attempt to cultivate the soil or to control nature in other respects. such are the bushmen of south africa, the australian aborigines, the negritos of the philippine islands and of the andaman islands, the veddahs of ceylon, and the fuegians of south america. now all of these peoples, with a possible exception, practice monogamy and live in relatively stable family groups. their monogamy, however, is not of the type which we find in patriarchal times or among civilized peoples, but is a simple pairing monogamy, husband and wife remaining together indefinitely if children are born, but if no children are born, separation may easily take place. westermarck in his _history of human marriage_ has reviewed at length all of the evidence from these lower peoples and shows undoubtedly that nothing approaching promiscuity existed among them. promiscuity is apt to be found at a higher stage of social development, and is especially apt to be found among the nature peoples after the white man has visited them and demoralized their family life. but in all these cases the existence of promiscuity is manifestly something exceptional and abnormal. perhaps civilized peoples such as the romans of the decadence have more nearly approximated the condition of promiscuity than any savage people of which we have knowledge. at any rate, one must conclude that the lowest existing savages found in the nineteenth century had definite forms of family life, and that the type usually found was the simple pairing monogamy which we have just mentioned. objections to the hypothesis of a primitive state of promiscuity.--we may now briefly sum up the main criticisms of this theory of a primitive state of promiscuity, not only as we may derive them from inductive study of the higher animals and the lower peoples, but also as we may deduce them from known psychological and biological facts or principles. (1) in the first place, then, the animals next to man, namely, the anthropoid apes, do not show a condition of promiscuity. (2) the evidence from the lower peoples does not show that such a condition exists or has ever existed among them. (3) a third argument against this hypothesis may be gained from what we know of primitive economic conditions. under the most primitive conditions, in which man had no mastery over nature, food supply was relatively scarce, and as a rule only very small groups of people could live together. the smallness of primitive groups, on account of the scarcity of food supply, would prevent anything like promiscuity on a large scale. (4) a fourth argument of a deductive nature is that the jealousy of the male, which characterizes all higher animals and especially man, would prevent anything like the existence of sexual promiscuity. the tendency of man would have been to appropriate one or more women for himself and drive away all rivals. long ago darwin argued that this would prevent anything like the existence of a general state of promiscuity. (5) a fifth argument against this theory may be got from the general biological fact that sexual promiscuity tends to pathological conditions unfavorable to fecundity, that is, fertility, or the birth of offspring. physicians have long ago ascertained this fact, and the modern prostitute gives illustration of it by the fact that she has few or no children. among the lower animal species, in which some degree of promiscuity obtains, moreover, powerful instincts keep the sexes apart except at the pairing season. now, no such instincts exist in man. promiscuity in man would, therefore, greatly lessen the birth rate, and any group that practiced it to any extent would soon be eliminated in competition with other groups that did not practice it. (6) we have finally the general social fact that promiscuity would lead to the neglect of children. promiscuity means that the male parent does not remain with the female parent to care for the offspring and, therefore, in the human species it would mean that the care of children would be thrown wholly upon the mother. this means that the children would have less chance of surviving. not only would promiscuity lead to lessening the birth rate, but it would lead to a much higher mortality in children born. this is found to be a striking fact wherever we find any degree of promiscuity among any people. hence, promiscuity would soon exterminate any people that practiced it extensively in competition with other peoples that did not practice it. from all of these lines of argument, without going over the evidence in greater detail, it seems reasonable to conclude with westermarck "that the hypothesis of a primitive state of promiscuity has no foundation in fact and is essentially unscientific." the facts put forth in support of the theory do not justify the conclusion, westermarck says, that promiscuity has ever been a general practice among a single people and much less that it was the primitive state. promiscuity is found, however, more or less in the form of sexual irregularities or immorality among all peoples; more often, however, among the civilized than among the uncivilized, but among no people has it ever existed unqualified by more enduring forms of sex relation. moreover, because promiscuity breaks up the social bonds, throws the burden of the care of children wholly upon the mother, and lessens the birth rate, we are justified in concluding that promiscuity is essentially an antisocial practice. this agrees with the facts generally shown by criminology and sociology, that the elements practicing promiscuity to any great extent in modern societies are those most closely related with the degenerate and criminal elements. those elements, in other words, in modern society that practice promiscuity are on the road to extinction, and if a people generally were to practice it there is no reason to believe that such a people would meet with any different fate. _the earliest form of the family life in the human species_, therefore, is probably that of the simple pairing monogamous family found among many of the higher animals, especially the anthropoid apes, and also found among the lower peoples. this primitive monogamy, however, as we have already seen, was not accompanied by the social, legal, and religious elements that the historic monogamic family has largely rested upon. on the contrary, this primitive monogamy rested solely upon an instinctive basis, and, as we have seen, unless children were born it was apt to be relatively unstable. permanency in family relations among primitive peoples depended largely upon the birth of children. thus we find confirmed our conclusion drawn some time ago that family life rests primarily upon the parental instinct. that it still so rests is shown by the fact, as we shall see later, that divorce is many times more common among couples that have no children than among those that have children. some general conclusions, both of theoretical and practical bearing, may here be pointed out. we have seen that the biological processes of life have created the family, and that the family, as an institution, rests upon these biological conditions. hence it is not too much to say, first, that the family is not a man-made institution; and, secondly, that it rests upon certain fundamental instincts of human nature. now, both of these statements are also true to a certain extent as to human society in general. there is a sense in which social organization is not wholly man-made, and it is true that all human institutions rest to some extent upon human instincts. this is not saying, of course, that man has not modified and may not modify social organization and human institutions through his reason, but it is saying that the essential elements in human institutions and in the social order must correspond to the conditions of life generally and to the instincts which natural selection has implanted in the species. to attempt to reorganize human society or to reconstruct institutions regardless of the biological conditions of life, or regardless of human instincts, is to meet with certain failure. a practical conclusion which may be drawn also is that those people who advocate sexual promiscuity in present society, or free love, as they please to style it, are advocating a condition which would result in the elimination of any group that practiced it. promiscuity, or even great instability in the family life, as we have already seen, would lead to the undermining of everything upon which a higher civilization rests. the people in modern society who advocate such theories as free love, therefore, are more dangerous than the worst anarchist or the most revolutionary socialist. in other words, the modern attack upon the family is more of a menace to all that is worth while in human life than all attacks upon government and property, although it is not usually resented as such; and it is one of the most serious signs of the times that many intellectual people have indorsed such views. we must reemphasize, therefore, the fact that the family is the central institution of human society, that industry and the state must subordinate themselves to its interest. neither the state nor industry has had much to do with the origin of the family, and neither the state nor industry may safely determine its forms independent of the biological requirements for human survival. moreover, it is evident that human society from the beginning has in more or less instinctive, and also in more or less conscious, ways attempted to regulate the relations between the sexes with a view to controlling the reproductive process. while material civilization is mainly a control over the food process, moral civilization involves a control over the reproductive process, that is, over the birth and rearing of children; and such control over the reproductive process, which has certainly been one of the aims of all social organization in the past, whether of savage peoples or of civilized peoples, evidently precludes anything like the toleration of promiscuity or even of free love. select references _for brief reading:_ westermarck, _history of human marriage_, chaps. i-vi. howard, _history of matrimonial institutions_, vol. i, chaps. i-iii heineman, _physical basis of civilization_, chaps. iv-vii. _for more extended reading:_ crawley, _the mystic rose: a study of primitive marriage_. geddes and thomson, _evolution of sex_. letourneau, _the evolution of marriage_. morgan, _ancient society_. starcke, _the primitive family_. spencer, _principles of sociology_, vol. i. chapter v the forms of the family the family as an institution has varied greatly in its forms from age to age and from people to people. this is what we should expect, seeing that all organic structures are variable. such variations in human institutions are due partially to the influences of the environment, partially to the state of knowledge, and partially to many other causes as yet not well understood. the family illustrates in greater or less degree the working of these causes of variation and of change in human institutions. the maternal and paternal families.--as regards the general form of the family we have to note first of all the two great forms which we may characterize respectively as "the maternal family" and "the paternal family." as we have already seen, bachofen, morgan, and others discovered a condition of human society in which relationship was traced through mothers only, and in which property or authority descended along the female line rather than along the male line. further investigation and research have shown that up to recent times, say up to fifty years ago, one half of all the peoples of the world, if we reckon them by nations and tribes rather than by numbers, practiced this system of reckoning kinship through mothers only, and passed property and authority down along the female line. ethnologists and sociologists have practically concluded, from the amount of evidence now collected, that this maternal or metronymic system was the primitive system of tracing relationships, and that it was succeeded among the european peoples by the paternal system so long ago that the transition from the one to the other has been forgotten, except as some trace of it has been preserved in customs, legends, and the like. among many tribes of the north american indians this metronymic or maternal system was peculiarly well-developed. children took their mother's name, not their father's name; belonged to their mother's clan, not their father's clan; and the chief transmitted his authority, if hereditary, not to his own son, but to his eldest sister's son. the relatives on the father's side, indeed, were quite ignored. frequently the maternal uncle had more legal authority over the children than their own father, seeing that the children belonged to his clan, that is, to their mother's clan. now, bachofen claimed not only that in this stage was kinship reckoned through mothers only, but that women were dominant socially and politically; that there existed a true matriarchy, or rule of the mothers. do the facts support bachofen's theory? let us see. the iroquois indians, among whom morgan lived, were a typical maternal or metronymic people. among them, without any doubt, the women had a position of influence socially and even politically which often is not found among peoples of higher culture. for example, among the iroquois the government of the clan was in the hands of four women councilors (matrons), who were elected by all the adults in the clan. these four women councilors, however, elected a peace sachem, who carried out the will of the clan in all matters pertaining to peace generally. moreover, the councilors of the several clans, four fifths of whom were women, met together to form the tribal council; but in this tribal council the women sat separate, not participating in the deliberations, but exercising only a veto power on the decisions of the men. in matters of war, however, government was intrusted to two war chiefs elected from the tribe generally, the women here only having the right to veto the decision of the tribe to enter upon the warpath. thus we see that while the women of the iroquois indians had a great deal of social and political influence, the actual work of government was largely turned over by them to the men, and especially was this true of directing the affairs of the tribe in time of war. there is no doubt, however, that in the maternal stage of social evolution women had an influence in domestic, religious, and social matters much greater than they had at many later stages of social development. among the zuni of new mexico, for example, another well-developed maternal people, marriage is always arranged by the bride's parents. the husband goes to live with his wife, and is practically a guest in his wife's house all his life long, she alone having the right of divorce. indeed, among all maternal peoples the rule is that the husband goes to live with the wife, and not the wife with the husband, the children, as we have already seen, keeping the mother's name and belonging to her kindred or clan. nevertheless we cannot agree with bachofen that a true matriarchy, or government by women, ever existed. on the contrary, among all of these maternal peoples, while the women may have much influence socially and politically, the men, on account of their superior strength, are intrusted with the work not only of protecting and providing for the families and driving away enemies, but also largely with the work of maintaining the internal government and order of the people. strictly speaking, therefore, there has never been a matriarchal stage of social evolution, but rather a maternal or metronymic stage. we have already said that this stage was probably the primitive one. how are we to explain, then, that primitive man reckoned kinship through mothers only? was this due, as morgan thought, to a primitive practice of promiscuity which prevented tracing relationships through fathers? the reply is, that among the many maternal peoples now well known, among whom relationships are traced through mothers only, we find no evidence of the practice of general promiscuity now or even in remote times. the north american indians, for example, had quite definite forms of the family life and were very far removed from the practice of promiscuity, though they traced relationship through mothers only. it is evident that the causes of the maternal family and the maternal system of relationship are not so simple as morgan supposed. what, then, were the causes of the maternal system? it is probable that man in the earliest times did not know the physiological connection between father and child. the physiological connection between mother and child, on the other hand, was an obvious fact which required no knowledge of physiology to establish; therefore, nothing was more natural than for primitive man to recognize that the child was of the mother's blood, but not of the father's blood. therefore, the child belonged to the mother's people and not to the father's people. if it be asked whether it is possible that there could be any human beings so ignorant that they do not know the physiological connection between father and child, the reply is, that this is apparently the case among a number of very primitive peoples, even down to recent times. it is not infrequent among these peoples to find conception and childbirth attributed to the influence of the spirits, rather than to relations between male and female. while, therefore, a social connection between the father and the children was recognized, leading the father to provide in all ways for his children, as fathers do whether among civilized or uncivilized peoples, yet the blood relationship between the father and the child could not have been clear in the most primitive times. perhaps an even more efficient cause, however, of the maternal system was the fact that the mother in primitive times was the stable element in the family life, the constant center of the family. the husband was frequently away from home, hunting or fighting, and oftentimes failed to return. nothing was more natural, therefore, than that the child should be reckoned as belonging to the mother, take her name and belong to her kindred or clan. moreover, after the custom of naming children from mothers and reckoning them as belonging to the mother's clan was established, it could not be displaced by the mere discovery of the physiological connection between the father and the child. on the contrary social habits, like habits in the individual, tend to persist until they work badly. we find, therefore, the maternal system persisting among peoples who for many generations had come fully to recognize the physiological connection of father and child. indeed, the maternal system could never have been done away with if social evolution had not brought about new and complex conditions which caused the system to break down and to be replaced by the paternal system. _the paternal or patriarchal family._ at a certain stage we find, then, that a vast revolution took place in human society, especially in the family life, and the family and society generally came to be organized more definitely in regard to the male element. at a certain period, indeed, we find that the authority of the husband and father in the family has become supreme, and that he is practically owner of all persons and property of the family group, the wife and children being reduced, if not to the position of property, at least to the position of subject persons. this is the patriarchal family, classical pictures of which we find set forth in the pages of the old testament. how, then, did the transition take place from the maternal system, in which the mother was so important in the family, to the paternal system, in which the father was so all-important? what were the causes which brought about the breakdown of the maternal system and the gradual development of the patriarchal family? some of these causes we can clearly make out from the study of social history. (1) war was unquestionably a cause of the breakdown of the maternal system through the fact that women were captured in war, held as slaves, and made wives or concubines by their captors. these captured wives were regarded as the property of the captor. any children born to them were, therefore, also regarded as the property of the captor. furthermore, these captured wives were separated from their kindred, and their children could not possibly belong to any clan except their husband's. manifestly this cause could not have worked in the earliest times, when slave captives were not valuable; but as soon as slavery became instituted in any form, then women slaves were particularly valued, not only for their labor, but because they might be either concubines or wives. it is evident, then, that war and slavery would thus indirectly tend to undermine the maternal system. (2) wife purchase would operate in the same way. among peoples that had developed a commercial life as well as slavery it early became the practice to purchase wives. it is evident that these purchased wives would be regarded as a sort of property, and the husband would naturally claim the children as belonging to him. among certain north american indians we find exactly this state of affairs. if a man married a wife without paying the purchase price for her, then her children took her name and belonged to her clan; but if he had purchased her, say with a number of blankets, then the children took his name and belonged to his clan. (3) the decisive cause, however, of the breakdown of the maternal system was the development of the pastoral stage of industry. now, the grazing of flocks and herds requires considerable territory and necessitates small and compact groups widely separated from one another. hence, in the pastoral stage the wife must go with the husband and be far removed from the influence and authority of her own kindred. this gave the husband greater power over his wife. moreover, the care of flocks and herds accentuated the value of the male laborer, while primitively woman had been the chief laborer. in the pastoral stage the man had the main burden of caring for the flocks and herds. under such circumstances nothing was more natural than that the authority of the owner of the family property should gradually become supreme in all matters, and we find, therefore, among all pastoral peoples that the family is itself a little political unit, the children taking the father's name, property and authority passing down along the male line, while the eldest living male is usually the ruler of the whole group. (4) after all these causes came another factor--ancestor worship. while ancestor worship exists to some extent among maternal peoples, it is usually not well-developed for some reason or other until the paternal stage is reached. ancestor worship, being the worship of the departed ancestors as heroes, seems to develop more readily where the line of ancestors are males. it may be suggested that the male ancestor is apt to be a more heroic figure than the female ancestor. at any rate, when ancestor worship became fully developed it powerfully tended to reenforce the authority of the patriarch, because he was, as the eldest living ancestor, the representative of the gods upon earth, therefore his power became almost divine. religion thus finally came in to place the patriarchal family upon a very firm basis. thus we see how each of these two great forms, the maternal family and the paternal family, arose out of natural conditions, and therefore they may be said to represent two great stages in the social evolution of man. it is hardly necessary to point out that civilized societies are now apparently entering upon a third stage, in which there will be relative equality given to the male and the female elements that go to make up the family. polyandry.--we must notice now the various forms of marriage by which the family has been constituted among different peoples and in different ages. marriage, like the family itself, is variable, and an indefinite number of forms may be found among various peoples. we shall notice, however, only the three leading forms,--polyandry, polygyny, and monogamy,--and attempt to show the natural conditions which favor each. it is evident that if we assume that the primitive form of the family was that of a simple pairing monogamy, the burden is laid upon us to show how such different types as polyandry and polygyny arose. polyandry, or the union of one woman with several men, is a relatively rare form of marriage and the family, found only in certain isolated regions of the world. it is particularly found in tibet, a barren and inhospitable plateau north of india and forming a part of the chinese empire. it is also found in certain other isolated mountainous regions in india, and down to recent times also in arabia. in none of these places does it exist exclusively, but rather alongside of monogamy and perhaps other forms of the family. thus in tibet the upper classes practice polygyny and monogamy, while among the lower classes we find polyandry and monogamy. in all these regions where polyandry occurs, moreover, it is to be noted that the conditions of life are harsh and severe. tibet is an exceptionally inhospitable region, with a climate of arctic rigor, the people living mainly by grazing. under such circumstances it is conceivably difficult for one man to support and protect a family. at any rate, the form of polyandry which we find in tibet suggests that such economic conditions may have been the main cause of its existence. ordinarily in tibet a polyandrous family is formed by an older brother taking a wife, and then admitting his younger brothers into partnership with him. the older brother is frequently absent from home, looking after the flocks, and in his absence one of the younger brothers assumes the headship of the family. under such circumstances we can see how the natural human instincts which would oppose polyandry under ordinary circumstances, namely, the jealousy of the male, might become greatly modified, or cease to act altogether. certain other conditions besides economic ones might also favor the existence of polyandry, such as the scarcity of women. summing up, we can say, then, that this rare form of the family seems to have as its causes: (1) in barren and inhospitable countries the labor of one man is sometimes found not sufficient to support a family. (2) also there probably exists in such regions an excess of males. this might be due to one of two causes: first, the practice of exposing female infants might lead to a scarcity of women; secondly, in such regions it is found that from causes not well understood a larger number of males are born. it may be noted as a general fact that when the conditions of life are hard in human society, owing to famine, war, or barrenness of the soil, a larger number of male births take place. we may therefore infer that this would disturb the numerical proportion of the sexes in such regions. (3) a third cause may be suggested as having something to do with the matter, namely, that habits of close inbreeding, or intermarriage, might perhaps tend to overcome the natural repugnance to such a relation. moreover, close inbreeding also, as the experiments of stock-breeders show, would tend to produce a surplus of male births, and so would act finally in the same way as the second cause. polygyny, [footnote: the word "polygamy" is too broad in its meaning to use as a scientific term for this form of the family. "polygamy" comes from two greek words meaning "much married;" hence it includes "polyandry" (having several husbands) and "polygyny" (having several wives).] or the union of one man with several women, is a much more common form of marriage. it is, in fact, to be found sporadically among all peoples and in all ages. it has perhaps existed at least sporadically from the most primitive times, because we find that at least one of the anthropoid apes, namely, the gorilla, practices it to some extent. it is manifest, however, that it could not have existed to any extent among primitive men, except where food supply was exceptionally abundant. in the main, polygyny is a later development, then, which comes in when some degree of wealth has been accumulated, that is, sufficient food supply to make it possible for one man to support several families. polygyny came in especially after women came to be captured in war and kept as slaves or wives. the practice of wife capture, indeed, and the honor attached to the custom, had much to do in making the practice of polygyny common among certain peoples. wherever slavery has existed, we may also note, polygyny, either in its legal form or in its illegal form of concubinage, has flourished. polygyny, indeed, is closely related with the institution of slavery and is practically coextensive with it. in the ancient world it existed among the hebrews and among practically all of the peoples of the orient, and also sporadically among our own teutonic ancestors. in modern times polygyny still exists among all the mohammedan peoples and to a greater or less degree among all semicivilized peoples. it exists in china in the form of concubinage. it even exists in the united states, for all the evidence seems to show that the utah mormons still practice polygyny to some extent, although it may be doubted whether polygynous unions are being formed among them at the present time. two facts always need to be borne in mind regarding polygyny: first, that wherever it is practiced it is relatively confined to the upper and wealthy classes, for the reason that the support of more than one family is something which only the wealthy classes in a given society could assume. secondly, it follows that under ordinary circumstances only a small minority of a given population practice polygyny, even in countries in which it is sanctioned. in mohammedan countries like turkey and egypt, for example, it is estimated that not more than five per cent of the families are polygynous, while in other regions the percentage seems to be still smaller. the reason for this is not only the economic one just mentioned, but that everywhere the sexes are relatively equal in numbers, and therefore it is impossible for polygyny to become a widespread general custom. if some men have more than one wife it is evident that other men will probably have to forego marriage entirely. this is not saying that under certain circumstances, namely, the importation of large numbers of women, a higher per cent of polygynous families may not exist. it is said that among the negroes on the west coast of africa the number of polygynous families reaches as high as fifty per cent, owing to the fact that female slaves are largely imported into that district, and that they serve not only as wives, but do the bulk of the agricultural labor, the male negro preferring female slaves, who can do his work and be wives at the same time, to male slaves. but such cases as these are altogether exceptional and manifestly could not become general. summing up, we may say that the causes of polygyny are, then: (1) first of all, the brutal lust of man. no doubt man's animal propensities have had much to do with the existence of this form of the family. nevertheless, while male sensuality is at the basis of polygyny, it would be a mistake to think that sensuality is an adequate explanation in all cases. on the contrary, we find many other causes, chiefly, perhaps, economic, operating also to favor the development of polygyny. (2) one of these is wife capture, as we have already seen. the captured women in war were held as trophies and slaves, and later became wives or concubines. among all peoples at a certain stage the honor of wife capture has alone been a prolific cause of polygyny. (3) another cause, after slavery became developed, was the high value set on women as laborers. among many barbarous peoples the women do the main part of the work. they are more tractable as slaves, and consequently a high value is set upon their labor. as we have already seen, these female slaves usually serve at the same time as concubines, if not legal wives of their masters. (4) another cause which we can perhaps hardly appreciate at the present time is the high valuation set on children. we see this cause operating particularly in the case of the patriarchs of the old testament. under the patriarchal family great value was set upon children as necessary to continue the family line. where the device of adoption was not resorted to, therefore, in case of barrenness or the birth exclusively of female children, nothing was more natural than that polygyny should be resorted to in order to insure the family succession. in the patriarchal family also a high valuation was necessarily set upon children, because the larger the family grew the stronger it was. (5) finally, religion came to sanction polygyny. the religious sanction of polygyny cannot be looked upon as one of its original causes, but when once established it reacted powerfully to reenforce and maintain the institution. how the religious sanction came about we can readily see when we remember that very commonly religions confuse the practice of the nobility with what is noble or commendable morally. the polygynous practices of the nobility, therefore, under certain conditions came to receive the sanction of religion. when this took place polygyny became firmly established as a social institution, very difficult to uproot, as all the experience of christian missionaries among peoples practicing polygyny goes to show. we may note also the general truth, that while religion does not originate human institutions or the forms of human association, it is preeminently that which gives fixity and stability to institutions through the supernatural sanction that it accords them. some judgment of the social value of polygyny may not be out of place in connection with this subject. admitting, as all students of social history must, that in certain times and places the polygynous form of family has been advantageous, has served the interests of social survival and even of civilization, yet viewed from the standpoint of present society it seems that our judgment of polygyny must be wholly unfavorable. in the first place, as we have already seen, polygyny is essentially an institution of barbarism. it arose largely through the practice of wife capture and the keeping of female slaves. while often adjusted to the requirements of barbarous societies, it seems in no way adjusted to a high civilization. polygyny, indeed, must necessarily rest upon the subjection and degradation of women. necessarily the practice of polygyny must disregard the feelings of women, for women are jealous creatures as well as men. no high regard for the feelings of women, therefore, would be consistent with the practice of polygyny. finally, all the evidence that we have goes to show that under polygyny children are neglected, and, at least from the standpoint of a high civilization, inadequately socialized. this must necessarily be so, because in the polygynous family the care of the children rests almost entirely with the mother. while we have no statistics of infant mortality from polygynous countries, it seems probable that infant mortality is high, and we know from experience with polygynous families in our own state of utah, according to the testimony of those who have worked among them, that delinquent children are especially found in such households. fatherhood, in the full sense of the word, can hardly be said to exist under polygyny. those philosophers, like schopenhauer, who advocate the legalizing of polygyny in civilized countries, are hardly worth replying to. it is safe to say that any widespread practice of polygyny in civilized communities would lead to a reversion to the moral standards of barbarism in many if not in all matters. that polygyny is still a burning question in the united states of the twentieth century is merely good evidence that we are not very far removed yet from barbarism. monogamy, as we have already seen, has been the prevalent form of marriage in all ages and in all countries. wherever other forms have existed monogamy has existed alongside of them as the dominant, even though perhaps not the socially honored, form. all other forms of the family must be regarded as sporadic variations, on the whole unsuited to long survival, because essentially inconsistent with the nature of human society. in civilized europe monogamy has been the only form of the family sanctioned for ages by law, custom, and religion. the leading peoples of the world, therefore, practice monogamy, and it is safe to say that the connection between monogamy and progressive forms of civilization is not an accident. what, then, are the social advantages of monogamy which favor the development of a higher type of culture? these advantages are numerous, but perhaps the most important of them can be grouped under six heads. (1) the number of the two sexes, as we have already seen, is everywhere approximately equal. this means that monogamy is in harmony with the biological conditions that exist in the human species. the equal number of the two sexes has probably been brought about through natural selection. why nature should favor this proportion of the sexes can perhaps be in part understood when we reflect that with such proportion there can be the largest number of family groups, and hence the best possible conditions for the rearing of offspring. (2) monogamy secures the superior care of children in at least two respects. first, it very greatly decreases mortality in children, because under monogamy both husband and wife unite in their care. again, monogamy secures the superior upbringing and, therefore, the superior socialization of the child. in the monogamous family much greater attention can be given to the training of children by both parents. in other forms of the family not only is the death rate higher among children, but from the point of view of modern civilization, at least, they are inferiorly socialized. (3) the monogamic family alone produces affections and emotions of the higher type. it is only in the monogamic family that the highest type of altruistic affection can be cultivated. it is difficult to understand, for example, how anything like unselfish affection between husband and wife can exist under polygyny. under monogamy, husband and wife are called upon to sacrifice selfish desires in the mutual care of children. monogamy is, therefore, fitted as a form of the family to foster altruism in the highest degree, and, as we have seen, the higher the type of altruism produced by the family life, the higher the type of the social life generally, other things being equal. it is especially to the credit of monogamy that it has created fatherhood in the fullest sense of the term, and therefore taught the male element in human society the value of service and self-sacrifice. under polygynous conditions the father cannot devote himself to any extent to his children or to any one wife, since he is really the head of several households, and therefore, as we have already noted, fatherhood in the fullest sense scarcely exists under polygyny. (4) under monogamy, moreover, all family relationships are more definite and strong, and thus family bonds, and ultimately social bonds, are stronger. in the polygynous household the children of the different wives are half brothers and half sisters, hence family affection has little chance to develop among them, and as a matter of fact between children of different wives there is constant pulling and hauling. moreover, because the children in a polygynous family are only half brothers this immensely complicates relationships, and even the line of ancestors. legal relations and all blood relationships are, therefore, more entangled. it is no inconsiderable social merit of monogamy that it makes blood relationships simple and usually perfectly definite. all of this has an effect upon society at large, because the cohesive power of blood relationship, even in modern societies, is something still worth taking into account. but of course the main influence of all this is to be found in the family group itself, because it is only under such simple and definite relations as we find in the monogamous family that there is ample stimulus to develop the higher family affections. (5) from all this it follows that monogamy favors the development of high types of religion and morals, family affection being an indispensable root of any high type of ethical religion. that form of the family which favors the development of the highest type of this affection will, therefore, favor the development of the highest type of religion. we see this even more plainly, perhaps, in ancient times than in the present time, because it was monogamy that favored the development of ancestor worship through making the line of ancestors clear and definite, and thus monogamy helped to develop this type of religion, which became the basis of still higher types. (6) monogamy not only favors the preservation of the lives of the children, but also favors the preservation of the lives of the parents, because it is only under monogamy that we find aged parents cared for by their children to any extent. under polygyny the wife who has grown old is discarded for a young wife, and usually ends her days in bitterness. the father, too, under polygyny is rarely cared for by the children, because the polygynous household has never given the opportunity for close affections between parents and children. that monogamy, therefore, helps to lengthen life through favoring care of parents by children in old age is an element in its favor, for it adds not a little to the happiness of life, and so to the strength of social bonds, that people do not have to look forward to a cheerless and friendless old age. in brief, the monogamic family presents such superior unity and harmony from every point of view that it is much more fitted to produce a higher type of culture. from whatever point of view we may look at it, therefore, there are many reasons why civilized societies cannot afford to sanction any other form of the family than that of monogamy. the relation of the form of the family to the form of industry.--as we have already seen, the form of the family is undoubtedly greatly influenced by the form of industry. this is so markedly the case that some sociologists and economists have claimed that the form of the family life is but a reflection of the form of the industrial life; that the family in its changes and variations slavishly follows the changes in economic conditions. that such an extreme view as this is a mistake can readily be seen from a brief review of the causes which have produced certain types of family life in certain periods. thus, the maternal type of the family cannot be said by any means to have been determined by economic conditions. on the contrary, primarily the maternal family, as we have seen, was determined by certain intellectual conceptions, namely, the absence of knowledge of the physiological connection between father and child, though the economic conditions of primitive life tended powerfully to continue the maternal family long after intellectual conditions had changed. again, it has been said that the patriarchal family owed its existence entirely to a form of industry, namely, pastoral industry, but, as we have seen, other factors also operated to produce the patriarchal type of the family, such as war, religion, and perhaps man's inherent desire to dominate. moreover, religion continued the patriarchal family in many cases long after pastoral industry had ceased to be the chief economic form. so too with the forms of marriage. while polygyny has been claimed to be due entirely to economic causes, we have seen that these so-called economic causes have only been the opportunities for the polygynous instincts of man to assert themselves. these polygynous instincts of man have asserted themselves more or less under all conditions of society, but under certain conditions, when there was an accumulation of wealth, and especially with the institution of slavery, they had greater opportunity to assert themselves than elsewhere. thus the basic cause of polygyny is not economic, but psychological; and given certain moral and economic conditions of society, these polygynous tendencies assert themselves. monogamy, on the other hand, has in no sense been determined by economic conditions but is fundamentally determined by the biological fact of the numerical equality of the sexes. this is doubtless the main reason why monogamy has been the prevalent form of the family everywhere. certain moral and psychological factors which go along with the development of higher types of culture have, however, powerfully reenforced monogamy. it is doubtful if economic conditions can to any extent be shown to have equally reenforced the monogamic life. our conclusion must be, then, that while the form of the family and the form of industry are closely related, so closely that the form of industry continually affects more or less the family life, yet there is no reason for concluding that the form of the family is wholly or even chiefly determined by the form of industry. select references _for brief reading:_ westermarck, _history of human marriage_, chaps. xx-xxii. _for more extended reading:_ mclennan, _the patriarchal theory._ morgan, _ancient society._ parsons, _the family._ wake, _the development of marriage and kinship._ chapter vi the historical development of the family while we cannot enter into the historical evolution of the family as an institution among the different civilized peoples, still it will be profitable for us to consider the history of the family among some single representative people in order that we may see the forces which have made and unmade the family life, and incidentally also to a great degree, the general social life of that people. we shall select the ancient romans as the people among whom we can thus best study in outline the development of the family. while the family life of the ancient hebrews is of particular interest to us because of the close connection of our religion and ethics with that of the hebrews, yet in the family life of the ancient romans constructive and destructive factors are more clearly marked and, therefore, the study of ancient roman family life is best fitted to bring out those factors. the ancient romans were among the earliest civilized of the aryan peoples, and their institutions are, therefore, of peculiar interest to us as representing approximately the early aryan type. what we shall say concerning roman family life, moreover, will apply, with some modifications and qualifications, to the family life of other aryan peoples, especially the greeks. the greeks and the romans, indeed, were so closely related in their early culture that for the purpose of institutional history they may be considered practically one people. without any attempt, then, to sketch the history of the family as an institution in general, let us note some of the salient features of the family life of the ancient romans. the early roman family.--(1) _ancestor worship as the basis of the early roman family._ what we have said thus far indicates a close connection between the family life and religion among all peoples. this was especially true of the early romans. it may be said, indeed, that ancestor worship was the constitutive principle of their family life. among them the family seemed to have lost in part its character as a purely social institution and to have become specialized into a religious institution. at any rate, the early roman family existed very largely for the sake of perpetuating the worship of ancestors. of course, ancestor worship could have had nothing to do with the origin of the family life among the romans. the type of their family life was patriarchal, and we have already noticed the causes which brought about the existence of the patriarchal family. but while ancestor worship had nothing to do with the origin of the family, once it was thoroughly established it became the basis of the family life and transformed the family as an institution. the early romans shared certain superstitions with many primitive peoples, which, if not the basis of ancestor worship, powerfully reinforced it. they believed, for example, that the soul continued in existence after death, and that persons would be unhappy unless buried in tombs with suitable offerings, and that if left unburied, or without suitable offerings, the souls of these persons would return to torment the living, inasmuch as in the patriarchal family only sons could perform religious rites, that is, could make offerings to the departed spirits, these superstitions acted as a powerful stimulus to preserve the family in order that offerings might continue to be made at the graves of ancestors. thus, as we have already said, among the early romans the family was practically a religious institution with ancestor worship as its constitutive principle. it is supposed by de coulanges that in the earliest times the dead ancestors were buried beneath the hearth. at any rate, the hearth was the place where offerings were made to the departed ancestors, and the flame on the hearth was believed to represent the spirit of the departed. the house under such circumstances became a temple and the whole atmosphere of the family life was necessarily a religious one. (2) _the authority in the early roman family_ was vested, as in all patriarchal families, in the father or eldest living male of the family group. under ancestor worship he became the living representative of the departed ancestors, the link between the living and the dead. here we may note that the family was not considered as constituted simply of its living members, but that it included also all of its dead members. inasmuch as the dead were more numerous and were thought to be more powerful than the living, they were by far the more important element in the life of the family. the position of the house father, as representative of the departed ancestors, and as the link between the living and the dead, naturally made his authority almost divine. hence, the house father was himself, then, almost a deity, having absolute power over all persons within the group, even to the extent of life and death. this absolute power, which was known in the early roman family as the "patria potestas," could not, however, be exercised arbitrarily. the house father, as representative of the departed ancestors, was necessarily controlled by religious scruples and traditions. it was impossible for him to act other than for what he believed to be the will of the ancestors. disobedience to him was, therefore, disobedience to the divine ancestors, and hence was sacrilegious. (3) _relationship in the early roman family_ was determined by community of worship, inasmuch as only descendants upon the male side could perform religious rites, and inasmuch as married women worshiped the household gods of their husbands' ancestors; therefore, only descendants on the male side could worship the same ancestors and were relatives in the full religious and legal sense. these were known as "agnates." later, some relationship on the mother's side came to be recognized, but relatives on the mother's side were known as a "cognates," and for a long time property could not pass to them. indeed, in the earliest times the property of the family, as we have already implied, was kept as a unit, held in trust by the eldest living member of the family group for the good of all the family. in other words, the house father in earliest times did not possess the right to make a will but the property of the family passed intact from him to his eldest male heir. (4) _the marriage ceremony among the early romans_ was necessarily of a religious character. it was constituted essentially of the induction of the bride into the worship of her husband's ancestors. but before this could be done the bride's father had first to free her from the worship of her household gods, in later times a certificate of manumission being given not unlike the manumission of the slave. after the bride had been released from the worship of her father's ancestors, the bridegroom and his friends brought her to his father's house, where a ceremony of adoption was practically gone through with, adopting the bride into the family of her husband. the essence of this ceremony, as we have already said, was the induction of the bride into the worship of her husband's ancestors through their both making an offering on the family hearth and eating a sacrificial meal together. after that the wife worshiped at her husband's altar and had no claim upon the household gods of her father. under such circumstances it is not surprising that marriage was practically indissoluble. a wife who was driven out of her husband's household or deserted was without family gods of any sort, having no claim upon those of her husband, and became, therefore, a social outcast. under such circumstances it is not surprising that divorce was practically unknown. it is said, indeed, that for five hundred and twenty years after rome was founded there was not a single divorce in rome. while this may be an exaggeration, it is historically certain that divorce was so rare in early rome as to be practically unknown. in case of a failure of sons to be born there was no taking of a second wife, as among the hebrews. polygyny was unknown in early rome. the roman device to prevent the failure of the family succession in such cases was adoption. younger sons of other families were adopted if no sons were born, and these adopted sons, taking the family name, became the same legally as sons by birth. inasmuch as the position of younger sons in the patriarchal household was not an enviable one there was never lack of candidates for the position of eldest son in some family group in which no sons had been born. not only was the early roman family life the most stable that the world has ever known, but it must also be considered to have been of a relatively pure type. chastity was rigidly enforced among the women, but of course, as in all primitive peoples, was not enforced among the men. still it was expected that the married men at least should remain relatively faithful to their wives. on the whole, therefore, the early roman family life must be judged to have been of a singularly high and stable type. while the position of women and children in the early roman family was one of subjection, the family itself was nevertheless of a high type. but it was inevitable that it should decay, and this decay began comparatively early. inasmuch as the early roman family was based upon ancestor worship, a religion which was fitted for relatively small isolated groups, it was inevitable that the family life should decay with this ancestor worship. how early the decay of ancestor worship began it is impossible to say. perhaps the nature gods, jupiter, venus, and the rest, existed alongside of ancestor worship from the earliest times. at any rate, we find their worship growing rapidly within the period of authentic history and undermining the domestic worship, while at a still later period skeptical philosophy undermined both religions. along with the decay of ancestor worship went many economic and political changes which marked the dissolution of the patriarchal family. let us see what some of the steps in this decadence were. (5) _the decadence,_ (a) one of the earliest steps toward the breaking down of the patriarchal family which we find is the limiting of the power of the house father. this took place very early--as soon as the council of elders, or senate, was formed to look after matters of collective interest. gradually the paternal power diminished, until it was confined to matters concerning the family group proper. (b) a second step was when the right to make a will was conceded. this right, as we have seen, did not exist in the earliest roman times, but with the development of property and of a more complex economic life the house father was given the right to divide his property among his children, at first only on the male side, but later among any of his children, and still later to bequeath it to whom he pleased. (c) thus women came to be given the right to hold property, a thing which was unknown in the earliest times; and becoming property holders, their other rights in many respects began to increase. originally the wife had no right to divorce her husband, but in the second century b.c. women also gained the right of divorcing their husbands. (d) the rights of children were increased along with the rights of women, particularly of younger children. (e) the right of plebeians to intermarry with the noble families became recognized. all of these changes we should perhaps regard as good in themselves, but they nevertheless marked the disintegration of the patriarchal family. the decay of the family life did not stop with these changes, however, but went on to the decay of the family bonds themselves. later roman family life.--by the beginning of the christian era the relations between the sexes had become very loose. men not only frequently divorced their wives, but women frequently divorced their husbands. indeed, a complete revolution passed over the roman family. marriage became a private contract, whereas, as we have seen, in the beginning it was a religious bond. many loose forms of marriage were developed, which amounted practically to temporary marriages. in all cases it was easy for a husband or wife to divorce each other for very trivial causes. among certain classes of roman society the instability of the family became so great that we find seneca saying that there were women who reckoned their years by their husbands, and juvenal recording one woman as having eight husbands in five years. women and children achieved their practical emancipation, as we would say. women, especially, were free to do as they saw fit. marriages were formed and dissolved at pleasure among certain classes, and among all classes the instability of the family life had become very great. along with all this, of course, went a growth of vice. it is not too much to say that the romans of the first and second centuries a.d. approached as closely to a condition of promiscuity as any civilized people of which we have knowledge. _causes of the decadence_. when we examine the causes of this great revolution in roman family life from the austere morals and stable family of the early romans to the laxity and promiscuity of the later romans, we find that these causes can perhaps be grouped under four or five principal heads, (1) first among all the causes we must put the destruction of the domestic religion, namely, ancestor worship, through the growth of nature worship and skeptical philosophy. the destruction of the domestic religion necessarily shattered the foundations of the roman family, since, as we have already seen, there was the closest connection between the family life of the early romans and ancestor worship. but it is not probable that ancestor worship was destroyed merely through the growth of nature worship and of skeptical philosophy. as we have already seen, it was a religion which was mainly adapted to isolated groups. changes in economic and political conditions, therefore, were to some extent prior to the decay of the domestic religion. (2) changes in economic conditions, that is, in the form of industry, were, then, among the more important causes of the decay of the early roman family. the patriarchal family, as we have already seen, belonged essentially to the pastoral stage of industry, and as soon as settled agricultural life, commerce, and manufacturing industry developed, this destroyed the isolated patriarchal groups, and so also in time affected even the religion which was their basis. again, the increase of population going along with the changes in the methods in obtaining a living destroyed the old conditions under which the family had been the political unit. (3) we have therefore as a third cause the breaking up of old political conditions. family groups were welded into small cities and the authority of the patriarch was destroyed. legislation designed to meet the new social conditions often profoundly affected the whole family group, and weakened family bonds. (4) the growth of divorce and of vice may be put down as a fourth cause of the decay of the roman family. some may say that this was an effect of the decay of the roman family rather than a cause, but it was also a cause as well as an effect, for it is a peculiarity of social life that what is at one stage an effect reacts to become a cause at a later stage; and this was certainly the case with the growth of divorce and vice in rome, in its effect upon the roman family. moreover, much of this came from greece through imitation. the family life had decayed in greece much earlier than it had in rome, and when rome conquered greece it annexed its vices also. while the most radical social changes do not usually come about merely through imitation, yet the imitation of a foreign people is frequently, in the history of a particular nation, one of the most potent causes in bringing about social changes. it was certainly so in the case of the growth of divorce and vice in rome. to sum up and to generalize: we may say that the causes of the decay of the roman family life were very complex, and that this is true of nearly all important social changes. it is impossible to reduce the causes of these changes to any single principle or set of causes. while we have seen that changes in economic conditions were undoubtedly very influential in bringing about the profound changes in the roman family, still we have no ground for regarding the economic changes as determinative of all the rest. we know as yet little of the development of industry in antiquity. what little we do know, however, furnishes good ground for claiming that changes in the methods of getting a living are among the most influential causes of social change in general; but there is nothing which warrants the sweeping generalization of karl marx and his followers, "that the method of the production of the material life determines the social, political, and spiritual life process in general." on the contrary, the evolution of the roman family clearly shows moral and psychological factors at work quite independent of economic causes. the decay of ancestor worship, for example, cannot be wholly attributed to the change in the method of getting a living. the very growth of population and accompanying changes in political conditions probably had quite as much to do with the undermining of ancestor worship. moreover, while religion may not be an original determining cause of social forms, it is, nevertheless, as we have already seen, especially that which gives them stability and permanency, so much so that the life history of a culture is frequently the life history of a religion. the decay of religious ideas and beliefs, therefore, from any cause, frequently proves the important element working for social change in all societies. so, too, changes in political conditions, especially changes in law through new legislation, frequently prove a profound modifying influence in societies. lastly, there are certain moral causes inherent in the individual, oftentimes involving perverted expressions of instinct, which lead to profound social changes. such was the vice which rome copied very largely from greece, but which proved the final solvent in its family life. in general we may say, then, that there is no single principle which will explain the evolution of the family from the earliest times down to the present. any attempt to reduce the evolution of the family to a single principle, or to show that it has been controlled by a single set of causes, must inevitably end in failure. the economic determinism of marx and his followers, the ideological conceptions of hegel, the geographical influences of buckle and his school, and like explanations, are all found wanting when they are applied to the actual history of the family. it is not different with the theories of recent sociologists, who would strive to explain all social changes through a single principle. professor giddings' principle of "consciousness of kind" and tarde's principle of "imitation" will not go further in explaining the changes in the family life than some of the older principles that we have just mentioned. human life is, indeed, too complex to be explained in terms of any single principle or any single set of causes. the family in particular is an organic structure which responds first to one set of stimuli and then to another. now it is modified by economic conditions, now by religious ideas, now by legislation, now by imitation, and so on through the whole set of possible stimuli which may impinge upon and modify the activity of a living organism. so it is with all institutions. the influence of christianity upon the family.--while we cannot study further the evolution of the family in any detail, still it is necessary, in order to avoid too great discontinuity, to notice in a few sentences the influence of christianity upon the family in western civilization. early christianity, as we have already seen, found the family life of the greco-roman world demoralized. the reconstruction of the family became, therefore, one of the first tasks of the new religion, and while other circumstances may have aided the church in this work, still on the whole it was mainly the influence of the early church that reconstituted the family life. from the first the church worked to abolish divorce, and fought as evil such vices as concubinage and prostitution, that came to flourish to such an extent in the pagan world. only very slowly did the early leaders of the church win the mass of the people to accepting their views as to the permanency of the marriage bond. in order to aid in making this bond more stable the early church recognized marriage as one of the sacraments, and, as implied, steadily opposed the idea of the later roman law that marriage was simply a private contract. the result was, eventually, that marriage came to be regarded again as a religious bond, and the family life took on once more the aspect of great stability. after the church had come fully into power in the western world, legal divorce ceased to be recognized and legal separation was substituted in its stead. thus the church succeeded in reconstituting the family life upon a stable basis, but the family after being reconstituted, was of a semipatriarchal type. nothing was more natural than this, for the church had no model to go by except the paternal family of the hebrew and greek and roman civilization. nevertheless, the place of women and children in this semipatriarchal religious family established by the church was higher on the whole than in the ancient patriarchal family. the church put an end to the exposure of children, which had been common in rome, and protected childhood in many ways. it also exalted the place of woman in the family, though leaving her subject to her husband. the veneration of the virgin tended particularly to give women an honored place socially and religiously. only by the advocacy and practice of ascetic doctrines may the early church be said to have detracted from the social valuation of the family. on the whole the reconstituting of the family by the church must be regarded as its most striking social work. but the thing for us to note particularly is that the type of the family life created by the church was what we might call a semipatriarchal type, in which the importance of husband and father was very much out of proportion to all the rest of the members of the family group. it was this semipatriarchal family which persisted down to the nineteenth century. select references _for brief reading:_ de coulanges, _the ancient city_, chaps. i-x. lecky, _history of european morals_, chap. v. schmidt, _social results of early christianity_, chap. ii. _for more extended reading:_ hearn, _the aryan household._ howard, _history of matrimonial institutions._ grote, _history of greece._ mommsen, _the history of rome._ _on the early hebrew family:_ mccurdy, _history, prophecy, and the monuments_, vol. ii. robertson smith, _kinship and marriage in early arabia_. _on the early german family:_ gummere, _germanic origins._ chapter vii the problem of the modern family passing over the changes which affected the family during the middle ages and the still more striking changes which came through the reformation, we must now devote ourselves to the study of the problems of the family as it exists at present. the religious theory of the family which prevailed during the middle ages, but which was more or less undermined by the reformation, gave away entirely in those great social changes which ushered in the nineteenth century. again, the view that marriage was a private contract came to prevail among the mass of the people, and even to be embodied in a great many of the constitutions and laws of the nineteenth century. at the same time profound economic changes tended largely to individualize society, and these were reflected in the democratic movement toward forms of popular government, which have tended on the whole to make the individual the political unit. the nineteenth century was, then, in all respects a period of great social change and unrest. moreover, the growth of wealth has favored, in certain classes at least, lower moral standards and increasing laxity in family relationships. thus it happens that we find the family life at the beginning of the twentieth century in a more unstable condition than it has been at any time since the beginning of the christian era. the instability of the modern family is, indeed, so great that many have thought that the family, as an institution, in its present form at least, of permanent monogamy, will pass away. there can be no doubt, at any rate, that the whole problem of the modern family centers in the matter of its instability, that is, in divorce. the study of the divorce movement, then, will throw more light upon the condition of the modern family than the study of anything else. the instability of the modern family has been most evident in the united states. hence, it is particularly american conditions that will concern us, although undoubtedly the disintegration of the family is not a peculiarly american phenomenon; rather it has characterized more or less all modern civilization, but is especially in evidence in america because american society has exaggerated the industrialism and individualism which are characteristic of western civilization in general. without devoting too much time to the consideration of divorce statistics in their technical aspects, let us note, then, some of the main outlines of the modern divorce movement in this and other civilized countries. statistics of divorce in the united states and other civilized countries.--for a long time the united states has led the world in the number of its divorces. already in 1885 this country had more divorces than all the rest of the christian civilized world put together. these statistics of the number of divorces granted in different civilized countries in 1885 (taken from professor w. f. willcox's monograph on _the divorce problem_) are of sufficient interest to cite at length: united states...................... 23,472 france............................. 6,245 germany............................ 6,161 russia............................. 1,789 austria............................ 1,718 switzerland........................ 920 denmark............................ 635 italy.............................. 556 great britain and ireland.......... 508 roumania........................... 541 holland............................ 339 belgium............................ 290 sweden............................. 229 australia.......................... 100 norway............................. 68 canada............................. 12 it will be noted that in this particular year (1885), when the united states had 23,472 divorces, all the other countries mentioned together had only 20,131. for 1905, twenty years later, the following statistics are available: united states...................... 67,976 germany............................ 11,147 france............................. 10,860 austria-hungary.................... 5,785 switzerland........................ 1,206 belgium............................ 901 holland............................ 900 italy (1904)....................... 859 great britain and ireland.......... 821 denmark............................ 549 sweden............................. 448 norway............................. 408 australia.......................... 339 new zealand........................ 126 canada............................. 33 it is evident from the above figures that the united states has more than kept its lead over the rest of the world in this matter of dissolving family ties, for it would seem probable from these figures that in 1905, when the united states had nearly 68,000 divorces, all the rest of the christian civilized world put together had less than 40,000. moreover, the divorce rates of the different countries tell the same story. in 1905 in france, there was only one divorce to every thirty marriages; in germany, but one to every forty-four marriages; in england, but one to every four hundred marriages. even in switzerland, which has the highest divorce rate of any country of europe, there was only one divorce in 1905 to every twenty-two marriages. let us compare these rates with that of the united states, and particularly with the rates of several of the states that lead in the matter of divorces. in 1905 there was in the united states about one divorce to every twelve marriages, but the state of washington had one divorce to every four marriages; montana, one divorce to every five marriages; colorado, texas, arkansas, and indiana all had one divorce to every six marriages; california and maine had one divorce to every seven marriages; new hampshire, missouri, and kansas, one divorce to every eight marriages. while these rates are those of the states in which divorces are most numerous, yet, nevertheless, the number of states in which the divorce rates range from one to every six marriages to one to ten marriages are so numerous that they may be said to be fairly representative of american conditions generally. some cities and localities have, of course, even higher divorce rates than any of the states that have been named. according to the united states census bulletin no. 20, there was in 1903 one divorce in kansas city, missouri, to every four marriages, and one divorce in the city of san francisco to every three marriages. _increase of divorces in the united states._ not only does the united states lead the world in the number of its divorces, but apparently divorces are increasing in this country much more rapidly than the population. in 1867, the first year for which statistics for the country as a whole were gathered, there were 9937 divorces in the united states, but by 1906, the last year for which we have statistics, the total number of divorces granted in this country, yearly, had reached 72,062. again, from 1867 to 1886 there were 328,716 divorces granted in the united states, but during the next twenty years, from 1887 to 1906, the number reached 945,625, or almost a total of 1,000,000 divorces granted in twenty years. again, from 1867 to 1886 the number of divorces increased 157 per cent, while the population increased only about 60 per cent; from 1887 to 1906 the number of divorces increased over 160 per cent, while the population increased only slightly over 50 per cent. thus it is evident that divorces are increasing in the united states three times as fast as the increase of population. it becomes, therefore, a matter of some curious interest to speculate upon what will be the end of this movement. if divorces should continue to increase as they have during the past forty years, it is evident that it would not be long before all marriages would be terminated by divorce instead of by death. in 1870, 3.5 per cent of all marriages were terminated by divorce; in 1880, 4.8 per cent were terminated by divorce, and in 1900, about 8 per cent. professor willcox has estimated that if this increasing divorce rate continues, by 1950 one fourth of all marriages in the united states will be terminated by divorce, and in 1990 one half of all marriages. thus we are apparently within measurable distance of a time when, if present tendencies continue, the family, as a permanent union between husband and wife, lasting until death, shall cease to be. at least, it is safe to say that in a population where one half of all marriages will be terminated by divorce the social conditions would be no better than those in the rome of the decadence. we cannot imagine such a state of affairs without the existence alongside of it of widespread promiscuity, neglect of childhood, and general social demoralization. without, however, stopping at this point to discuss the results or the effects of the divorce movement upon society, let us now consider for a moment how these divorces are distributed among the various elements and classes of our population. _distribution of divorces._ it is usually thought by those who have observed the matter most carefully that divorce especially characterizes the wealthy classes and the laboring classes, but is least common among the middle classes. we have no statistics to bear out this belief, but it seems probable that it is substantially correct. the divorce statistics which we have, however, indicate certain striking differences in the distribution of divorces by classes and communities. (1) the divorce rate is higher in the cities than in their surrounding country districts. we have just noted, for example, that the divorce rate in kansas city, missouri, is one divorce to every four marriages, while in the state as a whole it is one to every eight marriages. there are, however, certain exceptions to this generalization. (2) a curious fact that the census statistics show is that apparently the divorce rate is about four times as high among childless couples as among couples that have children. this doubtless does not mean that domestic unhappiness is four times more common in families where there are no children than in families that have children, but it does show, nevertheless, that the parental instinct, is now, as in primitive times, a powerful force to bind husband and wife together. (3) while we have no statistics from this country telling us exactly what the distribution of divorces is among the various religious denominations, still we know that because the roman catholic church is strongly against divorce, divorces are very rare in that denomination. in switzerland, where the number of divorces among protestants and catholics has been noted, it is found that divorces are four times as common among protestants as among catholics. some observers in this country have claimed that divorces are most common among those of no religious profession, next most common among protestants, next among jews, and least common among roman catholics. (4) from this we might expect, as our statistics indicate, that the divorce rate is much higher among the native whites in this country than it is among the foreign born, for many of the foreign born are roman catholics, and, in any case, they come from countries where divorce is less common than in the united states. (5) for the last forty years two thirds of all divorces have been granted on demand of the wife. this may indicate, on the one hand, that the increase of divorces is a movement connected with the emancipation of woman, and on the other hand it may indicate that it is the husband who usually gives the ground for divorce. (6) the census statistics show three great centers of divorce in the united states. one is the new england states, one the states of the central west, and one the rocky mountain and pacific coast states. these three centers are also typical centers of american institutions and ideas. the individualism of the new england, the central west, and the rocky mountain and pacific coast regions has always been marked in comparison with some other sections of the country. but during the last twenty years divorce has also been increasing rapidly in the southern states, and we now find such states as texas, arkansas, and oklahoma well up toward the front among the states with a high divorce rate. this distribution of divorces among the various elements and classes of the country suggests something as to the causes of divorce, and this will come out fully later in a discussion of the causes of the increase of divorce. the grounds for granting divorce.--there are no less than thirty-six distinct grounds for absolute divorce recognized by the laws of the several states, ranging from only one ground recognized in new york to fourteen grounds recognized in new hampshire. for this reason some have supposed that many of the divorces in this country are granted on comparatively trivial grounds. several states have, for example, what is known as an "omnibus clause," granting divorce for mere incompatibility and the like. but the examination of divorce statistics shows that very few divorces are granted on trivial grounds. on the contrary, most divorces seem to be granted for grave reasons, such as adultery, desertion, cruelty, imprisonment for crime, habitual drunkenness, and neglect on the part of the husband to provide for his family. these are usually recognized as grave reasons for the dissolution of the marriage tie. none of them at least could be said to be trivial. professor willcox showed that for the twenty year period, 1867 to 1886, over ninety-seven per cent of all divorces were granted for these six principal causes. moreover, he also showed that over sixty per cent were granted for the two most serious causes of all,--adultery and desertion. again, of the one million divorces granted from 1887 to 1906 over ninety-four per cent were granted for the six principal causes and over fifty-five per cent for adultery and desertion, while in still other cases adultery and desertion figured in combination with other causes (a total of over sixty-two per cent in all). therefore, it seems probable that in nearly two thirds of the cases the marriage bond had already practically been dissolved before the courts stepped in to make the dissolution formal. we must conclude, therefore, that divorce is prevalent not because of the laxity of our laws, but rather because of the decay of our family life; that divorce is but a symptom of the disintegration of the modern family, particularly the american family. in other words, divorce is but a symptom of more serious evils, and these evils have in certain classes of american society apparently undermined the very virtues upon which the family life subsists. this is not saying that vice is more prevalent to-day than it was fifty years ago. we have no means of knowing whether it is or not, and there may well be a difference of opinion upon such a subject. it is the opinion of some eminent authorities that there has been no growth of vice in the united states along with the growth of divorce, but this would seem to be doubtful. the very causes for which divorce is granted suggest a demoralization of certain classes. while there may not have been, therefore, any general growth of vice in the united states along with the growth of divorce, it is conceivable that it may have increased greatly in certain classes of american society. be this as it may, it is not necessary to assume that there has been any growth of vice in the american population, for if actual moral practices are no higher than they were fifty years ago that alone would be a sufficient reason to explain considerable disintegration of our family life. it is an important truth in sociology that the morality which suffices for a relatively simple social life, largely rural, such as existed in this country fifty years ago, is not sufficient for a more complex society which is largely urban, such as exists at the present time. moreover, recognized moral standards within the past fifty years have largely been raised through the growth of general intelligence. it follows that immoral acts, which were condoned fifty years ago and which produced but slight social effect, to-day meet with great reprobation and have far greater social consequences than a generation ago. this is particularly true of the standards which the wife imposes upon the husband. for centuries, as we have already seen, the husband has secured divorce for adultery of the wife, but for centuries no divorce was given to the wife for the adultery of the husband; and this is even true to-day in modern england, unless the adultery of the husband be accompanied by other flagrant violations of morality. conduct on the part of the husband, which the wife overlooked, therefore, a generation ago, is to-day sufficient to disrupt the family bonds and become a ground for the granting of a divorce. even if vice, then, has not increased in our population, if moral practices are no higher to-day than fifty years ago, we should expect that this alone would have far different consequences now than then. the growth of intelligence and of higher and more complex forms of social organization necessitates realization of higher standards of conduct if the institutions of society are to retain their stability. but there are grave reasons for believing that there has been in certain classes of society a decay of the very virtues upon which the family rests, for the family life requires not only chastity, but even more the virtues of self-sacrifice, loyalty, obedience, and self-subordination. now there is abundant evidence to show that these particular virtues which belong to a self-subordinating life are those which have suffered most in the changes and new adjustments of modern society. we have replaced these virtues largely by those of self-interest, self-direction, and self-assertiveness. causes of the increase of divorce in the united states.--let us note somewhat more in detail the causes of the increased instability of the american family during the past four or five decades. we have already in a rough way indicated some of these causes in studying the distribution of divorce and the grounds upon which it is granted. but the causes of the instability of the family so affect our whole social life and all of our institutions that they are well worth somewhat more detailed study. (1) as the first of these causes of the increase of divorce in the united states we should put the decay of religion, particularly of the religious theory of marriage and the family. as we have already seen, no stable family life has existed anywhere in history without a religious basis, but within the last few decades religious sentiments, beliefs, and ideals have become largely dissociated from marriage and the family, and the result is that many people regard the institutions of marriage and the family as a matter of personal convenience. this decay of the religious view of the marriage bond has, however, had other antecedent causes, partially in the moral and intellectual spirit of our civilization, partially in our industrial conditions. (2) we should put, therefore, as a second cause of the increase of divorces in this country the growing spirit of individualism. by individualism we mean here the spirit of self-assertion and self-interest, the spirit which leads a man to find his law in his own wishes, or even in his whims and caprices. now, this growing spirit of individualism is undoubtedly more destructive of the social life than anything else. it makes unstable all institutions, and especially the family, because the family must rest upon very opposite characteristics. our democratic government, the development of our industry, and our education have all been responsible to some extent for making the individual take his own interests and wishes as his law. (3) moreover, this individualism has spread within the last fifty years especially among the women of the population, and a great movement has sprung up which is known as the "woman's rights movement," or simply the "woman's movement." now this woman's movement has accompanied and in part effected the emancipation of women legally, mentally, and economically. the result is that women, as a class, have become as much individualized as the men, and oftentimes are as great practical individualists. no one would claim that the emancipation of woman, in the sense of freeing her from those things which have prevented the highest and best development of her personality, is not desirable. but this emancipation of woman has brought with it certain opportunities for going down as well as for going up. woman's emancipation has not, in other words, meant to all classes of women, woman's elevation. on the contrary, it has been to some, if not an opportunity for license, at least an opportunity for self-assertion and selfishness not consistent with the welfare of society and particularly with the stability of the family. we may remind ourselves once more that the roman women achieved complete emancipation, but they did not thereby better their social position. on the contrary, the emancipation of woman in rome meant woman's degradation, and ultimately the demoralization of roman family life. while this is not necessarily an accompaniment of woman's emancipation, still it is a real danger which threatens, and of which we can already see many evidences in modern society. as in all other emancipatory movements, the dangers of freedom are found for some individuals at least to be quite as great as the dangers of subjection. that the woman's movement has had much to do with the growth of divorce in this country gains substantiation from the fact that many of the leaders of that movement, like miss susan b. anthony and mrs. elizabeth cady stanton, advocated free divorce, and their inculcation of this doctrine certainly could not have been without some effect. but the woman's movement would have perhaps failed to develop, or at least failed of widespread support, if it had not been for the economic emancipation of woman through the opening to her of many new industrial callings and the securing for her a certain measure of economic independence. this, again, while perhaps a good thing in itself, has, nevertheless, facilitated the growing tendency to form unstable family relations. but this economic independence of woman, we need hardly remark, is the necessary and, indeed, inevitable outcome of modern industrial development. (4) the growth of modern industrialism must, then, be regarded as one of the fundamental factors which has brought about the increase of divorce in the united states. by industrialism we mean manufacturing industry. as we have already noticed, the growth of manufacturing industry has opened a large number of new economic callings to woman and has rendered her largely economically independent of family relations. moreover, the labor of women in factories has tended to disrupt the home, particularly in the case of married women, as we have already seen. for the laboring classes it has tended to make the home only a lodging place, with little or no development of a true family life. again, such labor has set the sexes in competition with each other, has tended to reduce their sexual differences and to stimulate immensely their individualism. finally, inasmuch as modern industrialism has tended to destroy the home, the result has been the production of unsocialized children, and especially of those that had no tradition of a family life. girls, for example, through industrialism, have failed to learn the domestic arts, failed to have any training in homemaking, and therefore when they came to the position of wife and mother, they were frequently not fitted for such a life, and through their lack of adjustment rendered the homes which they formed unstable. (5) closely connected with the growth of modern industrialism is the growth of modern cities, and, as we have already seen, divorce is usually much more common in the cities than in the rural districts. the growth of the cities, in other words, has been a cause of the increase of divorce. city populations, on account of the economic conditions under which they live, are peculiarly homeless. a normal home can scarcely exist in the slums and in some of the tenement districts of our cities. again, in the city there is perhaps more vice and other immorality, less control of the individual by public opinion, and more opportunity, on account of close living together and high standards of living, for friction, both within and without the domestic circle. (6) the higher standards of living and comfort which have come with the growth of our industrial civilization, especially of our cities, must also be set down as a cause of increasing instability of the family. high standards of living are, of course, desirable if they can be realized, that is, if they are reasonable. but many elements of our population have standards of living and comfort which they find are practically impossible to realize with the income which they have. many classes, in other words, are unable to meet the social demands which they suppose they must meet in order to maintain a home. to found and maintain a home, therefore, with these rising standards of living, and also within the last decade or two with the rising cost of living, requires such a large income that an increasingly smaller proportion of the population are able to do this satisfactorily. from this cause, undoubtedly, a great deal of domestic misery and unhappiness results, which finally shows itself in desertion or in the divorce court. it is evident that higher standards of taste and higher standards of morality may also operate under certain circumstances to render the family life unstable in a similar way. (7) directly connected with these last mentioned causes is another cause,--the higher age of marriage. some have thought that a low age of marriage was more prolific in divorces than a relatively high age of marriage. but a low age of marriage cannot be a cause of the increase of divorce in the united states, because the proportion of immature marriages in this country is steadily lessening, that is, the age of marriage is steadily increasing, and all must admit that along with the higher age of marriage has gone increasing divorce; and there may possibly be some connection between the two facts. as we have already seen, the higher standards of living make later marriage necessary. men in the professions do not think of marriage nowadays until thirty, or until they have an independent income. now, how may the higher age of marriage possibly increase the instability of the family? it may do so in this way. after thirty, psychologists tell us, one's habits are relatively fixed and hard to change. people who marry after thirty, therefore, usually find greater difficulty in adjusting themselves to each other than people who marry somewhat younger; and every marriage necessarily involves an adjustment of individuals to each other. this being so, we can readily understand that late marriages are more apt to result in faulty adjustments in the family relation than marriages that take place in early maturity. (8) another cause of the increase of divorce in the united states that has been given is the popularization of law which has accompanied the growth of democratic institutions. law was once the prerogative of special classes, and courts were rarely appealed to except by the noble or wealthy classes; but with the growth of democratic institutions there has been a great spread of legal education, especially through the modern newspaper, and consequently a greater participation in the remedies offered by the courts for all sorts of wrongs, real or imagined. many people, for example, who would not have thought of divorce a generation ago, now know how divorce may be secured and are ready to secure it. however, it would seem as though this cause of the increase of divorce might have operated to a greater extent twenty-five or thirty years ago than it has during the last two decades, for it cannot be said that since the nineties there has been much increase of legal education among the masses, or much greater popularization of the law. (9) increasing laxity of the laws regarding divorce and increasing laxity in the administration of the laws has certainly been a cause of increasing divorce in the united states, though back of these causes doubtless lie all the other causes just mentioned, and also increasing laxity in public opinion regarding marriage and divorce. to assume that laxity of the laws and of legal administration has no influence upon the increase of divorce in a population is to go contrary to all human experience. the people of canada and of england, for example, are not very different from ourselves in culture and in institutions, yet there is almost no divorce in england and in canada as compared with the united states. canada has a few dozen divorces annually, while we have over seventy thousand. unquestionably the main cause of this great difference between canada and the united states is to be found in the difference of their laws. this is not saying, however, that instability of the family does not characterize canada and england as well as the united states, even though such instability does not express itself in the divorce courts. interesting statistics have been collected in numerous places in the country to show the laxity of the administration of the divorce laws. in many of the divorce courts of our large cities, for example, it has repeatedly been shown that the average time occupied by the court in granting a divorce is not more than fifteen minutes. in other words, divorce cases are frequently rushed through our divorce courts without solemnity, without adequate investigation, with every opportunity for collusion between the parties, so as to favor a very free granting of divorces. on the other hand, about one fourth of all the applications for divorce which come to trial are refused by the courts, showing that the courts are not so lax in all cases as they are sometimes pictured to be. moreover, the divorce courts have two excuses for their laxity. first, the divorce courts are always greatly overburdened with the number of cases before them; and, secondly, public opinion, which the courts as well as other phases of our government largely reflect, favors this laxity. this is shown by the fact that public opinion stands back of the lax divorce statutes of many states, all efforts to radically change these statutes having failed of recent years. (10) our study of the family has accustomed us to the thought that the family is an institution which, like all other human institutions, undergoes constant changes. now at periods of change in any institution, periods of transition from one type to another, there is apt to be a period of confusion. the old type of institution is never replaced at once by a new type of institution ready-made and adjusted to the social life, but only gradually does the new institution emerge from the elements of the old. in the meantime, however, there may be a considerable period of confusion and anarchy. this social principle, we may note, rests upon a deeper psychological principle, that old habits are usually not replaced by new habits without an intervening period of confusion and uncertainty. in other words, in the transition from the old habit to the new habit there is much opportunity for disorganization and disintegration. it is exactly so in human society, because social institutions are but expressions of habit. now, the old semipatriarchal type of the family, which prevailed down to the beginning of the nineteenth century, the type of the family which we might perhaps properly call the monarchical type, has been disappearing for the past one hundred years,--is in fact already practically extinct, at least in america, but we have not yet built up a new type of the family to take its place. the old semipatriarchal family of our forefathers has gone, but no new type of the family has yet become general. a democratic type of the family in harmony with our democratic civilization must be evolved. but such a democratic type of the family can be stable only upon the condition that its stability is within itself and not without. authority in various coercive forms made the old type of the family stable, but a stable basis for a new type of the family has not yet been found, or rather it has not been found by large elements of our population. unquestionably a democratic ethical type of the family in which the rights of every one are respected and all members are bound together, not through fear or through force of authority, but through love and affection, is being evolved in certain classes of our society. the problem before our civilization is whether such a democratic ethical type of the family can become generalized and offer a stable family life to our whole population. it is evident that in order to do this there must be a considerable development, not only of the spirit of equality, but even more, a considerable development of social intelligence and ethical character in the minds of the people. to construct a stable family life of this character, however, which is apparently the only type which will meet the demands of modern civilization,--is not an impossibility, but is a delicate and difficult task which will require all the resources of the state, the school, and the church. there is, however, no ground as yet for pessimism regarding the future of our family life; rather all its instability and demoralization of the present are simply incident, we must believe, to the achievement of a higher type of the family than the world has yet seen. such a higher type, however, will not come about without effort and forethought on the part of society's leaders. remedies for the divorce evil.--that the instability of the family and divorce, so far as it is an expression of that instability, is an evil in society is implied in all that has thus far been said concerning the origin, development, and functions of the family as an institution. we shall not stop, therefore, to argue this point since all preceding chapters amount to an argument upon this question. it may be added, however, that in so far as observations have been made of the results of divorce upon children, that the argument has been substantiated, for apparently the children of separated or divorced parents are much more apt to drift into poverty, vice, or crime, that is, into the unsocialized classes, than children who do not come from such disrupted homes. assuming, then, without further argument that divorce, or rather the instability of the family, is an evil in modern society, the question arises, how can it be remedied? if, as has already been implied, the real evil is not so much divorce as the decay of the family life, then it at once becomes evident that legislation can do little to correct the real evil. that it can do nothing, and that an attitude of _laissez-faire_ is justified upon this question, is, of course, not implied. as we have already noted, the difference between the few divorces of the dominion of canada and the many divorces of the united states is largely due to a difference of laws; nevertheless, we cannot assume from this that there is a like difference in the state of the family life of the two countries. unquestionably, however, legislation can do something even in the way of setting moral ideals before a people. divorce laws should not be too lax if we do not wish a state to set low moral standards for its citizens. it is not too much to say, therefore, that the lax divorce laws of many of our states are a crime against civilization, even though making these laws much stricter might not of itself greatly check the decay of the family. again, reasonable restrictions upon the remarriage of divorced parties might very well be insisted upon by law for the sake of public decency if nothing more. present laws in many states permit the remarriage of divorced parties immediately upon granting of divorce. it would seem that a law requiring the innocent party to wait at least six months, and the guilty party to wait from two to five years and then give evidence of good conduct before being permitted to remarry, would work a hardship upon no one. again, a uniform federal divorce and marriage law might have some good effects upon the family life of the nation. divorce and marriage are of such general importance that they should be controlled by federal statutes rather than by state laws. if such an amendment to our present federal constitution were enacted, it might not result in greatly decreasing the number of divorces in this country, but it would result in bringing about uniformity in the different states in the matter of marriage as well as in the matter of divorce, which, from many points of view, is desirable. moreover, if divorce were under federal control this would throw all divorce cases into the federal courts, and would, perhaps, secure a stricter administration of divorce laws. but it is evident that the main reliance in combating the evils which have given rise to the present instability of our family life must be placed upon education rather than upon legislation. legislation, we may here note, has many shortcomings as an instrument of social reconstruction or reform. legislation is necessarily external and coercive. it fails oftentimes to change the habits of individuals, and very generally fails to change their opinion. education, on the other hand, alters human nature directly, changing both the opinions and habits of the individual. neither education nor legislation can be neglected in social reconstruction. both are necessary, but supplement each other. but from the time of plato down all social thinkers have perceived the fact that education is a surer and safer means of reorganizing society than legislation. while, therefore, i would not oppose education to legislation, i would say that emphasis in all social reform should be laid upon education rather than coercive legislative action, and especially in this case of relaying the foundations for a stable family life in our country. the main reliance, then, in this matter must be placed upon the education which the school, the church, and the home can give to the rising generation. until children are taught to look upon the family as a socially necessary and therefore sacred institution, until they are taught to look upon marriage as something other than an act to suit their own convenience and pleasure, we must expect that our family life will be unstable. the reconstruction of our family life, indeed, practically involves the reconstruction of our whole social life. things in industry, in business, in politics, in the conventions and ideals and general spirit of our people, that are opposed to stability in family relations, must be remedied before we can strike at the root of the evil. all of this may be taken for granted; but it would seem that the moral education of the young is the key to the situation in any event. the importance of a pure and wholesome family life in society should, therefore, be emphasized by our whole system of public education, while the responsibility which rests upon the church in this connection is especially obvious; but the home itself must, it may be admitted, be the chief means of inculcating in the young the sacredness of the family. inasmuch as this cannot be done in homes that are already demoralized, the main hope must be that such education will be given to children in homes that are as yet relatively pure and stable. movements toward such education already exist in society, and, as we have already said, there is no reason for pessimism, if we take a long view of the situation. but it is nevertheless evident that the instability of the family must be regarded as the greatest of our social problems to-day. summary regarding the influence of industrial conditions upon the present instability of the family.--as we have already seen, the development of modern industry is one of the chief causes of the decay of modern family life. certain aspects of our industrialism, such as the labor of women and children in factories, the growth of cities, and the loss of the home through the slum and the tenement, the higher standards of living and comfort, and the resulting higher age of marriage,--all of these have had, to a certain extent at least, a disastrous effect upon the family. some of these things, like the growth of cities, seem inseparable from modern industrial development. the problem must be, therefore, how to overcome the evil effect of these tendencies in industry upon the home. there is no reason for believing that such evil effects cannot be overcome, although the problem is a difficult one. our aim should be, not to stop industrial development, but to guide it and control it in the interest of the higher development of the family. that this is entirely feasible may already be seen from what has been accomplished in the way of regulating the labor of women and children and in the way of providing better conditions in the homes of the working population. there is, however, nothing in evidence in the causes of increasing divorce in the united states which warrants the belief that american industrial development is alone responsible for the increasing instability of our family life. the industrial development of america is less peculiar in many ways than its political and social development. divorce and instability of the family, as we have seen, characterize the american people more than any other civilized population. this fact, then, cannot be explained entirely in terms of american industrial development, but we must look also, as has already been emphasized, to certain peculiarities in american character, american institutions, and american ideas and ideals. the divorce movement in the united states affords no proof of the theory of economic determinism. select references _for brief reading:_ willcox, _the divorce problem: a study in statistics._ adler, _marriage and divorce_, lecture ii. special report on _marriage and divorce_, 1867-1906, bureau of the census. _for more extended reading:_ howard, _history of matrimonial institutions._ lichtenberger, _divorce: a study in social causation._ wolsey, _divorce and divorce legislation._ wright, _first special report of united states commissioner of labor: marriage and divorce_, 1891. chapter viii the growth of population mass is a factor in the survival of a social group. other things being equal, that society will stand the best chance of surviving which has the largest population. moreover, the larger the mass of a given group the greater can be the industrial and cultural division of labor in that group. hence, other things being equal, a large population favors the growth not only of a higher type of industry, but also of a higher type of culture or civilization in a given society. the questions which center around the growth of population, therefore, are among the most important questions which sociology has to deal with. the growth of population is, of course, more or less indirectly connected with the family life, since the growth of population in the world as a whole is dependent upon the surplus of births over deaths. but population has so long been looked at as a national question that perhaps it will be best to study it from the standpoint of the national group. the population of modern national groups, the influences which augment and deter the growth of the population of these groups, and the laws of population in general, will be what will concern us in this chapter. population statistics of some modern nations.--the following table of statistics will show the status of the populations of the largest nations of europe and america in the nineteenth century: population, population, increase per 1801. 1901. year, per cent. russia (in europe) ... 40,000,000 106,159,000 1.36 germany .............. 24,000,000 56,367,000 1.39 france ............... 26,800,000 38,961,000 0.12 great britain and ireland .............. 16,300,000 41,605,000 1.21 austria .............. 25,000,000 45,310,000 0.91 italy ................ 17,500,000 32,449,000 0.73 spain ................ 10,500,000 18,000,000 0.32 united states ........ 5,308,000 76,303,000 2.09 this table shows, that while the population of nearly all of these nations has increased rapidly within the nineteenth century, that the increase is relatively unequal in some cases. if we project russia's increase of population to the year 2000 a.d., we shall find that its probable population will be in the neighborhood of 300,000,000; germany's probable population, say 167,000,000; great britain and ireland's probable population, 135,000,000; while france's probable population in the year two thousand, if it continues to increase only at its present slow rate, will be but 45,000,000. while these forecasts of population cannot be considered certain in any sense, still they are sufficient to show that the growth of modern nations in population is relatively unequal. inasmuch as the mere element of numbers is one of the greatest factors for the future greatness of any nation, this is a highly important matter. a nation of only 40,000,000 a century hence, it is safe to say, will be no more important than holland and belgium are now. on the other hand, it is very probable that a century hence the civilized nations that lead in population will also lead in industrial and cultural development. many other factors, of course, enter into the situation, but the factor of mere numbers should not be neglected, as all practical statesmen recognize. a century hence it is probable that the population of continental united states will be about 300,000,000. it would be considerably more than this if the present annual rate of increase were to continue, but inasmuch as that is not likely, an estimate of 300,000,000 is sufficiently high. [footnote: the official estimate by the census bureau is 200,000,000; but this for many reasons seems too low.] we have already seen that it is probable that russia's population may equal 300,000,000 by the year 2000. it seems probable, therefore, that the united states and russia may be the two great world powers a century hence, particularly if russia emerges from its present social and political troubles and takes on fully western civilization, while the other nations may tend to ally themselves with the one or the other of these great world powers. of course, china is the _x_--the unknown quantity--in the world's future. should its immense population become civilized and absorb western ideas, this would certainly bring into the theater of the world's political evolution a new and important factor. the population and vital statistics of the various civilized countries show:-(1) the population of all civilized countries, with one or two exceptions, has been increasing rapidly since the beginning of the nineteenth century. previous to that time we have no statistics that are reliable, but it seems probable that the population of europe stood practically stationary during the middle ages and increased only slowly down to the nineteenth century; but during the nineteenth century the population of the leading industrial nations has increased very rapidly. this is due primarily, without doubt, to improved economic conditions, which has made it possible for a larger population to subsist within a given area. back of these improved economic conditions, however, has been increased scientific knowledge in ways of mastering physical nature, and accompanying them has been a very greatly decreased death rate, due in part at least to the advance of medical science. (2) this increase in population has been due, not to an increase in birth rate, but to a decreased death rate. during the nineteenth century the death rate decreased markedly in practically all civilized countries. as we have already noted, this is due primarily to improved living conditions, particularly in the food, clothing, and shelter for the masses, but it has also been due in no small part to the advance in medical science, and especially that branch of it which we know as "public sanitation." because the death rate decreases with improved material, and probably also with improved moral conditions, it is a relatively good measure, at least of the material civilization or progress of a people. we may note that the death rate is measured by the number of deaths that occur annually per thousand in a given population. the death rate of the countries most advanced in sanitary science and in industrial improvement apparently tends to go down to about fifteen or sixteen per thousand annually. (3) the birth rate of civilized countries has also fallen markedly during the nineteenth century, especially during the latter half. on the whole, this is a good thing. the birth rate should decrease with the death rate. this leaves more energy to be used in other things; but when the birth rate falls more rapidly than the death rate or falls beyond a certain point, it is evident that the normal growth of a nation is hindered, and even its extinction may be threatened. while an excessively high birth rate is a sign of low culture on the whole, on the other hand an excessively low birth rate is a sign of physical and probably moral degeneracy in the population. when the birth rate is lower than the death rate in a given population, it is evident that the population is on the way to extinction. in order that a birth rate be normal, therefore, it must be sufficiently above the death rate to provide for the normal growth of the population. on the whole, it seems safe to conclude that we have no better index of the vitality of a people, that is, of their capacity to survive, than the surplus of births over deaths. such a surplus of births over deaths is also a fairly trustworthy index of the living conditions of a population, because if the living conditions are poor, no matter how high the birth rate may be, the death rate will be correspondingly high, and the surplus of births over deaths, therefore, relatively low. vital statistics are, therefore, an indication of more than the mere health or even the material condition of a given population. probably there are no social facts from which we may gather a clearer insight into the social conditions of a given population than vital statistics. without going into the vital statistics of modern nations in any detail, the following table of birth rates and death rates will serve to illustrate the decrease in the death rates and the birth rates of the three leading european nations, the birth rate being computed the same as the death rate, that is, the number of births per thousand annually of the population: death rate 1871-1890 1893-1902 1904 england ................... 20.3 17.6 16.2 germany ................... 26.0 21.5 19.6 france .................... 22.8 20.8 19.4 birth rate 1871-1890 1893-1902 1904 england ................... 34.0 29.3 28.0 germany ................... 38.1 35.9 35.2 france .................... 24.6 22.8 20.9 from the above table it is evident that while birth rates and death rates have been declining in all civilized peoples, the decline has been unequal in different peoples. both england and germany in the above table show still a good surplus of births over deaths; in the case of england in 1904 this surplus being 11.8 per thousand of the population annually, while in the case of germany it was 15.6. in the case of france, however, the surplus of births over deaths for a number of years has been very insignificant, and in the year 1907 there were actually about 20,000 more deaths than births in all france (773,969 births against 793,889 deaths). france's population has, therefore, been practically stationary for a number of years, while within the last year or two it seems to be actually declining. the causes of the stationary population of france are probably mainly economic, although all the factors which influence the family life in any degree must also influence birth rate. for a number of years the economic conditions of france have not been favorable to the growth of a large population, and at the same time the law necessitating the equal division of the family's property among children has tended to encourage small families. unquestionably, however, other factors of a more general social or moral nature are also at work in france as well as in all other populations that are decreasing in numbers. _the decrease in the native white stock in the united states._ certain classes in the united states also show a very slight surplus of births over deaths and in some cases absolutely declining numbers. in general the united states census statistics seem to indicate that the native white stock in the northern states is not keeping up its numbers. this is suggested by the decreasing size of the average family in the united states. the average size of the family in the united states in 1850 was 5.6 persons; in 1860, 5.3; in 1870, 5.1; in 1880, 5.0; in 1890, 4.9; and in 1900, 4.7. moreover, if we include only private families in 1900, the average size of the family was only 4.6. thus, between 1850 and 1900 the size of the average family in the united states decreased by nearly one full person. this decrease is most evident in the north atlantic and north central states. in maine, vermont, and new hampshire, for example, the average size of the family in 1900 was 4.1 persons. moreover, the vital statistics kept by the state of massachusetts for a number of years show conclusively that the native white stock in that state is tending to die out. in 1896, for example, in massachusetts the native born had a birth rate of only 16.58, while the foreign born had a birth rate of 50.40. again, the following table of birth rates and death rates for 1890 in the city of boston [footnote: taken from bushee's _ethnic factors in the population of boston_, publications american economic association, vol. iv., no, 2, 1903.] for the native born and sections of the foreign born shows conclusively that the native-born element is not keeping up its numbers: birth rate death rate native born ..................... 16.40 17.20 irish ........................... 45.60 25.20 germans ......................... 48.00 15.00 russian jews .................... 94.60 15.90 italians ........................ 104.60 25.30 it is evident from this table that the foreign born are increasing in boston very rapidly in numbers through birth, while the native born are apparently not even holding their own. the high birth rate of the foreign born is, of course, in part to be explained through the fact that the foreign-born population is made up for the most part of individuals in the prime of life, that is, in the reproductive age. nevertheless, while this explains the excessively high birth rate of some of these foreign elements, it does not explain the great discrepancy between their birth rate and that of the native born. if the present tendencies continue, it is apparently not difficult to foresee a time in the not very distant future when the old puritan new england families will be replaced in the population of boston entirely by the descendants of recent immigrants. moreover, so far as vital statistics concerning different classes can be gathered in the northern tier of the states, practically everywhere the same tendencies are manifest, that is, everywhere we find the native-born white population failing to hold its own alongside of the more recent immigrants. apparently, therefore, we must conclude that the birth rate in the native whites in the united states is declining to such an extent that that element in our population threatens to become extinct if present tendencies continue. only the southern whites present an exception to this generalization. the southern white people, from various causes not well understood,--partially, perhaps, from family pride, partially, perhaps, from racial instinct, but even more probably on account of certain economic conditions,--keep up their numbers, increasing more rapidly even than the negro population which exists alongside of them. _causes of the decrease in birth rate in the native white stock in the united states._ what, then, are the causes of this decrease in the birth rate of the native white stock in the united states? it is worth our while to inquire briefly into these causes, for they illustrate the factors which are at work in favoring or deterring the growth of population. (1) economic conditions are without doubt mainly at the bottom of the decreasing birth rate in the native white american population. certain unfavorable economic conditions have developed in this country of recent years for this particular element; especially have higher standards of living increased among the native white population in the united states more rapidly than their income. this has led to later marriages and smaller families. again, more intense competition along all lines has forced certain elements of the native stock into occupations where wages are low in comparison with the standard of living. this has, perhaps, especially come about through the increased competition which the foreign born have offered to the native white element. the foreign born have taken rapidly all the places which might be filled by unskilled labor and many of the places filled by skilled labor. the native born have shrunk from this competition and have retired for the most part to the more socially honorable occupations, such as clerkships in business, the professions, and the like. in many of these occupations, however, as we have already said, the wages are low as compared with the standards of living maintained by that particular occupational class; hence, as we have already said, later marriages and fewer children. rising standards of living and rising costs of living have, therefore, impinged more heavily upon the native born than upon the foreign born. it is difficult to suggest a remedy for this condition of affairs. no legislator can devise means of encouraging a class to have large families when by so doing that class would necessarily have to sacrifice some of its standards of living. however, it may be that the native born can be protected to some extent from the competition of the foreign born through reasonable restrictions upon immigration, and it may also be that unreasonable advances in standards of living may be checked, but both of these propositions seem to be of somewhat doubtful nature. (2) no doubt the pressure of economic conditions is not responsible for small families in some elements of the native white population in the united states, for oftentimes the smallest families are found among the wealthy, among whom there could be no danger of a large family lowering the standards of living or pressing upon other economic needs. we must accept as a second factor in the situation, therefore, the inherent selfishness in human nature which is not willing to be burdened with the care of children. in other countries, and apparently in all ages, the wealthy have been characterized by smaller families than the poor. the following table from bertillon, [footnote: quoted by newsholme, vital statistics, p. 75.] showing the number of births per thousand women between fifteen and fifty years of age in paris, berlin, and london among the various economic classes, shows conclusively that it is not altogether the pressure of economic wants which leads to the limiting of a population: births per thousand women per annum paris berlin london. very poor ....... 108 157 147 poor ............ 95 129 140 comfortable ..... 72 114 107 rich ............ 53 63 87 very rich ....... 34 47 63 (3) besides economic conditions and individual selfishness we must unfortunately add another cause of decreasing birth rate in our population which has been definitely ascertained, and that is vice. vice cuts the birth rate chiefly through the diseases which accompany it. about 20 per cent of american marriages are childless, and medical authorities state that in one half of these childless marriages the barrenness is due to venereal diseases. according to dr. prince a. morrow, in his _social diseases and marriage_, 75 per cent of the young men in the united states become impure before marriage. this serves to disseminate venereal diseases among the general population, especially among innocent women and children. the consequence is, on the one hand, a considerable number of sterile marriages and on the other hand a high infant mortality. it need not be assumed, as we have already said, that vice is more prevalent to-day than in previous generations, but on account of the conditions of our social life diseases which accompany vice are now more widely disseminated than they have been at any time in our previous history; therefore, even the physical results of vice are different to-day than they were a generation or more ago. (4) education has been alleged as a cause of decreasing birth rate in the native white american stock. this, however, is true only in a very qualified sense. while it is a fact, as collected statistics have shown, that if harvard and other universities depended on children of their alumni for students their attendance would actually decrease in numbers, it is not true that college graduates have had a lower birth rate than the economic and social classes to which they belong. so far as statistics have been collected, indeed, they seem to indicate that the wealthy uneducated are producing fewer children than the educated classes who associate with them. the influence decreasing the birth rate among the educated is, therefore, not education itself, but the high standards of living and the luxury of the classes with whom they associate. on the other hand, the higher education of women seems to be, down to the present time, operating as a distinct influence to lessen the birth rate among the educated classes for the reason that apparently a majority of educated women do not marry. the higher education has not yet gone far enough, however, to give us any definite facts with which to judge what the ultimate effect of woman's higher education will be. if the higher education of woman is going to lead to a large per cent of the best and most intellectual women in society leading lives of celibacy, then, of course, ultimately the higher education of woman will be disastrous to the race. but probably the relative infrequency of marriage among women who are college graduates is a transitory phenomenon due to the fact that neither women nor men are as yet adjusted to the higher education of women. (5) some phases of the "woman's movement" have without doubt tended to lessen the birth rate in certain sections of american society. some of the leaders of the woman's movement have advocated, for example, that women should choose a single life, while others have advocated that families should not have more than two children. mrs. ida husted harper, indeed, has gone so far as to claim that if families would have but two children this would be a cure-all for many social troubles. indeed, this ideal of two children in the family has been so widely disseminated in this country that it is often spoken of as the "american idea." of course, such teachings could not be without some effect. without attempting to reply to the advocates of this theory of but two children to a family, it will be sufficient to remark that for a population simply to remain stationary three children at least must be born to each family on the average; otherwise, if only two children are born, as one of the children is apt to die or fail to marry, the population will actually decrease in numbers. under the best modern conditions one out of three children now born either fails to live to maturity or fails to reproduce. there must be, therefore, more than three children born to the average family for a population to grow. from the sociological point of view the ideal family would seem to be one in which from three to six children are born. (6) finally, not all of the childless and small families in the native american stock are due by any means to voluntary causes, or even involuntary causes of the kind that we have mentioned. there are also certain other obscure physiological causes at work producing sterility in american women. the sterility of american women is greater than that of any other civilized population, even apart from the causes which have just been mentioned. some say this is due to physical deterioration in the native white american stock, and there are other things which seem to point in that direction. it may be, however, that this deterioration is in no sense racial, but only individual, affecting certain individuals who lead a relatively unnatural life. our american civilization puts a great strain upon certain elements of our population, and this strain in many cases falls even more upon the women than upon the men. the social life of the american people, in other words, is oftentimes such as to produce exhaustion and physical degeneracy, and this shows itself in the women of a population first of all in sterility. it is evident that the remedy for this cause is a more natural and more simple life on the part of all, if it is possible to bring this about. thus, the causes which influence birth rate are evidently very complex. in the main they are doubtless economic causes among all peoples, but there is no reason to believe that these economic causes act alone in determining birth rate, nor is there any reason to believe that the other psychological and biological causes may be in any way derived from the economic. so far as we can see, then, industrial conditions are mainly responsible for the lessened birth rate in the native white american stock. but mingled with these industrial conditions, operating as causes, are certain psychological (or moral) and biological factors that have to be considered as in the main independent. it is furthermore evident that the causes which lead to the decline and extinction of any population, whether civilized or uncivilized, are complex. all efforts to explain the extinction of peoples of antiquity, or modern nature peoples, such as the north american indians and the polynesians, through any single set of causes, must be looked at as unscientific. it can readily be shown that in all these cases the causes of the decline of the birth rate and the ultimate extinction of the stock are numerous and are not reducible to any single set of causes. _causes which influence the death rate._ before we can fully understand the causes of the growth of a population, that is, of the surplus of births over deaths, we must understand something also about the things which influence the death rate as well as the things which influence the birth rate, because, let it be borne in mind, the growth of a given population (excluding immigration always) is due to the combined working of these two factors. within certain limits the death rate is more easily controlled than the birth rate. it is very difficult for society deliberately to set about to increase the birth rate, but it is comparatively easy for it to take deliberate measures to decrease the death rate, because all individuals have a selfish interest in decreasing the death rate; but the increase of the birth rate does not appeal to the self-interest of individuals. modern medical science, as we have seen, has done much to decrease the death rate in civilized countries, and it promises to do even more. fifty years ago a death rate of fifty or sixty per thousand population in urban centers was not unusual, but now a death rate of thirty to forty in a thousand in the same communities is considered an intolerable disgrace, and the time will shortly come, no doubt, when even a death rate of twenty per thousand of the population will be considered disgraceful to any community. as we have already seen, the normal death rate of the most enlightened european and american communities tends to establish itself around fifteen or sixteen. of course the sanitary and hygienic conditions which influence the death rate are so numerous that we cannot enter into and discuss them. we can only mention some of the more general social influences which are often overlooked and are of particular interest to the sociologist. (1) the effect of war upon the death rate, particularly of the victorious, is not so great as many people suppose. considerable wars are apparently often waged without very greatly increasing the number of deaths in a given population. this is, however, only true, as has already been said, of the victorious side. with the defeated it is far different. the death rate among the defeated in a modern war is oftentimes very greatly raised, but this is due not so much to the large number killed in battle as to the fact that the defeated have their territory invaded, their industries disturbed, and their general industrial and living conditions depressed. the vital statistics of france and germany in the franco-prussian war of 1870-1871 illustrate this point. in germany the death rate in 1869, the year before the war, was 28.5; in 1870, the first year of the war, 29; and in 1871, the culminating year of the war, 31. these figures include the armies in the field. for france, however, the defeated party, the figures were far different. in 1869 the death rate in france was 23.4; in 1870, 28.3; in 1871, 34.8. thus, while germany had its death rate increased by the franco-prussian war merely 2.5 per thousand of the population, france had its death rate increased 11.4. from this it is plain that it is the economic disturbances which accompany war, and particularly those which are manifest among the defeated, which cause a very large part of the higher death rate. (2) as already implied, then, economic depression exercises a very considerable influence upon death rate, particularly when economic depression causes very high prices for the necessities of life and even widespread scarcity of food. this cause produces far more deaths in modern nations than war. the doubling of the price of bread in any civilized country would be a far greater calamity than a great war. while modern civilized peoples fear famine but little, there are many classes in the great industrial nations that live upon such a narrow margin of existence that the slightest increase in the cost of the necessities of life means practically the same as a famine to these classes. statistics, therefore, of all modern countries, and particularly of all great cities, show an enormous increase in sickness and death among the poorer classes in times of economic depression. (3) climate and season are rather constant factors in the death rate of all communities. the rule here is that in northern countries the death rate is higher in winter, while in southern countries and in great cities the death rate is higher in summer. taking 100 as an arbitrary standard, in sweden in february deaths rise to 113, in august they go down to 79; while in italy in february deaths are at 106 as compared with the standard, and in august at 111,--the period of minimum death rate in italy being in the spring and autumn. in a great city like berlin, if 100 be taken as the standard, deaths are 88 in february and 144 in august, owing very largely to the higher death rate of children in the summer months in great cities. (4) the biological fact of sex also influences death rate. males in general are shorter-lived than females. this is in part due to the fact that in human populations men are more exposed to the dangers of industry in earning a livelihood, while women are more secluded in the home. but this does not explain entirely the discrepancy in the death rate of the two sexes, for boy babies under the same conditions die more frequently than girl babies. as we have already seen, the female organism is the more stable, biologically, and hence females, while having less physical strength, have more vitality than males. in great britain the death rate (1872-1880) for the males was 22.7 per thousand of the male population annually, while the death rate for the females was 20.2 per thousand of their population annually. (5) conjugal condition is also a factor which affects death rate. the differences between the death rates of the married and unmarried have long been noted. the following table of the death rates of males and females of different conjugal classes between the ages of forty and fifty years (in germany, 1876-1880), taken from professor mayo-smith's _statistics and sociology_, illustrates this: single males ....................... 26.5 per thousand married males ...................... 14.2 " " widowed males ...................... 29.9 " " single females ..................... 15.4 " " married females .................... 11.4 " " widows ............................. 13.4 " " it will be seen from these figures that the death rate among the single is in all the more advanced years of life higher than among the married. the probable explanation of this, however, is not that the married state is better physiologically, as has been so often claimed, but that it is better socially. these figures are a testimony, in other words, to the social advantages of the home. single persons, particularly in the more advanced years of life, who are without homes, are more liable to fall sick, and when sick are less liable to receive proper care. that these figures show the great social advantage of the home in preserving life is evident from the fact that among the widowed males, whose homes have been broken up, the death rate is higher even than among the single males. moreover, in interpreting such statistics we must bear in mind that the unmarried in the higher ages of life are made up very often of those who are relatively abnormal, either physically or mentally, that is, of the biologically unfit. inasmuch as the single persons include many of this class, and also lack the comforts of home, it is not surprising that the death rate is much higher among them. (6) infantile mortality is one of the most interesting phases of vital statistics. we have already said that the death rate is a good rough measure of a people's civilization. even more can we say that the death rate among children, particularly those under one year of age, is an index to a people's sanitary and moral condition. taking the world as a whole, it is still estimated that one half of all who are born die before the age of five years. this represents an enormous waste of energy. even in many of the most civilized countries the death rate among children, and especially among infants under one year of age, is still comparatively high. most of this death rate is unnecessary, could be avoided, and, as we have already said, represents a waste of life. dr. newman [footnote: in his work on _infant mortality_.] gives the following statistics for different civilized countries for the ten-year period of 1894-1903. these statistics, we may note, are based on the percentage of deaths among children under one year of age and not upon the one thousand of their population. in russia, 27 per cent of all children born during the ten-year period of 1894-1903 died the first year; in germany, 19.5 per cent; in italy, 17 per cent; in france, 15.5 per cent; in england, 15 per cent; in ireland, 10 per cent; in norway, 9.4 per cent; in new zealand, 9.7 per cent; while in the united states in 1900, according to the census, 16.2 per cent of all children born in the registration area died the first year. the laws of the growth of population.--can the growth of population be reduced to any principle or law? this is a problem which has puzzled social thinkers for a long time. many have thought that the growth of population can be reduced to one or more relatively simple laws, but we have seen from analyzing the statistics of birth rate and death rate that this is hardly probable. a formula that would cover the growth of population would have to cover all of the variable causes influencing birth rate and death rate and so entering into the surplus of births over deaths. it is evident that these causes are too complex to be reduced to any such formula among modern civilized peoples. in the animal world and among uncivilized peoples, however, conditions are quite different, and the growth of population is regulated by certain very simple principles or laws. thus it is probable that for centuries before the whites came, the indians of north america were stationary in their population, for the reason that under their stationary condition of culture a given area could support only so many people. in conditions of savagery, and even of barbarism, therefore, we can lay down the principle that population will increase up to the limit of food supply, will stop there and remain stationary until food supply increases. this is the condition which governs the growth of the population of all animal species, and, as we have already said, of the savages and barbarians among the human species. but among civilized men who have attempted the control of physical nature, and to some extent even the control of human nature, many other factors enter in to influence both birth rate and death rate, and so the growth of the population. nevertheless, many social thinkers of the past have conceived, as has already been said, that the growth of population might be reduced to very simple and definite laws. among the first who proposed laws governing population was an english economist, thomas robert malthus, whose active career coincides with the first quarter of the nineteenth century. in 1798 malthus put forth a little book which he entitled _an essay on the principle of population as it affects the future improvement of society_. this essay went through numerous editions and revisions, and in it malthus elaborated his famous economic theory of the growth of population. inasmuch as this theory of malthus has been the storm center of sociological and economic writers for the past one hundred years, it is worth our while to note very briefly what malthus's theory was, and why it is inadequate as a scientific statement of the laws governing the growth of population. _malthus's theory of population._ in the first edition of his essay malthus contended that population tends to increase in geometric ratio, while food at best will increase only in arithmetical ratio; and that this means that constant discrepancies between population and food supply would appear, with the result that population would have to be cut down to food supply. later malthus saw how crude this statement of his theory was and abandoned any attempt at mathematical statement, presenting substantially the following theory: (1) population is necessarily limited by food; (2) population always increases where food increases and tends to increase faster than food; (3) the checks that keep population down to food supply may be classified as positive and preventive. positive checks are those which increase the death rate, such as famine, poverty, vice, disease, and the like. preventive checks are those that decrease the birth rate, such as late marriage and prudence in the birth of children. inasmuch as malthus believed that the positive checks must always operate where the preventive checks did not, he advocated the use of the preventive checks as the best means to remedy human misery. the inherent tendency of population to outstrip food supply, malthus believed to be the main source of human misery in all of its forms. _criticisms of malthus's theory._ (1) it is evident that malthus's theory applies only to a stationary society, that is, a non-progressive society, because in a progressive society human invention and, therefore, food supply, may far outstrip any increase of population. this has been the case in practically all civilized countries during the nineteenth century, where improvements in machinery and agriculture have greatly increased the food supply. if it be replied that this increase of food is but temporary, and that sooner or later malthus's theory must operate, then it may be said, on the other hand, that as yet we see no limit of man's mastery over nature, and that apparently we are just entering upon the stage of material progress. moreover, so far as any given country is concerned, wealth is potential food supply, and in the united states during the last fifty years wealth has increased four times as fast as the population. malthus, of course, did not foresee the inventions and agricultural progress of the nineteenth century. still, it is evident that his theory is a static one and cannot be made to apply to any progressive society. (2) similarly, the theory makes no allowance for the increased efficiency which may come with increased population, because increase of population makes possible better coöperation. as we have already seen, coöperation and division of labor in a society depend upon the size of the group to a certain extent, that is, the larger the group there is for organization the better can be the organization and division of labor in that group. every increase of population, therefore, opens up new and superior ways of applying labor; and coöperation and the division of labor make it possible for men to do more as a group than they could possibly accomplish working as individuals. improved means of coöperation, therefore, operate very much the same way in human society in controlling nature as new inventions. (3) the theory of malthus makes no allowance for the general law of animal fertility, which is that as the rate of individual evolution increases the rate of reproduction decreases. of course, malthus's theory antedates this law of animal fertility, which was first stated by herbert spencer. some scientists declare that this law does not apply within the human species, and it must be admitted that it is not yet certain that it does. as we have already seen, however, the lower and less individualized classes in human society reproduce much more rapidly than the upper or more individualized classes. increase of food supply, of wealth, and so on, does not necessarily mean increase of population, and the fatal error in malthus's theory is that he assumes that wherever food increases population always increases also. (4) the overpopulation which malthus feared, so far from being an evil, has been shown by the labors of darwin to be the condition essential to the working of the process of natural selection in the human species. overpopulation, at least until artificial selection arrives, is not an evil, but a good in human society. without it there would not be sufficient elimination of the unfit in human society to prevent wholesale social degeneration. even with artificial selection, however, some overpopulation would be necessary for the working of any scheme of selection. we must conclude, then, that malthus's theory, either as an explanation of the growth of modern populations or as an implied practical ethical doctrine, is of no value whatever. this is not saying, of course, that malthus's theory may not have some elements of truth in it. undoubtedly malthus's theory does apply to stationary, non-progressive peoples, like savages and barbarians in certain stages of culture, and also perhaps to certain classes in modern society who fail to participate in modern social progress. but these lower classes or elements in human society are constantly decreasing, especially in america, where the tendency to individual improvement is so marked. again, malthus's theory, so far as it depends upon the economic law of diminishing returns in agriculture, has also certain elements of truth in it, and in so far as it merely asserts that the struggle for existence in human society is, in the last analysis, a struggle for food. finally, malthus meant his theory chiefly as a criticism of socialistic and communistic schemes, which would equalize wealth and do away with competition in society. unquestionably any such scheme to equalize wealth and do away with competition in society would result in the enormous increase of the lower and more brutal element of society--those that have not yet participated in modern culture. malthus's theory as a criticism of socialistic schemes that would do away with competition (this, however, does not apply to modern scientific socialism) is unquestionably as good to-day as when it was written. most modern economists and sociologists recognize the failure of malthus to formulate a successful theory of population, and so many have attempted to form theories independent of malthus; but it must be said regarding most of these attempts that they have succeeded no better than malthus. for example, a french economist and sociologist, arsène dumont, has formulated the theory that society is like a sponge so far as population is concerned,--that it will take up just as many new individuals as it has industrial room for, and that population will in all cases expand to meet these increased economic opportunities. dumont's theory is that population will increase so far as what he calls the power of social capilarity extends. the law of population is, then, the capilarity of society. where there are new economic opportunities population will increase; where there are no new economic opportunities there will be no increase. france has no new economic opportunities, so the population will not increase. the same is true of certain classes in the united states. this theory tries to make population depend even more entirely upon economic conditions than malthus's theory. at first it appears more plausible than malthus's theory, but this is probably because it is more vague. economic influences are powerful influences, as we have already seen, in determining the growth of a population, but they are not the only ones. the factors which make up the surplus of births over deaths are so complex that they cannot possibly be lumped together and called collectively economic conditions. dumont's theory of the growth of population has no more scientific value than malthus's theory. in conclusion, we may say that we are unable to formulate any laws of population which are worthy of the name of laws as yet, and it seems probable that, while we may understand clearly enough the factors which enter into the growth of population, we shall never be able to reduce these factors to a single formula or law. social phenomena are too complex, we may here note, to reduce to simple formulas or laws as physical phenomena are reduced. indeed, it is doubtful whether laws exist among social phenomena in the same sense in which they exist among physical phenomena, that is, as fixed relations among variable forces. human society has in it another element than mechanical causation or physical necessity, namely, the psychic factor, and this so increases the complexity of social phenomena that it is doubtful if we can formulate any such hard and fixed laws of social phenomena as of physical phenomena. this is not saying, however, that social phenomena cannot be understood and that there are not principles which are at work with relative uniformity among them. it is only saying that the social sciences, even in their most biological or physical aspects, cannot be reduced to the same exactness as the physical sciences, though the knowledge which they offer may be in practice just as trustworthy. select references _for brief reading:_ mayo-smith, _statistics and sociology_, chaps. iv-viii. bailey, _modern social conditions_, chaps. iii-vi. _for more extended reading:_ bonar, _malthus and his work._ bowley, _elements of statistics._ malthus, _essay on the principle of population._ newsholme, _vital statistics._ chapter ix the immigration problem in new countries population may increase by immigration as well as by the surplus of births over deaths. immigration is, therefore, a secondary means of increasing the population of a country, and in new countries is often of great importance. immigration, or the migration of a people into a country, along with its correlative emigration, or the migration of a people out of a country, constitutes a most important social phenomenon. all peoples seem more or less migratory in their habits. man has been a wanderer upon the face of the earth since the earliest times. according to modern anthropology the human species probably evolved in a relatively narrow area and peopled the earth by successive migrations to distant lands. in all ages, therefore, we find more or less migratory movements of populations. but the movements in modern times, particularly in the nineteenth century, probably exceed, in the number of individuals concerned, any other migratory movements of which we have knowledge in history. ancient migrations were, moreover, somewhat different from modern immigration and emigration. ancient migrations were largely those of peoples or tribes, while in modern times migration is more of an individual matter. the huns, for example, came into europe as a nation, but the immigration into the united states at the present time is wholly an individual movement. the causes of migration are more or less universal, but corresponding to the difference in ancient and modern migrations we find the causes varying somewhat in ancient and modern times. the causes of ancient migrations and the primary causes of all migrations seem to be: (1) lack of food; (2) lack of territory for an expanding population; (3) war. in modern times we find other causes operating, like, (4) the labor market; men now migrate chiefly to get better economic opportunities; (5) government; in modern times the oppression of unjust governments has often caused extensive migration; (6) religion; religious persecution and intolerance have in modern times been important among the causes of migration. history of immigration into the united states.--the great economic opportunities offered by the settlement of the vast territory of the united states, together with a combination of causes in europe, partly political, partly religious, and partly economic, have caused, during the last century, a flood of immigrants from practically all european countries, to invade the united states, greater in number of individuals than any recorded migration in history. between 1820, the first year for which we have immigration statistics, and 1907, 25,318,000 immigrants sought homes, temporarily or permanently, in this country,--more than one half of them coming since 1880. before 1820 it is improbable that immigration into the united states assumed any large proportions. even up to 1840 the number of immigrants was comparatively insignificant. thus in 1839 the number was only 68,000, and not until 1842 did the number of immigrants first cross the 100,000 mark. owing to the potato famine in ireland in the forties, however, and to the unsuccessful revolution in germany in 1848, the number of immigrants from europe began greatly to increase. from 1851 to 1860 inclusive no less than 2,598,000 immigrants sought homes in this country. the number fell off greatly during the civil war, and did not reach the same proportions again until the eighties, when from 1881 to 1890 the volume of immigration rose to 5,246,000. the number of immigrants again declined during the nineties, owing largely to the financial depression in the united states, to 3,800,000; but during the decade, 1901-1910, it surpassed all former records, and amounted to nearly 9,000,000. it is curious to note how the maximum periods of immigration have hitherto been about ten or twenty years apart. thus the first noteworthy maximum of 427,000, in 1854, was not surpassed again until 1873, when another maximum of 459,000 was recorded; in 1882 another maximum was reached of 788,000, and in 1903 another maximum of 857,000. after 1903, however, immigration went on increasing until 1907. these fluctuations in immigration correspond to the economic prosperity of the country, and, as professor commons has shown, are almost identical with the fluctuations in foreign imports. this shows very conclusively the prevailing economic character of modern migration. during 1905, 1906, and 1907, indeed, the united states received more immigrants than its total population at the time of the declaration of independence. in 1905 the number was 1,027,000; in 1906, 1,100,000; in 1907, 1,285,000. it seems probable, however, that about twenty-five per cent will have to be deducted from these immigration statistics in prosperous years to allow for emigrants returning to their home countries. in a year of economic depression like 1908 when only 782,000 immigrants entered the country, the number of emigrants returning was over one half of the total number who entered. previous to 1890, nearly all of the immigrants who came to us came from the countries of northern europe. it has been claimed that as high as ninety per cent came from teutonic and celtic countries, and were, accordingly, almost of the same blood as the early settlers; but since 1890 the character of our immigration has changed so that since that time nearly seventy per cent have come from non-teutonic countries, such as russia, austria-hungary, italy, and greece. the period of maximum immigration for the irish to this country was the forties and fifties; the period of maximum immigration for the germans was the fifties and eighties; and for the english, the seventies and eighties. but the period of maximum immigration for the italians can scarcely as yet be reckoned by decades at all. the italians first began coming in numbers exceeding 100,000 only in 1900, but in 1906, 273,000 of our immigrants were italians, and in 1907, 285,000. this latter number is larger than any single european nationality ever sent to us in a single year, unless we except the 338,000 people of various nationalities sent to us by austria-hungary in the same year. the immigration from austria-hungary, also, to the united states did not exceed 100,000 until the year 1900, but by 1905 it had reached 275,000, and, as has been said, in 1907 reached 338,000. the immigration from russia, consisting largely of russian jews and poles began to be considerable, if we include poland in russia, by 1892, when it reached 122,000. in 1903, after falling off, it reached 136,000; in 1906, 215,000; and in 1907, 258,000. _present sources of our immigration_. these statistics have been cited to show the change in the sources from which we are receiving immigrants. this can be brought out still more clearly by contrasting a typical year previous to 1890 with one of the latest years. the year 1882 was the year, previous to 1890, of maximum immigration into this country. during that year we received 788,000 immigrants. nearly all, as the table which we are about to give will show, came from countries of northern europe. in order to contrast the sources of our immigration a quarter of a century ago with the present sources, we will compare the year 1882 with the year 1907, which thus far has been the year of maximum immigration into the united states,--the total number of immigrants for 1907 being 1,285,000: immigration, 1882. per cent. great britain and ireland ................. 179,423 22.8 germany ................................... 250,630 31.7 scandinavia ............................... 105,326 13.3 netherlands, france, switzerland, etc. .... 27,795 3.5 total western europe ...................... 71.3 italy ..................................... 32,159 4.1 austria-hungary ........................... 29,150 3.7 russia, etc. .............................. 22,010 2.7 total southern and eastern europe ......... 10.5 all other countries ....................... 18.2 [footnote: 1. of the immigration from "other countries" 98,295 was from british north america, or 12.4 per cent of the total. this,added to the 71.3 per cent from western europe, makes a total of 83.7 of the immigrants in 1882 of west european stock.] 100.0 immigration, 1907. per cent. great britain and ireland ................. 113,567 8.8 scandinavia ............................... 49,965 3.9 germany ................................... 37,807 2.9 netherlands, france, switzerland, etc. .... 26,512 2.1 total western europe ...................... 17.7 austria-hungary ........................... 338,452 26.3 italy ..................................... 285,731 22.2 russia .................................... 258,943 20.1 greece, servia, roumania, etc. ............ 88,482 6.9 total southern and eastern europe ......... 75.5 all other countries ....................... 6.8 100.0 it will be noted that while in 1882, 71.3 per cent of our immigrants came from the countries of western europe, only 10.5 per cent came from the countries of southern and eastern europe. in 1907 the situation was very nearly reversed. in 1907 great britain and ireland, and scandinavia, germany, the netherlands, belgium, france, and switzerland--the countries which had furnished 71.3 per cent of our immigrants in 1882--furnished only 17.7 per cent, while austria-hungary, italy, russia, greece, servia, roumania, and turkey in europe--the countries which had furnished but 10.5 per cent in 1882--furnished 75.5 per cent. this matter of changed sources from which we receive our immigrants evidently is one of first importance in any consideration of the present immigration problem of the united states. _the distribution of immigrants._ if immigrants would distribute themselves evenly over the united states, the immigration problem would be quite different from what it is. instead of this, there is a massing of immigrants in some states and communities, and very little evidence to show that these immigrants ever distribute themselves normally over the whole country. in 1906, for example, the commissioner of immigration reported that 68.3 per cent of the 1,100,000 immigrants who came that year went to the north atlantic states; 22.1 per cent to the north central states; 4.4 per cent to the western states; and 4.2 per cent to the southern states. if these figures are at all trustworthy, they indicate a congestion of our recent immigrants in the north atlantic states and in certain states of the central west. so far as the census is concerned, it tends to confirm these statistics of the commissioner of immigration. our last census returns, being for 1900, can show little, of course, of the distribution of the great number of recent immigrants that have come from southern and eastern europe. still the 1900 census contains some interesting facts regarding the distribution of foreign born, or immigrants, that have been received previous to 1900. according to the census of 1900 the number of foreign born in the united states was 10,460,000, or 13.7 per cent of the total population. but these foreign born were confined almost entirely to the northern states, that is, the north atlantic states and north central states. in 1900 the southern states (south atlantic and south central) contained but 4.6 per cent of the total foreign born of the country. the reason why so few of our immigrants have thus far settled in the south is perhaps chiefly because of the competition which the cheap negro labor of the south would offer to them, and also because the south is still largely agricultural, offering few opportunities for the industrial employments, into which a majority of our immigrants go. in the north atlantic states in 1900 nearly one fourth of the population was foreign born, and 20.7 per cent in the western states. the following statistics will show the percentage of foreign born in typical states: north dakota, 35.4 per cent; rhode island, 31.4 per cent; massachusetts, 30 per cent; minnesota, 28.9 per cent; new york, 26 per cent; wisconsin, 24.9 per cent; california, 24.7 per cent; montana, 27.6 per cent; indiana, 8.5 per cent; maryland, 7.9 per cent; missouri, 7 per cent; north carolina, 0.2 per cent; and mississippi, 0.5 per cent. the influence of the foreign born in a community, however, is better shown, perhaps, if we consider the number of those of foreign parentage, that is, the foreign born and their children, than if we consider the number of foreign born alone. in a large number of states more than one half of the population is of foreign parentage. thus north dakota had in 1900, 77.5 per cent of its population of foreign parentage; minnesota, 74.9 per cent; wisconsin, 71.2 per cent; rhode island, 64.2 per cent; massachusetts, 62.3 per cent; south dakota, 61.1 per cent; utah, 61.2 per cent; new york, 59.4 per cent. connecticut, new jersey, illinois, michigan, montana, nevada, and california all also had more than one half of their population of foreign parentage in 1900. for the united states as a whole the number of foreign parentage in 1900 amounted to 34.3 per cent, or 26,000,000 out of a total population of 76,000,000. many of our large cities also have a high percentage of foreign born and of foreign parentage in their population. the percentage of foreign born in some of our largest cities in 1900 was as follows: per cent. new york........................................... 37 chicago............................................ 34.6 philadelphia....................................... 22.8 saint louis........................................ 19.4 boston............................................. 35.1 baltimore.......................................... 13.5 san francisco...................................... 34.1 cleveland.......................................... 32.6 these same cities had the following percentage of foreign parentage in their population: per cent. new york........................................... 76.9 chicago............................................ 77.4 philadelphia....................................... 54.9 st. louis.......................................... 61.0 boston............................................. 72.2 baltimore.......................................... 38.2 san francisco...................................... 75.2 cleveland.......................................... 75.6 these figures show the tendency of our immigrants to mass together in certain states and also in our great cities; so that it has come about that it is said that new york is the largest german city in the world except berlin; the largest italian city except rome; the largest polish city except warsaw, and by far the largest jewish city in the world. only one nationality distributes itself relatively evenly over the country, and that is the british. all other nationalities have certain favorite sections in which they settle. thus, the irish settle mainly in the north atlantic states; the germans have two favorite settlements in the united states, one of them consisting of new york and pennsylvania, and the other of wisconsin and illinois, though michigan, iowa, and missouri also contain a large number of germans. the scandinavians locate chiefly in the northwest, especially in minnesota, north and south dakota; and the large number of foreign parentage in those states is due to scandinavian immigration. all these nationalities, however, readily assimilate with our population, as they have very largely the same social and political standards and ideals. but this is not true regarding some of the more recent immigrants from southern and eastern europe, whose massing in large communities of their own must be regarded as a more serious matter. the census does not help us to find out how far these recent immigrants have massed in certain localities, but the commissioner of immigration has kept statistics of the destination of these recent immigrants, and they show the following results: in 1907, of the 294,000 italian speaking immigrants who came to us in that year, 120,000 settled in the state of new york; 53,000 in pennsylvania; 19,000 in massachusetts; and 17,000 in new jersey. three fourths of the italian immigrants, in other words, apparently go to these four states. of the 138,000 poles who came in 1907, 33,000 were bound to pennsylvania, 31,000 to new york, 12,000 to new jersey, and 17,000 to illinois. these four states seem to constitute the favorite places of settlement for the slavs. of the 149,000 russian and polish hebrews who came in 1907, 93,000 settled in new york state, 15,000 in pennsylvania, and 9000 in massachusetts, these three states being the favorite places of settlement for recent jewish immigrants. it seems clear from these figures that the congestion of recent immigrants is serious, and it is a question whether with such congestion it will be possible to assimilate these recent comers, so unlike ourselves in social traditions and ideals, to the american type. it is claimed by some that there is no serious congestion of immigrants in this country, and that the immigrants distribute themselves through the operation of normal economic influences in the places where they are most needed, and that we need not, therefore, be concerned about the congestion of foreign born in certain communities. this view, however, that economic laws or forces will sufficiently attend to this matter of the distribution of our immigrants, is not borne out by the facts of ordinary observation and experience. _the distribution of immigrants in industry_. it is probably safe to say that four fifths of our recent immigrants belong to the unskilled class of laborers, though the percentage of unskilled fluctuates greatly from year to year and from nationality to nationality. out of the total of 1,285,000 immigrants in 1907 only 12,600 were recorded by the commissioner of immigration as belonging to the professional classes; 190,000, or about 15 per cent, were skilled laborers, including all who had any trade; while 760,000 were unskilled laborers, including farm and day laborers, 304,000 being persons of no occupation, including women and children. when we consider the matter by races, the contrast is even more striking. of the 242,000 south italian immigrants in 1907 only 701 were professional men; 26,000, or 11 per cent, were skilled laborers; while the number of unskilled amounted to 161,000, or 66 per cent. of the 138,000 poles who came in 1907, only 273 were professional men; 8000, or 6 per cent, were skilled laborers; and 107,000, or 77 per cent, were unskilled. in the case of the hebrews, however, there is a much higher percentage of skilled laborers and professional men. it is claimed by those who favor the policy of unrestricted immigration that what this country needs at present is a large supply of unskilled laborers, and so the fact that the mass of immigrants belong to the unskilled class of laborers, it is said, is no objection to them. again, the census of 1900 shows a very uneven distribution of the foreign born among the different classes of occupations. thus, while the foreign born constituted about one seventh of the population, over one third of those engaged in manufacturing were foreign born; one half of those engaged in mining were foreign born; one fourth of those engaged in transportation were foreign born; one fourth of those engaged in domestic service were also foreign born, while only one eighth of those engaged in agriculture were foreign born. this shows that the tendency of the foreign born is to mass in such industries as mining, manufacturing, and transportation. it is undoubtedly in these industries that there is the greatest demand for cheap labor, and the presence of a large number of unskilled foreign laborers has made it possible for the american capitalists to develop these industries under such conditions probably faster than they would otherwise have been developed. at the same time, however, all of this has been a hardship to the native-born american laborer, and the tendency has been to eliminate the native born from these occupations to which the immigrants have flocked. some other social effects of immigration.--(1) the influence on the proportion of the sexes of immigration into this country has without doubt been considerable. in 1907, out of a total of 1,285,349 immigrants, 929,976 were males and 355,373 were females. for a long period of years about two thirds of all the immigrants into the united states have been males. this has considerably affected the proportion of the sexes in the united states, making the males about 1,000,000 in excess in our population. the influence of such a discrepancy in the proportion of the sexes is difficult to state, but it is obvious, from all that has previously been said about the importance of the numerical equality of the sexes in society, that the influence must be a considerable one, and that not for good. (2) the following table shows how far the increase of population in the united states in the decennial periods since 1800 has been due to immigration and to reproduction. until 1840 the increase by immigration was so small as to be hardly noticeable, and therefore no account of it is taken. total increase by immigration by birth year per cent. per cent. per cent. 1800 35.70 1810 36.38 1820 34.07 1830 33.55 1840 32.67 4.66 28.01 1850 35.87 10.04 25.83 1860 35.58 11.12 24.46 1870 22.63 7.25 15.38 1880 30.08 7.29 22.79 1890 24.86 10.40 15.40 1900 20.73 5.86 14.87 this table shows that it is not certain that immigration has increased the total population of the united states, as a decrease of the natural birth rate seems to have accompanied increasing immigration. for this reason professor francis a. walker held that it was doubtful that immigration had added anything to the population of the united states. at any rate, the population of the country was increasing just as rapidly before the large volume of immigration was received as it increased at any later time. again, the southern states, which have received practically no immigrants since the civil war, have increased their population as rapidly as the northern states, that is, the increase of population among the southern whites has been equal to that of the northern assisted by immigration. these two facts suggest that the immigrants have simply displaced an equal number of native born who would have been furnished by birth rate if the immigrants had never come. (3) immigration has very largely aided in maintaining a considerable amount of illiteracy in the united states in spite of the effects of the propaganda for popular education which has been carried on now for the last fifty years or more. in 1900 there were still 6,246,000 illiterates above the age of ten years in the united states, which was 10.7 per cent of the population above that age. of these, about 3,200,000 were whites, and of this number, again, 1,293,000 were foreign born. nearly all of the native white illiterates in the united states are found in the southern states, the white illiteracy in the northern states being practically confined to the foreign born. thus, in the state of new york 5.5 per cent are illiterate, but of the native whites only 1.2 per cent are illiterate, while 14 per cent of the foreign population can neither read nor write. again, in massachusetts 5 per cent of the population are illiterate, but of the native whites only 0.8 per cent are illiterate, while 14.6 per cent of the foreign born are illiterate. statistics of illiteracy for our cities show the same results. thus, in the city of new york 6.8 per cent of the population are illiterate, but only 0.4 per cent of the native whites are illiterate, while 13.9 per cent of the foreign born are illiterate. boston has 5.1 per cent of its total population illiterate, but only 0.2 per cent of its native white population are illiterate, while 11.3 per cent of its foreign-born population are illiterate. of the total immigration in 1907, 30 per cent were illiterate. the number of illiterates from different countries varies greatly. in 1907, 53 per cent of the immigrants from southern italy were illiterate. in the same year 40 per cent of the poles were illiterate, 25 per cent of the slovaks from austria, 56 per cent of the ruthenians from austria, 29 per cent of the russian jews, and 54 per cent of the syrians. the bulk of our immigration is now made up of these people from southern and eastern europe, among whom the illiteracy is high. it is interesting to contrast the condition of these people with the immigrants from northern and western europe, whence our immigration was mainly received a few years ago. the percentage of illiteracy among the immigrants from western europe is very low. thus, in 1907 among the french it was only 4 per cent; among the germans, 4 per cent; irish, 3 per cent; english, 2 per cent; and scandinavians, less than 1 per cent. connected more or less with this fact of illiteracy is the number in our population who cannot speak english. in 1900 the number of persons in the united states above the age of ten years who could not speak english was reported by the census to be 1,463,000, but it is probable, owing to the recent large immigration, that the number is at least twice that at the present time. (4) crime and poverty. it is said that crime is apt to accompany migration. however, down to 1904 our immigrants have not shown any exaggerated tendency to crime. the special prison census of 1904 showed that 23.7 per cent of the male white prisoners were foreign born, while 23 per cent of the general male white population above the age of fifteen years were foreign born. this shows a tendency to crime among the foreign born not greatly out of proportion to their numbers in the population. the same census, however, showed that 29.8 per cent of all white male prisoners committed during 1904 were born of foreign parents, while this element constituted only 18.8 per cent of the general white male population. thus, among the children of the foreign born there appears to be an exaggerated tendency to crime, while not among the foreign born themselves. the probable explanation of this is that the children of the foreign born are often reared in our large cities, and particularly in the slum districts of those cities. thus the high criminality of the children of the foreign born is perhaps largely a product of urban life, but it may be suggested also that the children of the foreign born lack adequate parental control in their new american environment. certain elements among our immigrants, however, seem strongly predisposed to crime. this is especially true of the southern italian. for example, the census of 1904 showed that 6.1 per cent of the foreign-born prisoners committed during 1904 were italian, while italians constituted but 4.7 per cent of the total foreign-born population. moreover, if we consider simply serious offenses, the evidence of the criminality of the italian immigrant is even still more striking, for 14.4 per cent of the foreign-born major offenders committed during 1904 were italians, while, as was just said, italians constituted only 4.7 per cent of the total foreign-born population. in the matter of poverty and dependence the foreign born make a more unfavorable showing. in the special census report on paupers for 1904 the proportion of foreign born among almshouse paupers was about twice as great as among the native born. again, in a special investigation conducted by the commissioner of immigration in the year 1907-1908, out of 288,395 inmates of charitable institutions there were 60,025 who were foreign born, or about 21 per cent, and out of 172,185 inmates of insane hospitals, 50,734, or about 29 per cent, were foreign born. inasmuch as the foreign born probably did not constitute in 1907-1908 more than 15 or 16 per cent of the total population of both sexes, it is seen that the foreign born contribute out of their proportion both to inmates of charitable institutions and to the number of the insane. the experience of charity organization societies in our large cities, especially new york, confirms these findings. it is not surprising, indeed, that many of our immigrants should soon need assistance after landing in this country, inasmuch as a very large proportion of them come to the united states bringing little or no money with them. thus, for a number of years the amount of money brought by immigrants from russia has varied from nine to fifteen dollars per head. on account of the difficulties of economic adjustment in a new country it is not surprising, then, that many of the immigrants become more or less dependent, some temporarily and some permanently. immigration into other countries.--it has been suggested that with the opening up of other new countries the immigration problem of the united states would solve itself, and that so many emigrants from europe will soon be going to south america, south africa, and australia that this country will be in no danger of receiving more than its share. down to recent years, however, there have been little or no signs of such a diversion of the stream of immigration from europe into those countries. the principal countries which receive immigrants other than the united states are brazil, argentina, canada, and australia. while brazil has received between 1855 and 1904 a total of 2,096,000 immigrants, the present number of immigrants into brazil seems to be comparatively small, for in 1904 it was only 12,400. argentina, next to the united states, receives the most considerable immigration from europe. from 1857 to 1906 argentina received 3,639,000 immigrants. in 1906 the number was 252,000, of whom 127,000 were italian, 17,000 russian hebrews, and the remainder from various european nationalities. the foreign immigration into other south american countries is comparatively insignificant. in 1906 australia received 148,000 immigrants, most of whom were british, but the emigration from australia almost equaled the immigration into australia in that year. again, in 1906 the dominion of canada received 189,000 immigrants, chiefly from great britain and the united states. an unknown number, however, of canadians migrated across the border into the united states,--no record being kept of canadian immigration into the united states since 1885, except of those who come by way of seaports. thus it is certain that the united states receives more immigration at the present time than all the other countries of the world combined, and, as we have said, there is as yet little or no evidence that the stream of european emigration will be diverted for some years to come to these other countries. the problem of immigration in the united states is not, therefore, a problem of the past, but is still a problem of the future. therefore, the question of reasonable restrictions upon immigration into this country and of the improvement of the immigrants that we admit is still a pressing problem of the day. proposed immigration restrictions.--there are no good moral or political grounds to exclude all immigrants from this country. the question is not one of the prohibition of immigration, but one of reasonable restrictions upon immigration, or, as professor commons has said, of the _improvement_ of immigration. there can be no question as to the moral right of the united states to restrict immigration. if it is our duty to develop our institutions and our national life in such a way that they will make the largest possible contribution to the good of humanity, then it is manifestly our duty to exclude from membership in american society elements which might prevent our institutions from reaching their highest and best development. all restrictions to immigration, it must be admitted, must be based, not upon national selfishness, but upon the principle of the good of humanity; and there can be no doubt that the good of humanity demands that every nation protect its people and its institutions from elements which may seriously threaten their stability and survival. the arguments in favor of further restrictions upon the immigration into this country may be summed up along four lines: (1) _the industrial argument_. many of the immigrants work for low wages, and, as we have already seen, offer such competition that the native born, in certain lines of industry, are almost entirely eliminated. this has been, no doubt, a hardship to the native-born american workingman. while we have been zealous to protect the american workingman from the unfair competition of european labor by high protective tariffs, yet inconsistently we have permitted great numbers of european laborers to compete with the american workingman upon his own soil. on the other hand, this large supply of cheap labor, as we have already seen, has enabled american capitalists to develop american industries very rapidly, to dominate in many cases the markets of the world, and to add greatly to the wealth of the country. it has been chiefly the large employers of labor in the united states, together with the steamship companies, who have opposed any considerable restrictions upon immigration, and thus far their power with congress has successfully prevented the passing of stringent immigration laws. on the whole, it is probably true that if industrial arguments alone are to be taken into consideration upon the immigration problem, the weight of the argument would be on the side of unrestricted immigration. but industrial arguments are not the only ones to be taken into consideration in considering the immigration problem, and this has been hitherto one of the great mistakes of many in discussing the problem. (2) _the social argument._ many of our recent immigrants are at least very difficult of social assimilation. they are clannish, tend to form colonies of their own race in which their language, customs, and ideals are preserved. this is especially true of the illiterate immigrants from southern and eastern europe. as we have already seen, the rate of illiteracy among certain of our recent immigrants is so high that they can scarcely be expected to participate in our social life. just the social effect of such colonies of different peoples and nationalities upon our own social life and institutions cannot well be foreseen, but it can scarcely be a good effect. the public school, it is true, does much to assimilate to american ideals and standards the children of even the most unassimilable immigrants. the public school is not as yet, however, a perfect agency of socialization, and even when attended by the children of these immigrants they fail to receive from it, in many cases, the higher elements of our culture and still continue to remain essentially foreign in their thought and actions. (3) _the political argument._ many of these immigrants are, therefore, incapable of understanding and appreciating our free institutions. they are not fit to vote intelligently, but are nevertheless quickly naturalized and form a very large per cent of our voting population, especially in our large cities. as a rule, they do not sell their votes, but their votes are often under the control of a few leaders, and thus they are able to hold, oftentimes, the balance of power between parties and factions. it is questionable whether free institutions can work successfully under such conditions. (4) _the racial or biological argument._ undoubtedly the strongest arguments in favor of further restriction upon immigration into the united states are of a biological nature. the peoples that are coming to us at present belong to a different race from ours. they belong to the slavic and mediterranean subraces of the white race. now, the slavic and mediterranean races have never shown the capacity for self-government and free institutions which the peoples of northern and western europe have shown. it is doubtful if they have the same capacity for self-government. moreover, the whole history of the social life and social ideals of these people shows them to have been in their past development very different from ourselves. of course, if heredity counts for nothing it will only be a few generations before the descendants of these people will be as good americans as any. but this is the question, does heredity count for nothing? or does blood tell? are habits of acting and, therefore, social and institutional life, dependent, more or less, on the biological heredity of peoples, or are they entirely independent of such biological influence? there is much diversity of opinion upon this question, but perhaps the most trustworthy opinion inclines to the view that racial heredity, even between subraces of the white race, is a factor of great moment and must be taken into account. it is scarcely probable that a people of so different racial heredity from ourselves as the southern italians, for example, will develop our institutions and social life exactly as those of the same blood as ourselves. it is impossible to think that the latin temperament would express itself socially in the same ways as the teutonic temperament. certainly the coming to us of the vast numbers of peoples from southern and eastern europe is destined to change our physical type, and it seems also probable that if permitted to go on it will change our mental and social type also. whether this is desirable or not must be left for each individual to decide for himself. another phase of this biological argument is the necessity of selection, if we are to avoid introducing into our national blood the degenerate strains of the oppressed peoples of southern and eastern europe. if selection counts in the life of a people, as practically all biologists agree, then the american people certainly have a great opportunity to exercise selection on a large scale to determine who shall be the parents of the future americans. while it is undesirable, perhaps, to discriminate among immigrants on the ground of race, it would certainly be desirable to select from all peoples those elements that we could most advantageously incorporate into our own life. the biological argument alone, therefore, seems to necessitate the admission of the importance of rigid selection in the matter of whom we shall admit into this country. at present, however, almost nothing is being accomplished in the way of insuring such a selection of the most fit. all that is attempted at the present time is to eliminate the very least fit, and the elimination amounts to only about one per cent of all who come to us. our present immigration laws debar a number of classes, chiefly, however, persons suffering from loathsome or dangerous diseases, persons who are paupers or likely to become public charges, and contract laborers, besides chinese laborers. practically all who are debarred at the present time come under these heads. other classes who are debarred, however, are idiots, imbeciles, epileptics, insane, criminals, assisted immigrants, polygamists, anarchists, prostitutes, and procurers. only an insignificant number, however, of immigrants are debarred upon these latter grounds. in 1907, with a total immigration of 1,285,000, only 13,064 were debarred as coming under these excluded classes, or a trifle over one per cent. for a number of years, indeed, since we have had any restriction laws at all, the number debarred has been a trifle over one per cent. of course, this constitutes no adequate selection of immigrants which would satisfy biological or even high social requirements. it would seem, therefore, that our immigration laws, from a biological and sociological standpoint, are extremely deficient and that some means of more adequate selection among immigrants should speedily be found. it has been suggested that a better selection of immigrants may be secured by imposing an illiteracy test upon all male immigrants between the ages of sixteen and fifty years coming to us, excluding those male immigrants between these ages who cannot read or write in some language. it is not proposed that this test should take the place of the present restrictions, but should be in addition to the present restrictions. it is argued by those who favor this test: (1) that it would exclude those elements that we desire to exclude, namely, the illiterates from southern and eastern europe; (2) that it is easy to apply this test; (3) that immigrants would know before leaving european ports whether they would be admitted or not; (4) that such a test would have a favorable educational and, therefore, social effect upon the countries from which we now draw our largest proportion of illiterate immigrants. it would seem, however, that the more important tests should be certain tests as to biological, social, and economic fitness. it would be no hardship upon any one for this country to require that all immigrants come up to a certain biological standard and that this standard should be a very strict one, say, the same as that required for admission to the united states army; and that furthermore they should possess enough money to insure the probability of their economic adjustment in this country. such tests, moreover, might be enforced by our government practically without cost, as the burden of making such tests could be placed entirely upon the steamship companies that bring immigrants to the united states. it has been shown that a heavy fine of from one hundred to five hundred dollars for every person that is brought to the united states that does not conform to the requirements of our immigration laws is sufficient to make the steamship companies exercise a very stringent selection upon all whom they bring to us as immigrants. finally, something may probably be done to secure a better distribution of our immigrants through the coöperation of the federal government with state immigration societies, and with various private employment and philanthropic agencies. in any case the requirement that the immigrant shall possess beyond his ticket a certain amount of money, say $25.00, would help to secure a wider distribution of our immigrants. asiatic immigration.--what has been said regarding there being no good social or political argument for the prohibition of immigrants does not apply to asiatic immigration. here the importance of the racial factor becomes so pronounced that it may well be doubted if a policy of exclusion toward asiatic immigration would not be the wisest in the long run for the people of this country. it is true that but few asiatic immigrants have as yet come to this country, but there are grave reasons for believing that if the policy of exclusion had not been adopted a quarter of a century ago, asiatic immigration would now constitute a very considerable proportion of our total immigration. it is chiefly the chinese who are the main element in asiatic immigration, and between 1851 and 1900 the chinese sent us a total of only 310,000 immigrants; but in 1882, the year before the first chinese exclusion law was put into effect, 39,000 chinese immigrants entered the united states, and if their rate of increase had been kept up the chinese would now be sending us from 100,000 to 300,000 immigrants annually. the chinese exclusion act of 1882, reenacted and strengthened again in 1892 and in 1902, excluded all chinese laborers from the united states. consequently in 1890 the census showed only a total of 107,000 chinese in this country, and in 1900 only 93,283, exclusive of hawaii. in hawaii, however, there were 25,767 chinese in 1900, most of whom were residents of the islands previous to the annexation. the chinese in continental united states were, moreover, massed in 1900 chiefly in the pacific coast states, there being 67,729 chinese in the rocky mountain and pacific coast states, of which number 45,753 were in california alone. in judging this question of asiatic immigration we should accept to a certain extent the opinion of the people of the pacific coast regarding the problems which these asiatic immigrants create. at any rate, the opinion of any group of people who are closest to a social problem should not be disregarded, as there are probabilities of error on the part of the distant observer of conditions as well as on the part of those who stand very close to a social problem. just as we should accept the opinion of the southern people in regard to the negro problem as worth something, so we should accept the judgment of the people of our western states in regard to the chinese and japanese also as worth something. now, as regards the chinese, the people of the pacific coast say they would rather have the negro among them than the chinese. they have numerous objections to the chinese, similar to the various lines of argument which have already been given in favor of the restriction of immigration. they say, namely, (1) that the chinese work for wages below the minimum necessary to maintain life for the white man, and so reduce the standard of living and crowd out the white working-man. there can scarcely be any question that the white laboring man is not able to compete economically with the chinese laborer. (2) again, they claim that the chinese make no contribution to the welfare of the country; that they come here to remain several years, to attain a competence, and then return to china. (3) it is claimed that the chinese are grossly immoral, that they are addicted to the opium habit and other vices, and that so few women come among the chinese immigrants that chinese men menace the virtue of white women. (4) the chinese do not readily assimilate. they keep their language, religion, and customs. they live largely by themselves, and are even more completely isolated from american social life than the negro. in comparison with them, indeed, one is struck with the fact that the negro has our customs, our religion, our language, and, in so far as he has been able to attain them, our moral standards, but this is not the case with the chinese. it is, moreover, impossible for the chinese to assume the white man's standards without losing his own social position among members of his own race. (5) the last and strongest argument in favor of the general exclusion of chinese laborers from this country, however, is the racial argument. the chinese are just as different in race from us as the negro, and if racial heredity counts for anything it is fatuous to hope to assimilate them to the social type of the whites. moreover, if we should open our doors to the mass of chinese laborers china would be able to swamp us with chinese immigrants. with its hundreds of millions of population china could spare to us several hundred thousand immigrants each year without feeling the loss. if we wish to keep the western third of our country, therefore, a white man's country it would be well not to open the doors to chinese immigrants. it is certain that if we open our doors to the mass of chinese immigrants we shall have another racial problem in the west such as we now have in the south with the negro. those who claim upon the basis of sentiment or humanity that we should open our doors and attempt to civilize and christianize the flood of chinese who would come to us, probably do not appreciate fully the social status of the chinese or the social status of the american people. the truth is we are not yet ourselves enough civilized to undertake the work of civilizing and christianizing a very considerable number of people alien to ourselves in race, religion and social ideals. again, those who advocate the free admission of the chinese probably do not appreciate the importance of the element of racial heredity in social problems. the negro problem should have taught us by this time that this factor of racial heredity is not to be discounted altogether. all that has been said regarding chinese immigration applies to asiatic immigration in general. it is not surprising, therefore, that since the japanese laborers have begun to come to us in large numbers the people of the pacific coast should demand the exclusion of the japanese immigrants. while japan has not the immense population of china and while the japanese are perhaps a more adaptable people than the chinese, still it would seem that in the main the people of the pacific coast are justified in their fears of the results of a large japanese immigration. for the peace of both countries and of the world, therefore, it is to be hoped that the flow of japanese laborers into the western states will be checked without any disruption of the friendship of the united states and japan. the same thing can be said regarding the hindoo immigrants who are just beginning to come to us. it would appear that the wisest policy, therefore, regarding, all asiatic immigration is the exclusion of asiatic laborers, and as these would constitute over nine tenths of all asiatic immigrants who might come to us, this would assure a practical solution of the problem. select references _for brief reading:_ commons, _races and immigrants in america_. hall, _immigration and its effect upon the united states_. mayo-smith, _emigration and immigration_. _for more extended reading:_ grose, _the incoming millions_. steiner, _on the trail of the immigrant_. whelpley, _the problem of the immigrant_. reports of the united states commissioner-general of immigration. _on chinese immigration:_ coolidge, _chinese immigration_. chapter x the negro problem already we have been brought in our study of the immigration problem to race problems--problems of the relations of races to one another and of their mutual adjustment. the negro problem is one of many race problems which the united states has, but because it is the most pressing of all of our race problems it is frequently spoken of as _the race problem_. an unsolved factor in all race problems is the biological influence of racial heredity, and this factor we must seek to understand and estimate at the very outset of any scientific study of the negro problem. racial heredity as a factor in social evolution.--we have already seen that racial heredity is the most important and at the same time the least known factor in the problem of immigration. while there is still much disagreement among scientific men as to the importance of racial heredity in social problems, it can be said that the weight of opinion inclines to the view that racial heredity is a very real factor, and one which cannot be left altogether out of account in studying social problems. the view of buckle that racial heredity counted for nothing in explaining the social life of various peoples is not upheld by modern biologists. on the contrary the biological view would emphasize the importance of species and racial heredity in all problems connected with life; thus no one denies that between different species of animals heredity counts for everything in explaining their life activities, and, as between the different breeds or races of a single species, no other position is possible from the biological point of view. nevertheless it may be admitted that man no longer lives a purely animal life and that racial heredity as a factor in his social life may be easily exaggerated. on the whole, it is a safe rule to follow that racial heredity should not be invoked to explain the social condition of a people until practically all other factors have been exhausted. nevertheless as between the different races or great varieties of mankind there must be a great difference in racial heredity. it could not, indeed, be otherwise, since these different races were developed in different geographical environments or "areas of characterization." natural selection has developed in each race of mankind an innate character fitted to cope with the environment in which it was evolved. this is clearly perceptible in regard to their bodily traits, and all modern research seems to show that their native reactions to different stimuli also vary greatly, that is, heredity affects their thoughts, feelings and mode of conduct as well as the color of skin, texture of hair, and shape of head. in other words, the instincts or native reactions of the different races of man vary considerably in degree if not in quality, and from this it follows that their feelings, ideas, and modes of conduct must also vary considerably. it may be noted, however, that taking racial heredity into full account by no means leads to an attitude of fatalism as regards racial problems. on the contrary modern biology clearly teaches that racial heredity is modifiable both in the individual and in the race. it is modifiable in the individual through education or training; it is modifiable in the race through selection. therefore racial heredity does not foredoom any people to remain in a low status of culture; only it must be taken into account in explaining the cultural conditions of all peoples, and especially in planning for a people's social amelioration. the racial heredity of the negro.--it is generally agreed by anthropologists and biologists that mankind constitutes but a single species, developed from a single pre-human anthropoid stock. the various races of mankind have had, therefore, a common origin, but having developed in different geographical areas they each present certain peculiar racial traits adapting each to the environment in which it was developed. now, the negro race is that part of mankind which was developed in the tropics. in all the negro's physical and mental make-up he shows complete adaptation to a tropical environment. the dark color of his skin, for example, was developed by natural selection to exclude the injurious actinic rays of the sun. the various ways in which the negro's tropical environment influenced the development of his mind, particularly of his instincts, cannot be here entered into in detail. suffice to say that the african environment of the ancestors of the present negroes in the united states deeply stamped itself upon the mental traits and tendencies of the race. for example, the tropical environment is generally unfavorable to severe bodily labor. persons who work hard in the tropics are, in other words, apt to be eliminated by natural selection. on the other hand, nature furnishes a bountiful supply of food without much labor. hence, the tropical environment of the negro failed to develop in him any instinct to work, but favored the survival of those naturally shiftless and lazy. again, the extremely high death rate in africa necessitated a correspondingly high birth rate in order that any race living there might survive; hence, nature fixed in the negro strong sexual propensities in order to secure such a high birth rate. it is not claimed that the shiftlessness and sensuality of the masses of the american negroes to-day can be wholly attributed to hereditary influences, but it would be a great mistake to suppose that the african environment did not have something to do with these two dominant characteristics of the present american negro. so we might go through the whole list of the conspicuous traits and tendencies of the american negro, and in practically every case we would find good reason for believing that these racial traits and tendencies are at least in part instinctive, that is, due to the influence of racial heredity. the question is frequently raised whether the negro is inferior by nature to the white man or not. it is obvious from what has been said that the negro may, on the side of his instinctive or hereditary equipment, be inferior to the white man in his natural adaptiveness to a complex civilization existing under very different climatic conditions from those in which he was evolved. this does not mean, however, that the negro is in any sense a degenerate. on the contrary, from the point of view of a tropical environment, as we have already made plain, the negro may be regarded as the white man's superior. it is only in countries out of his own natural environment, under strange conditions of life to which he has not yet become biologically adapted, that the negro is inferior to the white man. in africa he is the white man's superior if we adopt survival as the test of superiority. influence of slavery on the negro.--there is no longer any doubt that the influence of slavery on the negro, as a form of industry, was both beneficent and maleficent. the negroes brought to america by the slave traders were subject to a very severe artificial selection, which, perhaps, secured a better type of negro physically on the whole, and a more docile type mentally; but the chief beneficent influence of slavery on the negro was that it taught him to work, to some extent at least. moreover, it gave the negro the anglo-saxon tongue and the rudiments of our morality, religion, and civilization. on the other hand, slavery did not fit the individual or the race for a life of freedom, and did not raise moral standards much above those of africa. the monogamic form of the family was, to be sure, enforced upon the slaves, but the family life was often broken up; for even when the owner of the slaves was kind-hearted and humane, on his death his property would be sold and the families of his slaves scattered. under such conditions it is not surprising that the negro learned little of family morality. again, being property himself, the negro could not be taught properly to appreciate the rights of property. finally slavery failed to develop in the slave that self-mastery and self-control which are necessary for free social life. admirable as slavery was in some ways as a school for an uncultivated people, it failed utterly in other ways; and it surely should not be difficult to devise methods of training at the present time which are superior to anything that slavery as a school for the industrial training of the negro could possibly have accomplished. statistics of the negro problem in the united states. the following table will show the percentage of negroes in the population of the united states at different decades (negro, in census terminology, includes all persons of negro descent): per cent. 1790 ................................... 19.37 1800 ................................... 18.88 1810 ................................... 19.03 1830 ................................... 18.10 1840 ................................... 16.84 1850 ................................... 15.69 1860 ................................... 14.13 1870 ................................... 12.60 1880 ................................... 13.12 1890 ................................... 11.93 1900 ................................... 11.63 in 1860 the total number of negroes in the population of the united states was 4,441,000. forty years later, in 1900, the number had just doubled, having reached 8,840,000. nevertheless, it will be seen from the above table that the percentage of negroes in the total population has steadily diminished, although the negro population doubled between 1860 and 1900. between 1890 and 1900 the comparative rates of increase for the whites and negroes were: whites, 21.49 per cent; negroes, 18.10 per cent. geographical distribution of the negroes. the negro problem would not be so acute in certain sections of the country if negroes were distributed evenly over the country instead of being massed as they are in certain sections. ninety per cent of the total number of negroes in the country live in the south atlantic and south central states. moreover, over eighty per cent live in the so-called "black belt" states,--the "black belt" being a chain of counties stretching from virginia to texas in which over half of the population are negroes. the following table shows the percentage of negro population in these states of the "black belt": per cent. alabama............................................. 45.2 arkansas............................................ 28.0 florida............................................. 43.6 georgia............................................. 46.7 louisiana........................................... 47.1 mississippi......................................... 58.5 north carolina...................................... 33.0 south carolina...................................... 58.4 tennessee........................................... 23.8 texas............................................... 20.4 virginia............................................ 35.7 while in only two of these states there is an absolute preponderance of negroes, yet these statistics give no idea of the massing of negroes in certain localities. in washington county, mississippi, for example, the negroes number 44,143, the whites 5002; in beaufort county, south carolina, the negroes number 32,137, the whites 3349. in many counties in the "black belt" more than three fourths of the population are negroes. it is in these states that the negro population is rapidly increasing. _increase of negro in states since 1860_. the following table will show the percentage of negroes in the population in former slave-holding states in 1860 and in 1900: states 1860 1900 per cent per cent alabama .................. 45.4 45.2 arkansas ................. 25.6 28 florida .................. 44.6 43.6 georgia .................. 44 40.7 kentucky ................. 20.4 13.3 louisiana ................ 49.5 47.1 maryland ................. 24.9 19.8 mississippi .............. 55.3 58.5 missouri ................. 10 5.2 north carolina ........... 30.4 33 south carolina ........... 58.6 58.4 tennessee ................ 25.5 23.8 texas .................... 30.3 20.4 virginia ................. 42 35.7 it will be noted that the states whose relative negro population has increased since the war are arkansas, mississippi, and georgia, while in south carolina and alabama, the relative proportion of negroes has stood stationary. in the decade from 1890 to 1900, florida, alabama, mississippi, and arkansas of the above states showed a more rapid increase of their negro population than of their white population. in other southern states, however, the white population increased more rapidly than the negro population, although in georgia both races increased about equally. in certain northern states the census of 1900 shows the negro population to be increasing much more rapidly than the white population. in new york, pennsylvania, illinois, indiana, and massachusetts, for example, the negro population increased about twice as fast as the white population, but the number of negroes in these states was still in 1900 comparatively small, new york having 99,000; pennsylvania, 156,000, illinois, 85,000, indiana, 57,000; and massachusetts, 31,000. this increase of negro population in certain northern states is, of course, due to the immigration of the negro into those states, and may be regarded on the whole as a fortunate movement, serving to distribute the negro population more evenly over the whole country, were it not that the negro death rate in these northern states is so very high that the negroes who go to these states do not as a rule maintain their numbers. _the urban negro population._--seventeen per cent of the total negro population in 1900 lived in cities of over 8000 population while the remainder lived in small towns and country districts. the following great cities had a high percentage of negroes: per cent. memphis ............................... 48.8 washington ............................ 31.1 new orleans ........................... 27.1 louisville ............................ 19.1 st. louis ............................. 6.2 philadelphia .......................... 4.8 baltimore ............................. 15.6 some smaller southern cities have, of course, a much higher percentage of negroes in their population, such as jacksonville, florida, 57.1 per cent; charleston, south carolina, 56.5 per cent; savannah, georgia, 51.8 per cent. on the whole, however, it will be seen that the mass of the negroes in the united states still live in rural districts, although directly after the civil war and again within recent years there has been a considerable movement of the negroes to the cities. this is extremely significant for the social conditions of the race, because the negro, while not adapted in general to the environment of civilization, is still less adapted to the environment which the modern city affords him. the social condition of the negroes in the united states.--(1) _intermixture of races._ ever since the negro came to this country he has been having his racial characteristics modified by the infusion of white blood. the census of 1890 attempted to make an estimate of the number of negroes of mixed blood in the united states. the number returned as being of mixed blood was 1,132,000, but all authorities agree that this number understates the actual number. the census officials themselves repudiated these figures as being entirely misleading. experts in ethnology have estimated that from one third to one half of the negroes in the united states show traces of white intermixture. the lower estimate, that one third of the negroes of the united states have more or less white blood, is quite generally accepted by those who have carefully investigated the matter. of course the proportion of negroes of mixed blood varies greatly in different localities. in communities in the border states frequently more than one half of the negroes show marked traces of white intermixture. but in the isolated rural regions of the south, where the negroes predominate, the full-blood negro is by far the more common type. this infusion of white blood into a portion of the negro population is significant sociologically. it is the negroes of mixed blood who are ambitious socially and who present some of the most acute phases of the negro problem. it is from the mixed bloods that the leaders of the race in this country have come. the pure negro without intermixture has hitherto seemed incapable of leadership. such men as booker t. washington, professor du bois, and most other negro leaders have a considerable mixture of white blood. a list of 2200 negro authors was once compiled by the librarian of congress, and investigation showed that with very few exceptions these negro authors came from the mixed stock. indeed, practically all of the negroes who have been eminent in literature, science, art, or statesmanship have come from this class of mixed bloods. but the infusion of white blood has also in some ways been a detriment to the negro. the illegitimate offspring resulting from the unions of white fathers and negro mothers are frequently the product of conditions of vice. the consequence is that the child of mixed origin frequently has a degenerate heredity and, coming into the world as a bastard, is more or less in disfavor with both races; hence the social environment of the mulatto as well as his heredity is oftentimes peculiarly unfavorable. it is not surprising, therefore, to find among the mulattoes a great amount of constitutional diseases and a great tendency to crime and immorality. again mulatto women are more frequently debauched by white men than the pure blood negro women, and for this reason negro women of mixed blood are more apt to be immoral. so we see that while the mixed bloods have furnished the leaders of their race, they have also furnished an undue proportion of its vice and crime. this is exactly what we should expect when we understand the social conditions existing between the races and the origin and social environment of the mulatto. the crime and vice and constitutional diseases of the mulatto do not prove that degeneracy results from the intermixture of the two races, as was once supposed. on the contrary, as we have already seen, all of these things result from the fact that the crossing of the races takes place under socially abnormal conditions, that is, under conditions of vice. this is not, however, true in all cases and particularly it was not true of all intermixture that took place under the regime of slavery. rather intermixture under such circumstances approached not vice, as we understand the word, but polygyny. consequently some of the best blood of the south runs in the veins of some of the mulattoes. again, we have examples from other countries of the crossing of the two races, negro and white, without physical degeneracy. in the west indies and in brazil this crossing is frequently taking place, and many of the best families of those countries have a slight amount of negro blood in their veins. from instances like this, gathered from all over the world, it has generally been concluded by anthropologists that no evil physiological results necessarily follow the intermixture of races, even the most diverse, but that all supposed physiological evils coming from the intermixture of races really come from social rather than from physiological causes. from the point of view of the white race and from the point of view of the negro race such racial intermixture, outside of the bounds of law, may be for many reasons undesirable. but we are here concerned with noting only the social effect of the intermixture that has gone on in the past; and we see that on the one hand it has resulted in creating a class of so-called negroes in whom white blood and the ambitions and energy of the white race predominate, and on the other hand it has also resulted in creating a degenerate mixed stock who furnish the majority of criminals and vicious persons belonging to the so-called negro race. (2) _criminality of the negro._ one of the most important features of the negro problem in the united states is the strong tendency among the negroes toward crime; and this, as we have just seen, is especially manifest in those of mixed origin. professor willcox has shown that in 1890 there were in the south six white prisoners to every ten thousand whites, but twenty-nine negro prisoners to every ten thousand negroes, while in the north there were twelve white prisoners to every ten thousand whites, but sixty-nine negro prisoners to every ten thousand negroes. these statistics show that the negro is everywhere more criminal than the white, and that his tendency toward crime increases as we go north, doubtless largely because in the north he is in a strange and more complex environment and finds greater difficulty in making social adjustments. moreover, negro crime is increasing. from 1880 to 1890 the negro prisoners of the united states increased 29 per cent, while the white prisoners only increased 8 per cent. later statistics show the same result. as yet there has been no check to the steady increase of negro crime in this country since the civil war. in some northern cities, like chicago, in some years the number of arrests of negroes has equaled one third of the total negro population of those cities. the criminality of the negro is doubtless in part a matter of social environment, because we see that negro crime increases in cities and in the more complex northern communities; but it is also to some extent a matter of the negro's heredity. of course vice accompanies crime among the american negroes. the statistics of illegitimacy in washington cited by hoffman in his _race traits and tendencies of the american negro_ show that in fifteen years in washington, from 1879 to 1894, the percentage of illegitimate births among the whites was 2.9 per cent, while the percentage among the negroes was 22.5. in other words, from one fifth to one fourth of all the negro births in washington during that fifteen-year period were illegitimate. statistics collected in other cities show approximately the same result. of course statistics of illegitimacy are not exactly the same thing as statistics of vice, but they, at any rate, throw a light upon the moral condition of the negro in this regard, and particularly show the demoralization of his family life. (3) _negro pauperism._ we have no good statistics on negro pauperism, but such as we have seem to indicate that the state of dependence of the negro is very great. in the city of washington, where 30 per cent of the population is made up of negroes, 84 per cent of the pauper burials are those of negroes; and in charleston, where 57 per cent of the population are negroes, 96.7 per cent of the pauper burials are those of negroes. in nearly all communities where organized charities exist the negroes contribute to the dependent population far out of proportion to their numbers. it is safe to say that from 50 to 75 per cent of the total negro population of the united states live in poverty as distinguished from pauperism, that is, live under such conditions that physical and mental efficiency cannot be maintained. (4) _negro vital statistics_. the negro death and birth rates are both very high. no definite statistics of negro death and birth rates have been kept except in cities and in a few rural districts. in alabama in a few registered districts the negro birth rate has been found to be equal to about twice the death rate. on the other hand it is a curious fact that in the north the negro fails to reproduce sufficiently to keep up his numbers, consequently the negro population in northern states would die out if it were not for immigration. in massachusetts in 1888, for example, there were 511 negro births and 579 negro deaths. statistics from other northern communities tell the same story. the vital statistics of southern cities show that the negro death rate is very much higher than the white death rate. in ten southern cities, for example, hoffman gives the average death rate for the whites as 20 per thousand for the white population, and for the negroes as 32.6 per thousand of the negro population. these same cities in 1901-1905 showed an annual average death rate for the whites of 17.5 and for the negroes of 28.4. in several cities the negro death rate is nearly twice that of the whites. when these mortality statistics are analyzed, moreover, while they show that negro mortality at all ages is greater than white mortality, it is greatest among negro children under fifteen years of age. this is of course largely because of the ignorant manner in which negroes care for their children, but it also indicates that natural selection is at work among the american negroes rapidly eliminating the biologically unfit. _conclusions from negro vital statistics._ three important conclusions may be drawn from the negro vital and population statistics which are well worth emphasizing. (1) the negro population is not increasing so fast as the white, owing largely to its high death rate, yet it is increasing, and there is no indication as yet that the negro population will decrease. it is probable, indeed, that at the end of the twentieth century the negro population of the united states will be between twenty and thirty millions. the view of some students of the negro problem that the negro is destined to an early extinction in this country is merely a speculative hypothesis, and as yet is not substantiated by any statistical facts. (2) while the negro is destined to be with us always, so far as we can see, yet owing to the fact of intermixture of races he will be less and less a pure negro, so that at the end of the twentieth century the negroes in the united states will be much nearer the white type than at the present time. (3) the high death rate among the negroes indicates that a rapid process of natural selection is going on among them. now, natural selection means the elimination of the unfit,--the dying out of those who cannot adapt themselves to their environment. this selective process will tend toward the survival of the more fit elements among the negroes, and, therefore, towards bringing the negro up to the standard of the whites. the misery and vice which we see among the present american negroes are simply in a large degree the expression of the working of a process of natural selection among them. it would be preferable, however, if the white race could by education and other means substitute to some degree at least artificial selection for the miseries and brutality of the natural process of eliminating the unfit. this the superior race should do to protect itself as well as to raise the negro. industrial conditions among the negroes.--recently a committee of the american economic association estimated that all of the taxable property in the united states owned by negroes amounted to $300,000,000, or about $33.00 per head,--this estimate being based upon the 1900 census returns. thirty-three dollars per head of the negro population seems of course very small when compared to the $1,000.00 per capita owned by the whites; but we must remember that the negro at his emancipation was in no way equipped to acquire property, and, with the exception of a few freedmen, the negro at the close of the war had no property whatsoever. in a few cases their old masters set up the emancipated negroes with small farms. in 1900 there were 746,715 farms occupied by negroes either as tenants or owners. twenty-five per cent of these farms were owned by negroes and about ten per cent were owned unencumbered. there are, of course, two ways of looking at these statistics. they are discouraging if we care to look at them in that way, but on the other hand, if we consider the disadvantageous position in which the negro was placed at the close of the civil war, the statistics may be taken as showing a marked advance. it must be said here that, as booker washington has urged, the negro problem is largely of an industrial nature. it is the unsatisfactoriness of the negro as a worker, as a producing agent, that gives rise largely to the friction between the two races. the negro has not yet become adapted to a system of free contract and is frequently unreliable as a laborer. this breeds continued antagonism between the races. it is only necessary here to remark that when the negro becomes an efficient producer and a property owner the negro problem will be practically solved. educational progress among the negroes.--the educational progress among the negroes has been more satisfactory than their industrial progress. at the time of the emancipation 95 per cent of all the negroes in the united states were illiterate, since nearly all the slave states had laws forbidding the education of negroes. since the emancipation there has been a rapid decrease of illiteracy. in 1880 seventy per cent of the negroes above the age of ten years were still reported as illiterate. in 1890, 56.8 per cent; and in 1900, 44.6 per cent. the number of illiterate negro voters in the united states in 1900 was 47.3 per cent of the total number of negro males above the age of twenty-one. the per cent of illiterate negro voters ranged all the way in former slave-holding states from 61.3 per cent in louisiana to 31.9 per cent in missouri, while in massachusetts the percentage of negro illiteracy was only 10 per cent. in the school year 1907-08, in the sixteen southern states there were 1,665,000 negro children enrolled in the public schools, this number being 54.36 per cent of the negro population of the school age (five to eighteen). the number of white children enrolled was 4,692,000, or 70.34 per cent of the white population of school age. but these statistics fail to indicate the utter inadequacy of many provisions for the education of the negro children. in many districts of the south the negro schools are open only from three to five months in a year,--the equipment of the school being very inadequate and the teacher poorly trained. nevertheless the sixteen southern states have spent, since the emancipation, over $175,000,000 to maintain separate schools for negroes, a much larger sum than all that has been given by northern philanthropy. in addition to the common schools for negroes there were in 1907-08 one hundred and thirty-five institutions for the higher education of the negro with an annual income of over $2,800,000. in these there were 4185 negro students receiving collegiate or professional training, 17,279 were receiving a high school course, and 23,160 industrial training. the latter figure is important because it indicates that in 1907-08 a little more than one per cent of the total number of negro children in school were receiving industrial training. the percentage is increasing, through the fact that industrial training is being introduced into a number of the city schools for negroes, both north and south; but at present not much over one per cent of the negro children are receiving industrial training. political conditions.--not much need be said concerning the political condition of the negro. the movement to disfranchise the negro by legal means came in 1890 when the new mississippi constitution adopted in that year provided that every voter should be able to read or interpret a clause in the constitution of the united states. since then a majority of the southern states and practically all of the states of the "black belt" have embodied either in their constitutions or laws provisions for disfranchising the negro voter. louisiana made the provision that a person must be able to read and write or be a lineal descendant of some person who voted prior to 1860. this is the famous "grandfather clause," which has since proved popular in a number of southern states. while these laws and constitutional provisions have evidently been designed to disfranchise the negro voter, the federal supreme court has upheld them in spite of the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution. regarding all of this legislation it may be said that it has had perhaps both good and bad effects. in so far as it has tended to eliminate the negro from politics this has been a good effect, but it has oftentimes rather succeeded in keeping the negro question in politics; and the evident injustice and inequality of some of the laws must, it would seem, react to lower the whole tone of political morality in the south. again, the very provision of these laws to insure the disfranchisement of the illiterate negro has tended in some instances, at least, to discourage negro education, because the promoters of these laws in most cases did not aim to exclude simply the illiterate negro vote, but practically the entire negro vote. it is evident that a party designing to disfranchise the negro through this means would not be very zealous for the negro's education. proposed solutions of the negro problem.--among the various solutions proposed from time to time for the negro problem, more or less seriously, are: (1) admission at once of the negroes to full social equality with the whites; (2) deportation to africa or south america; (3) colonization in some state or in territory adjacent to the united states; (4) extinction by natural selection; (5) popular education. regarding all these solutions it must be said at once that they are either impossible or fatuous. they may be dismissed, then, without further discussion. mr. booker t. washington has said that the negro is bound to become adjusted to our civilization because he is surrounded by the white man's civilization on every hand. this optimistic view, which seems to dismiss the negro problem as requiring no solution, is, however, not well supported by many facts, as we have just seen. everywhere we have evidence that the negro when left to himself, reverts to a condition approximating his african barbarism, and the statistics of increasing vice and crime which we have just given show quite conclusively that the negro is not becoming adjusted to the white man's civilization in many cases in spite of considerable efforts which are being put forth in his behalf. while we are very far from taking a pessimistic view toward this or any other social problem, we believe that most of the solutions that have thus far been tried or urged are failures, and that more radical methods need to be adopted if the negro becomes a useful social and industrial element in our society. as we have already seen, the negro is still essentially unadjusted to our civilization, and it would not be too much to say that the masses of negroes in this country are still not far removed from barbarism, though living in the midst of civilization. slavery failed, as we have already seen, to render the mass of negroes capable of participating in our culture, and all that has been done for the negro since emancipation has likewise failed to adjust the mass of the race to the social conditions in which they find themselves. we may say, then, roughly, without any injustice to the negro, that the negro masses of this country are still essentially an uncultivated or a "nature" people living in the midst of civilization. the negro problem, in other words, is not greatly different from what it would be if the present negroes were descendants of savage aborigines that had peopled this country before the white man came. the problem of the negro and of the indian, and of all the uncivilized races, is essentially the same. the problem is, how a relatively large mass of people, inferior in culture and perhaps also inferior in nature, can be adjusted relatively to the civilization of a people much their superior in culture; how the industrially inefficient nature man can be made over into the industrially efficient civilized man. undoubtedly the primary adjustment to be made by the american negro is the adjustment on the economic side. only when the negro becomes adjusted to the economic side of his life will there be a solid foundation for the development of something higher. people must be taught how to be efficient, self-sustaining, productive members of society economically before they can be taught to be good citizens. the american negro in other words must be taught to be "good for something" as well as to be good. the failure of common-school education with the negro has been largely for the reason that it has failed to help him in any efficient way to adjust himself industrially. oftentimes indeed it has had the contrary effect and the slightly educated negro has been the one who has been least valuable as a producer. the common-school education has not been such a failure with the white child, for the reason that the white child has been taught industry and morality at home, but these the negro frequently fails to get in his home life. moreover, the common-school education of the white child has usually been simply the foundation upon which after school days he, as a citizen, has built up a wider culture. but the negro, on account of his environment, if not naturally, has proved incapable of going on with his education and building on it after getting out of school. moreover, as we have already noted, under the present complex conditions of our social life the common school is no longer an efficient socializing agent, even for the white children. the present school system is a failure, not only for the negro race, but also, though not in the same degree, for the white race. popular education on the old lines can never do very much to solve the negro problem. this does not lead, however, to the conclusion that all training and education for the negro race is foredoomed to failure. on the contrary all the experiments of missionaries in dealing with uncivilized races has led to the conclusion that an all-round education in which industrial and moral training are made prominent can relatively adjust to our civilization even the most backward of human races. wherever the missionaries have introduced industrial education and adjusted their converts to what is perhaps the fundamental side of our civilization, the economic, they have met with the largest degree of success. this success of missionary endeavors along this line has led to the establishment of similar industrial training schools for the negro in this country, and it must be said regarding such schools for the negro as hampton and tuskegee that they have proved an even more unqualified success than their predecessors originated by the missionaries. but these schools are as yet very far from solving the negro problem in this country, for the reason, as we have already seen, that they affect such a relatively small proportion of the negro population. only about one per cent of negro children at the present time are probably receiving industrial training. it should be remarked that this industrial training in no way precludes an all-round education. it is not meant that industrial education shall replace all other forms of education, but rather that it shall be added to literary education in order to enrich the educational process; and it may be remarked also that industrial training, while of itself having a strong uplifting moral influence, is not sufficient to socialize without explicit moral teaching being also added thereto. schools that attempted to give such an all-round education to negro children would, of course, in no way cut off the possibility of higher and professional education for the small number who are especially fitted, and who should be encouraged to go on with such studies. accepting, then, without qualification the now widespread view that industrial training coupled with an all-round education is the best possible solution of the negro problem, let us look into the practical difficulties which confront any attempt to apply such a solution at the present time. these difficulties may be summed up under three heads: (1) the difficulty of securing adequately equipped schools to give such training; (2) the difficulty of obtaining teachers who are qualified to give this training, and who have the right spirit; (3) the present lack of intelligent coöperation by the members of both races. as regards the first of these difficulties, it must be said that it is under our present system of school administration practically insuperable. adequately equipped schools for industrial education will cost a great deal of money,--money which the whites of the south will probably not be willing to give for many years to come, and which we think they should not be asked to give. as we have already seen, there are more illiterate native whites in the south than in any other section of the union. this is due in part to the effects of the war which left a majority of the southern communities poverty-stricken, and in many communities there is still not yet sufficient money to maintain proper school facilities, even on the old lines; much less can it be expected that such communities can start at once industrial schools for the training of negro children. as regards the difficulty of obtaining properly trained teachers with a proper spirit to do this work, it must be said that as yet these teachers could not be found, and certainly they could not within the negro race. the mass of negro teachers are still so far below even the low standards of the white schools that not one half of them would be licensed to teach if the same standards were applied to them as to the whites. moreover, through the increase of race friction white teachers have gradually, since the civil war, been excluded from negro schools. this has been brought about largely also by the negroes demanding these positions for themselves. but it is an old adage that "if the blind lead the blind both will fall into the ditch," and it would seem that a majority of negro teachers are unqualified for their task of civilizing and socializing their race; hence one reason for the failure of the negro common school. it would seem also that, while competent negro teachers should be encouraged in every way, white teachers should not be absolutely excluded from negro schools; and particularly that white teachers would be necessary if industrial and moral training were to be emphasized in the education of the negro. this brings us to the third difficulty,--the lack of intelligent coöperation by the members of both races. unfortunately the negroes do not care for the newer education, the education which emphasizes industrial training. most of them, misled by unwise leaders, prefer the education of the older type and think that industrial training will only fit them to be "hewers of wood and drawers of water" to the whites. on the other hand, the masses of uneducated southern people also do not wish the new education for the negro, because they believe that it will give him superior advantages over the white children. they fail to see that anything that is done for a depressed element in society, like the negro, will ultimately benefit all society. they are, therefore, not willing to tax themselves to bring about, even gradually, the new education for the negro. while educated southern people have supported booker t. washington in his propaganda for the industrial training of the negro, it is notorious that washington's ideas have met with as much opposition from the uneducated whites as from the negroes themselves. on the whole, however, while the situation is a difficult one, it is not, as we have already seen, one which justifies pessimism. time is the great element in the solution of all problems, and it must be especially an element in the solution of this negro problem. a beginning has been made toward the training and the education of the negro in the right way, and it may be hoped that from centers like hampton and tuskegee the influence will gradually radiate which will in time bring about the popularization of industrial education. what is needed, perhaps, most of all is sufficient funds to carry on wider and wider experiments along these lines. the southern states should not be expected to furnish these funds. they have already done their full share in attempting to educate the negro. the negro problem is a national problem, and as a national problem it should be dealt with by the federal government. the burden of educating the negro for citizenship should rest primarily upon the whole nation and not upon any section or community, since the whole nation is responsible for the negro's present condition. the trouble is, however, again, that the mass of the southern people would at the present time undoubtedly resent any attempt on the part of the federal government to aid in the education of the negro. the question, therefore, ultimately becomes a question of educating the whites and forming a proper public sentiment regarding the education of the negro. when the leaders of both races once become united on a plan of training the negro for efficient citizenship, undoubtedly the funds will be forthcoming. while the negro question is, therefore, from one point of view primarily a question of the industrial training and adjustment of the negro, from another point of view it is a moral question which can never be solved until the superior race comes to take a right attitude toward the inferior race, namely, the attitude of service. select references _for brief reading:_ hoffman, _race traits and tendencies of the american negro,_ vol. xi of pub. of am. economic ass'n. stone, _studies in the american race problem._ baker, _following the color line._ _for more extended reading:_ dowd, _the negro races._ du bois, _the negroes of philadelphia._ du bois, editor, _the atlanta university publications._ keane, _ethnology._ keane, _man, past and present._ merriam, _the negro and the nation._ page, _the negro: the southerner's problem._ smith, _the color line._ tillinghast, _the negro in africa and america,_ pub. am. economic ass'n, 3d series, vol. iii. washington, _the future of the american negro._ chapter xi the problem of the city professor j.s. mckenzie says "the growth of large cities constitutes perhaps the greatest of all the problems of modern civilization." while the city is a problem in itself, creating certain biological and psychological conditions which are new to the race, the city is perhaps even more an intensification of all our other social problems, such as crime, vice, poverty, and degeneracy. the city is in a certain sense a relatively modern problem, due to modern industrial development. while great cities were known in ancient times, the number was so few that the total population affected by city living conditions was comparatively small. moreover, the populations of ancient cities have often been exaggerated. probably at the height of its power, the population of athens did not exceed 100,000; carthage, 700,000; rome, 500,000; alexandria, 500,000; nineveh and babylon, 1,000,000. all the great cities of the ancient world practically disappeared with the fall of rome. after rome's fall, constantinople was the only large city with over 100,000 population in all europe for centuries. down to 1600 a.d., indeed, there were only fourteen cities in all europe with a population of over 100,000; and even in 1800, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, there were only twenty-two such cities. but at the end of the nineteenth century, in 1900, there were one hundred and thirty-six such cities in europe, representing twelve per cent of the entire population. moreover, while in 1800 less than three per cent of the total population of europe lived in cities, in 1900 the total urban population was twenty-five per cent. again, all of the great european capitals developed their present enormous population almost wholly within the nineteenth century. thus, the population of london in 1800 was 864,000, while in 1901 it had reached 4,536,000, or in the total area policed, 6,581,000; the population of paris in 1800 was 547,000, in 1901 it was 2,714,000; the population of berlin in 1800 was only 172,000, in 1901 it was 1,888,000; the population of vienna in 1800 was 232,000, in 1901 it was 1,674,000. these figures are cited to show that from four fifths to nine tenths of the growth of the greatest cities of the world has taken place within the nineteenth century. dr. weber in his _growth of cities in the nineteenth century_ illustrates the striking difference between the urban development of the nineteenth century and that of the eighteenth century by comparing the population of australia in 1890 with the population of the united states in 1790. australia in 1890, out of a population of 3,809,000 had 1,264,000, or 33.2 per cent, living in cities of 10,000 or over; while the united states in 1790, out of a population of 3,929,000 had only 123,000, or 3.14 per cent living in cities. both countries, it will be noticed, had about the same total population at the two periods and the same area, but australia in 1890 represented in its population the industrial development of the nineteenth century with its tendency toward urbanization, while the united states in 1790 represented the civilization of the eighteenth century with its predominating rural life. the growth of cities in the united states.--a word about census terminology will be helpful before discussing the growth of cities in the united states. according to the united states census, a city is a place with a population of 8000 or over; a _small_ city is a place with a population of 8000 to 25,000; a _large_ city is a place with a population of from 25,000 to 100,000, and a _great_ city is a place with a population above 100,000. these distinctions are necessary in discussing the problems of the city, because the problems of cities change rapidly when the population goes above 100,000. it is mainly the problem of the great city which we shall discuss in this chapter. in 1800 there were only six cities in the united states with over 8000 population. philadelphia was the largest of these, with 69,000, and new york second with 60,000. these cities contained a fraction less than four per cent of the population of the united states. in 1900, on the other hand, there were 546 cities in the united states with a population of over 8000. moreover, over thirty-three per cent of the total population of the united states lived in cities of 8000 and over, while nearly one fifth of the total population lived in the thirty-eight great cities. between 1890 and 1900 the gain in the urban population of the country was sixty per cent, while the gain in the rural population was only fifteen per cent. during that decade, in other words, the cities grew four times as fast as the country districts in population. moreover, for that particular decade, the great cities grew faster than the smaller ones, but since 1900 certain state census statistics seem to show that the cities from 25,000 to 100,000 population are growing faster than those above 100,000. _distribution of the urban population of the united states._ if the urban population of the united states were distributed relatively uniformly among the several states, perhaps the problem of the city would not be so pressing as it is, but the urban population is largely concentrated in a very few states. over fifty per cent of the urban population is found in the north atlantic states alone. the five states of new york, pennsylvania, massachusetts, illinois, and ohio contain also more than half of the urban population of the whole country. if we add to these five states new jersey and missouri, then these seven states contain nearly two thirds of the urban population of the united states. it will be noticed that these states with a large urban population are the great manufacturing states of the union. the proportion of urban to rural population indeed is a good index to industrial progress. the states with over half their population urban in 1900 were, rhode island, 81 per cent; massachusetts, 76 per cent; new york, 68.5 per cent; new jersey, 61.2 per cent; connecticut, 53.2 per cent. states with more than one fourth of their population urban were, illinois, 47.1 per cent; maryland, 46.9 per cent; pennsylvania, 45.5 per cent; california, 43.7 per cent; delaware, 41.4 per cent; new hampshire, 38.6 per cent; ohio, 38.5 per cent; colorado, 38.1 per cent; washington, 31.9 per cent; michigan, 30.9 per cent; missouri, 30.8 per cent; wisconsin, 30.7 per cent; louisiana, 29.3 per cent; montana, 27 per cent; minnesota, 26.8 per cent; utah, 25.2 per cent. it will be noticed that only one of these states with the population more than one fourth urban is distinctively southern, namely, louisiana. this is due to the fact that heretofore the south has been largely agricultural in its industries, consequently only a few of the great cities of the country are found within its borders. there are but few countries in europe that come up with the most urban of our american states. certain countries of western europe, however, equal the most urban of our states, and the following countries have at least one quarter of their population urban: england and wales, scotland, belgium, saxony, holland, prussia, and france. the most urban of our states, however, such as massachusetts, rhode island, and new york, surpass all european countries in the number of their population living in cities, with the exception of england and wales. this again is due to the fact that certain of our states have specialized in manufacturing industries more than any european country, with the exception of england and wales. before leaving the statistics of the growth of cities, it is worth our while to note that certain great urban centers are developing in this country which promise to show, even in the near future, the most extensive urbanization of population known to the world; for example, a line of cities and suburban communities is now developing which will in the near future connect new york and boston on the one hand and new york, philadelphia, and washington on the other hand. thus in a few years, stretching from washington to boston, a distance of five hundred miles, there promises to be a continuous chain of urban communities with practically no rural districts between them. in a sense, this will constitute one great city with a population of twenty millions or upwards. other urban centers, though not so extensive, are also developing at other points in the united states. at the end of the twentieth century it is safe to say that this country will have at least a dozen cities with a population of over one million. moreover, so far as we can see at the present time, there is no end in the near future to this growth of the urbanization of our population; for the causes of this great growth of cities seem inherent in our civilization. let us see what these causes are. causes of the growth of great cities.--there may be distinguished two classes of causes of the growth of cities: (1) general or social causes, and (2) minor or individual causes. it is the social causes, the causes inherent in our civilization, which are of particular interest to us. among these social causes we shall place: 1. _the diminishing importance of agriculture in the life of man._ once agriculture was the all-embracing occupation. practically all goods were produced upon the farm. now, however, man's wants have so greatly increased that the primitive industries of the farm can no longer satisfy these wants, and in order to satisfy them men have developed large manufacturing industries. moreover, fewer men are needed on the farms to produce the same amount of raw material as was produced formerly by the labor of many. this has come about mostly through labor-saving machines. the invention and application of labor-saving machines to the industries of the farm has made it possible to dispense with a great number of men. it is estimated that fifty men with modern farm machinery can do the work of five hundred european peasants without such machinery. consequently, the four hundred and fifty who have been displaced by farm machinery must find other work, and they find it mainly in manufacturing industries. again, the scientific and capitalistic agriculture of the present has much the same effect as labor-saving machines. they have greatly increased agricultural production and at the same time lessened the amount of labor. the opening up also of new and fertile regions which were very productive in the nineteenth century had a similar effect. every improvement in agricultural industry instead of keeping men on the farm has tended to drive them from it. scientific agriculture carried on with modern machinery necessarily lessens the need of a great proportion of the population being employed to produce the foodstuff and other raw materials which the world needs. hence it has tended to free men from the soil and to make it possible for a larger and larger number to go to the city. therefore the relatively diminishing importance of agriculture has been one of the prime causes of the growth of the cities in the nineteenth century; and so far as we can see this cause will continue to operate for some time to come. 2. _the growth and centralization of manufacturing industries._ this is perhaps the most vital cause of the growth of cities. the great city, as we have already said, is very largely the product of modern industrialism. improved machinery, improved transportation, and enlarged markets, together with the increased wants of men, not only have made possible a great growth of manufacturing industries, but also these same factors have tended to centralize manufacturing industries in the cities. let us note briefly why it is that manufacturing industries are grouped together in great cities rather than scattered throughout the rural communities. in centralizing manufacturing plants in cities, certain industrial economies are secured, such as: (1) economy in motor power, whether it be water or coal; (2) economy in machinery--it is not necessary to duplicate machines; (3) economy in wages--one superintendent, for example, can oversee a large plant; (4) utilization of by-products--when many factories are grouped together by-products, which are sometimes more valuable than the main products, can be better utilized. (5) there is economy in buying raw material and in selling finished products when many factories are grouped together. for all these reasons, along with the further reason that those who labor in factories must live close to them, manufacturing has been a prime cause of the modern city, and, so far as we can see, will continue to further urbanize our population in the future. 3. _the increase of trade and commerce._ between different communities there developed during the nineteenth century, upon the growth of better transportation, a great increase of trade and commerce, for along with the better transportation went a specialization in industry, on the part of both communities and classes. the modern city is often largely a product of modern transportation. we find all the great cities located at natural breaks in transportation. the cities of the middle ages were largely centers of trade and commerce where goods were distributed to various minor centers. the modern city has not lost this characteristic through developing into an industrial center. on the contrary, the status of the city in trade and commerce makes it at the same time a valuable center for the development of manufacturing industries. the break between land and water transportation is particularly favorable to the development of large cities. thus, we find new york located where goods shipped to europe must be transferred from land to water transportation; chicago, located at the head of the water transportation of the great lakes; st. louis, at the head of the navigation of the mississippi river. only denver and indianapolis among the great cities of the united states in 1910 are not located on a river or some other navigable water. _minor causes._ these are the chief social causes of the growth of cities, and, as we have seen, they are wholly industrial in their nature. undoubtedly the modern city is a product of modern industry. certain non-economic factors may also enter into the growth of cities, but these are of but slight importance; such are the greater intellectual and educational advantages which the city offers, the great opportunities for pleasure and amusement in the city and the like. such minor and individual causes have had but little part in the growth of the great cities of the present. social and moral conditions of city life.--certain social conditions in our cities are worthy of attention in order that we may understand the effect of the city upon social and racial evolution. 1. _city populations have a larger per cent of females than rural populations._ all of our fifteen largest cities, except three, contain a larger per cent of females than the states in which they are located. thus new york state has 50.37 per cent of its population female; new york city, 50.56 per cent; pennsylvania, 49.29 per cent of its population female; philadelphia, 51.18 per cent; missouri, 48.38 per cent of its population female; st. louis, 49.51 per cent. in towns of the united states of more than 2500 population the per cent of females is 50.03, while the rural districts of the united states have only 48.08 per cent of their population female. the cause of this is perhaps to be found in the fact that in cities there is always a larger infantile mortality among males than among females, and that in towns there is a larger proportion of female children born than in the rural districts. 2. _people in the active period of life, from fifteen to sixty-five years of age, predominate in the city_. according to dr. weber, out of every 1000 individuals in the united states as a whole there are 355 under fifteen years of age, 603 between fifteen and sixty-five, and 29 above sixty-five years of age. but in the great cities there are only 299 under fifteen years of age, and only 29 above sixty-five years of age, while 668 are of the age between fifteen and sixty-five years. (in both cases the age of three in a thousand was unknown.) the cause of the predominance of those in the active period of life is undoubtedly due to the immigration into the cities from the country districts. this makes the life of cities more energetic and active, more strenuous than it would otherwise be. 3. _the great cities in the united states have over twice as many foreign-born in their population as the united states as a whole_. this has been sufficiently discussed under the head of immigration. 4. _the birth rate is higher in the cities than in the rural districts._ this is primarily due to there being more women of child-bearing age in the cities. in the united states it is also due to the presence of so many foreign-born in the cities. the marriage rate is also higher in the cities than in the rural districts. the following statistics based on a thousand population show the relative difference between the cities and the rural districts of the new england states in marriage rate, birth rate, and death rate for 1894-95: marriage rate birth rate death rate boston........................ 23.10 31.24 23.23 cities over 50,000............ 18.89 29.72 19.49 rural districts............... 13.77 21.76 17.38 5. _the death rate in cities is also higher than in the rural districts_, as the above table has just shown. this is undoubtedly due to the poor sanitary and living conditions of large cities. 6. _the physical condition of city populations_. measurements by dr. beddoe and others show that the stature and other measurements of men of the great cities of great britain are far below those of the rural population. the latest english commission to investigate the conditions of city life also reports that the population of the british cities at least shows marked signs of physical deterioration. 7. _mental and moral degeneracy in our cities_. (1) a larger number of insane are found in our cities than in the rural districts. in the united states as a whole there were in 1890 seventeen hundred insane per million of population, while in the cities of over 50,000 there were 2429 insane per million. (2) the suicide rate is much higher in the cities than in other districts. in general the suicide rate in the united states seems to be two or three times as high in our large cities as in the rest of the country. (3) poverty and pauperism are much more common in our cities than in rural districts. about one third of the population of great cities may safely be said to live below the poverty line, while in such cities as new york and boston from ten to twenty per cent of the population require more or less charitable assistance during the year. (4) the amount of crime in the cities is about twice as great as in the rural districts. (5) illegitimacy in the cities is from two to three times as great as in rural districts, and it is well known that vice centers very largely in our cities. all these facts show that mental and moral degeneracy is much more common in our urban population than in our rural populations, and that the biological and moral aspects of our city life present pressing problems. 8. _educational and religious conditions in cities._ we have already seen that illiteracy for the native white population is much less in our cities than in the rural districts. this is undoubtedly due in the main to the better facilities for education in our cities, and it is here chiefly that we find the bright side of city life; for the cities are not only centers of the evil tendencies of our civilization but are also the centers of all that is best and uplifting. the urban schools in general are open much longer than the rural school, the attendance in them is better, and the teaching is much more efficient. in 1890 the urban schools held 190 days in the year, while the rural schools held only 115 days. the attendance in the urban schools was seventy per cent of the enrollment, while in the rural schools it was only sixty-two per cent. besides the schools, of course, must be mentioned many other educational facilities to be found in our cities, such as in connection with social settlements, lecture and concert halls, theaters, libraries, art galleries, and museums,--all of which the city has practically exclusively. the census of 1890 included a religious census, and it seemed to show that on the whole religious conditions were better in our cities than in the country districts. in cities above 25,000 the church membership was 37.9 per cent of the population, while it was only 32.85 per cent of the total population. again, in cities above 100,000 it was 39.1 per cent of their total population, although in the four largest cities--new york, chicago, philadelphia, and st. louis--it was only 35.6 per cent of the total population. [footnote: the special religious census of 1906, the results of which are not yet fully published, shows an even greater preponderance of church membership in cities.] some recent studies, however, while not extensive enough to justify a conclusion, seem to indicate that in some of the largest cities the church is losing its hold, and that more and more the population of our largest urban centers is becoming churchless, if not without religion. even if this is so, however, it also remains a fact that the various religious denominations put forth their best efforts in these largest urban centers, and that more is being done for the people religiously and morally in these centers than perhaps for any other portion of the world's population. proposed remedies for the evils of city life.--the proposed remedies for the evils of city life are well worth attention, not only that we may understand the problem of the city better, but also that we may understand social conditions in general better. of the remedies which we shall discuss it may be said that four are foolish and two are wise. the foolish ones are those that try to check the growth of the cities; the wise ones are those that recognize that the cities are here to stay and must be dealt with as permanent and even increasingly important factors in our civilization. (1) the first remedy is to make agriculture more attractive and remunerative. this is a good thing in itself, but, as we have seen, it will not check the growth of the cities; rather, every improvement in the conditions of agriculture in the way of making it more productive and remunerative will drive more to the cities. (2) a second remedy, akin to the first, is to make village life more attractive. like the first remedy, this is good in itself, but it is hardly probable that it will stop the growth of cities; rather, it might be urged that village improvement will give people a taste of the higher comforts and conveniences to be found in cities and will tend to send them to the city. (3) the third proposed remedy is to colonize the poor of the cities in the country. this has been especially advocated by general booth and other leaders of the salvation army. this plan, however, cannot do much toward helping solve the problem of the city. it is a difficult thing to get the poor in the city adjusted again to rural life, and the probability is that in many cases they would be worse off in the country than in the city. moreover, the vacant places they left would soon be filled by others, and in general the whole plan seems to be against man's instincts as well as against the social forces of the time. (4) administrative decentralization may be mentioned as a plan adopted by some state legislatures to prevent the growth of cities, that is, to scatter the state institutions through the rural sections of the state instead of locating them in the cities. on the whole, this is a foolish plan. the cities will not be checked in their growth by this, while on the other hand it is the cities which most need the presence of the state institutions. (5) the most important remedy for the cure of the evils of the cities, and one which meets these evils on their own ground, is what has been called "improved municipal housekeeping"; that is, the supervision and control by the city of all those things which are used in common by the people. the idea is that the city is not in its social conditions comparable to the rural community; rather it is more like one big household, and it is necessary, therefore, that there be collective housekeeping, so to speak, in order to keep those things which the people use in common at least in good order. this has also been called "municipal socialism." it is not socialism, however, in the strict sense, for it does not advocate the ownership in common of all capital, but rather municipal control of public utilities. we cannot enter into this large subject, upon which many books have been written; to a few of these the student will find references at the end of this chapter. here it is only necessary to say that all of this civic improvement implies that the city must own or control adequately its sewer system, its water supply, its streets; that it must control the housing of the people, the disposal of garbage, the smoke nuisance, general sanitary and living conditions; that it must provide adequate protection against fire, an adequate park system, an adequate free school system, with public playgrounds for children, free libraries, free art galleries and museums, municipal theaters, public baths, and gymnasiums. all of this is of course a species of socialism in the sense that it is collective control of the conditions of living together. it advocates, however, that the city should take over only those things that are used in common. the trouble with this so-called municipal socialism is that it presupposes a pretty high degree of intelligence on the part of people. whether or not a municipality shall own and operate its own street railways, electric light and gas plants, is largely a question of the development of the social consciousness and intelligence in that particular community. in some communities such municipal undertakings have been made a success; in others they have failed. but it is evident that with a large mass of people living together the common conditions of living must be subject to intelligent collective control if human life and character are to have a proper environment in which to develop. (6) the last remedy proposed for the evils of the city is the development of the suburbs through rapid transit. this is already being rapidly accomplished in many of our larger cities. the solution of the mechanical problem of rapid transit will probably, in other words, tend greatly to relieve automatically the present congestion which we find in many of our large cities. probably the best form of such rapid transit is underground electric roads, or subways. transportation upon these roads must be made cheap enough to enable workingmen to live at a distance from their labor. with the solution of the problem of rapid transit it should be possible to scatter a city's population anywhere within a radius of thirty miles. but it would be a mistake to think that rapid transit alone will solve the problems of city communities. stringent regulation by law of sanitary and housing conditions and, as has just been said, of all the things used in common, is necessary to put order and healthfulness into that vast household which we call a modern great city. in conclusion we would emphasize again that the era of the city is just beginning; that a larger and larger proportion of our population must come to live in the cities, and that, therefore, the city will dominate the society of the future. hence, humanity must solve the problem of the city if social progress is to continue. and the problem is by no means insoluble. man is not yet adjusted to city life. the city is so new even to civilized man that he has carried into it the habits which he practiced in isolated rural communities. these are the sources of trouble in our cities, and, as we have already seen, new adjustments have to be made by individuals in order to secure harmonious social relationships under the crowded conditions of the city. the city requires, therefore, a higher degree of intelligence on the part of the individual than the rural social life, and a great part of the solution of the problem of the city must come through the development of such higher intelligence and morality by means of education. at any rate, it is foolish to decry the city or to attempt to stop its growth. that is impossible and, we think, undesirable. the ideal social life of man has never been the isolated life of the rural community. the city has always been in a sense man's ideal, as is shown by the fact that nearly all attempts to depict a perfect human society have been pictures of cities. man's ideal, as dr. weber says, is not the city or the country, but the city and the country blended, and this is what the city of the future should become. no doubt the time will come when present cities will be looked back upon with horror, as we look back on eighteenth-century cities. the city of the future need not present any of the hideous, disagreeable, and unwholesome aspects of our present cities. the city can be made, through science and morality, a place in which human beings may find their ideal society. select references _for brief reading:_ weber, _growth of cities in the nineteenth century_. wilcox, _the american city_. zueblin, _american municipal progress_. _for more extended reading:_ fairlie, _municipal administration_. howe, _the city: the hope of democracy_. parsons, _the city for the people_. rowe, _problems of city government_. strong, _the challenge of the city_. chapter xii poverty and pauperism while the many social problems arising from the presence in society of abnormal or socially unadjusted classes, namely, the dependent, defective, and delinquent classes, cannot be discussed in this book adequately, yet they must be briefly noticed in order to correlate them with other social problems, and even more in order to call the attention of the student to the vast literature which exists concerning these problems. definitions of poverty and pauperism.--poverty is a relative term, difficult to define, but as generally employed in sociological writings at the present it means that economic and social state in which persons have not sufficient income to maintain health and physical efficiency. all who do not receive a sufficient income to maintain the minimum standard of living necessary for efficiency are known as the "poor," or are said to live below the poverty line. pauperism, on the other hand, is the state of legal dependence in which a person who is unable or unwilling to support himself receives relief from public sources. this is, however, legal pauperism. the word as popularly used has come to mean a degraded state of willing dependence. a pauper in this popular sense is a person unwilling to support himself and who becomes a social parasite. poverty is closely related to dependence or pauperism, because it is frequently the anteroom, so to speak, to pauperism, although only a small proportion of those who live in poverty actually become dependent in any one year. the extent of poverty and pauperism in the united states.--the census reports showed that in the year 1904 there were about 500,000 dependents in institutions in the united states. while the number who received relief outside of institutions from public and private sources is not known, it is certain that it is many times the total of those in institutions. it is generally estimated that about five per cent of our population are recipients of some sort of charitable relief in a single year. in our large cities the number who receive relief from public and private sources, even in average years, is very much higher. in new york apparently the number who receive relief in an average year reaches fourteen per cent, while in boston the number who receive relief has reached as high as twenty per cent in a single year. it seems probable, therefore, that taking the country as a whole nearly five per cent of our population have to have some sort of help every year. that would make the number who received relief in 1904 about 4,000,000, and probably this is not an excessive estimate. upon the basis of these and other known facts mr. robert hunter has estimated that the number of people in the united states living below the poverty line is about 10,000,000 in years of average prosperity. if negroes are included in this estimate of those below the poverty line, it is certainly not excessive. probably 10,000,000, or fourteen per cent of our population, understates rather than overstates the number of persons in the united states who live upon such a low standard that they fail to maintain physical and mental efficiency. moreover, investigations in the countries of europe show that the estimate of fourteen per cent of our population living in poverty is far from excessive. mr. charles booth, in his _life and labor of the people of london_, says that about thirty per cent of the population of london live below the poverty line, and mr. b.s. rowntree found in the english city of york about the same proportion. while poverty is more prevalent in the old world than in the united states, it would seem that in view of our large negro population it is evidently not excessive to estimate the proportion of our people living in poverty at about fifteen per cent. moreover, when we extend our view in history we find that poverty has been oftentimes in the past even much more prevalent than it is at present. this question of poverty is, in other words, a world-old question and is intimately bound up with the question of material civilization--that is, man's conquest of nature--and with social organization,--the relations of men to one another. at certain times in history certain institutions like slavery have either obviated or concealed poverty, and particularly its extreme expressions, in dependence and legal pauperism. nevertheless we can regard these questions of poverty and pauperism as practically existing in all civilizations and in all ages. this is not saying, however, that modern poverty and pauperism may not have certain peculiar foundations in modern social and industrial conditions. it is only saying that it is useless to search wholly for the causes of poverty in conditions that are peculiar to the modern world, because poverty and pauperism are not peculiarly modern problems. the genesis of the depressed classes.--so complex a problem, it might be said at once, cannot manifestly have a simple explanation, yet this has been the mistake of many social thinkers of the past. they have sought some single simple explanation of human misery, and particularly in its form of economic distress or poverty. malthus, as we have already seen, attributed all human misery to the fact that population tends to increase more rapidly than food supply, and that it is the pressure of population upon food which sufficiently explains poverty in human society. karl marx offered an equally sweeping explanation when he attributed all poverty to the fact that labor is not paid a sufficient wage; that the capitalist appropriates an unjust share of the product of labor, leaving to the laborer just enough to maintain existence and reproduce. henry george in the same spirit, in his _progress and poverty_, attributed all poverty to one cause,--the landlord's appropriation of the unearned increment in land values. there is, of course, some truth in all of these sweeping generalizations, but it must be said that there is not sufficient in any of them to stand the test of concrete investigation; rather these men have made the mistake of attempting to explain a very complex social phenomenon in terms of a single set of causes, which, as we have already seen, has been the bane of social science in the past. even the theory of evolution itself fails to explain, as ordinarily stated, the genesis of the depressed classes in human society. it may explain it in part, however. as we have already seen, biological variations are always found in individuals, making some naturally superior, some naturally inferior, and in the struggle for existence we know that the inferior are more liable to go down; they are less apt to maintain a place in society, and hence more readily fall into the depressed classes. many well-endowed persons, however, also fall into the dependent classes through accidents and causes inherent in our social organization but in no way natural. thus, owing to our industrial system and to our laws of property, inheritance, and the like, it often happens that a superior person through sickness or other accident gets caught in a mesh of causes which bring him down to the dependent classes, and on the other hand inferior individuals, through inheritance or "social pull," oftentimes enjoy a very large economic surplus all their lives. it may be admitted, however, that slight defects in personal character or ability enter into practically all cases of dependence. this is more apt to be the case also in a progressive society like our own, where rising standards of efficiency make the economic struggle more severe all the time. formerly, for example, any employee could drink and retain his position, but now the drinker quickly loses his position in many industries and gives place to the sober man. oftentimes, however, such defects that give rise to dependence are not inherent but are produced by social conditions themselves, like faulty education, bad surroundings, and the like. through the improvement of social conditions, therefore, there is no doubt that much of the present poverty of the civilized world can be wiped out. this is not saying, however, that poverty and dependence will ever be wholly eliminated. probably, no matter how ideal social conditions might be, even under the most just social organization, there would be some accidents and variations in individuals which would produce a condition of dependence. moreover, the elimination of poverty and pauperism is not so simple as some suppose. it is not wholly a question of the improvement of social conditions; it also involves the control of physical heredity, because many of the principal defects that give rise to dependence are inherent in heredity. but man can control to some extent even the birth of the inferior or unfit classes. this may seem, however, so far in the future that it is idle to discuss it, although, as we shall see, society is undoubtedly taking steps to prevent the propagation of the unfit. in the meantime, however, so long as humanity progresses through natural selection we shall have poverty, to some extent at least, no matter how much industrial and social conditions may be improved. yet without the control of physical heredity or the substitution of artificial for natural selection, poverty can be undoubtedly greatly lessened, and it is the rational aim of applied social science to discover how this may be done. it would seem that the existence of 10,000,000 persons in the united states living below the poverty line cannot be justified upon either moral or economic grounds; that it represents a great waste of human life and human resources, and that much of the social maladjustment which this poverty is an expression of might easily yield to wisely instituted remedial measures. if the social maladjustment which is undoubtedly the cause of the bulk of modern poverty were done away with, it is safe to say that it would be reduced to less than one third of its present dimensions. the concrete causes of poverty.--it is necessary to inquire somewhat more minutely into the concrete conditions, social and individual, which give rise to poverty and dependence. manifestly the poor do not constitute any single class in society. all classes, in a sense, are represented among the poor, and the causes of poverty which are manifest will depend very greatly upon the class of the poor that is studied. if, for example, we should study the causes of dependence among defective classes, naturally personal defects of various sorts would be emphasized. again, if we should study almshouse paupers, we should expect to find the causes of their dependence different from the causes of the temporary dependence of those who are dealt with outside of institutions and largely by private societies, especially the charity organization societies of large cities. it is especially, however, this latter class of temporary dependents that we are most interested in, because they show most clearly the forces operating to produce the various classes of permanent dependents. there are two great classes of causes of poverty: objective causes, or causes outside of the individual, that is, in the environment; and subjective causes, or causes within the individual. we shall take up first the objective causes. _the objective causes of poverty_. the objective causes of poverty may be again divided into causes in the physical environment and causes in the social environment. the causes in the physical environment should not be overlooked, even though to a great extent they may not be amenable to social control. much poverty in certain regions is caused simply by the unpropitious physical environment, such as unproductive soil, bad climate, and the like. added to these unpropitious factors in the environment we have also great natural calamities, such as tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. every one is familiar with the great amount of misery which is caused, temporarily at least, by such calamities. again, certain things in the organic environment, particularly in the way of disease-producing bacteria, are also productive of much poverty. certain bacteria exist, we now know, plentifully in nature, such as the malaria germ, to which rightfully has been ascribed the physical degeneracy of people living in certain sections of the earth. but the most important objective causes of poverty are undoubtedly those found in the social environment,--those which spring from certain social conditions or faults in social organization. among these we may mention: (1) _economic causes_. defective industrial organization and economic evils of various sorts are thought by many persons to be the main productive causes of poverty and dependence in modern society, and there can be no doubt that a very large per cent of poverty may be traced directly to economic evils. this is shown by the fact that in the schedules of all charity organization societies "lack of employment" figures as the first or second most conspicuous cause of distress in the cases with which such societies deal. it is usually estimated that from twenty to forty per cent of all such cases of dependence may be attributed to lack of employment, not due to the employee. it is well known that in periods of industrial depression the number of applicants for aid in our large cities increases enormously, and local strikes and lockouts frequently have the same effect. again, changes in methods of production through the introduction of new machinery frequently displace large numbers of workingmen, who, on account of age or other reasons, fail to get employment along new lines. changes in trade brought about through changes in fashions have to some extent at least a similar effect. again, fluctuations in the value of money may undoubtedly depress a debtor class to the point of dependence. unwise methods of taxation, such as levying heavy taxes on the necessaries of life, produce a great deal of poverty and economic distress. systems of land tenure such as prevail in england and even to some extent in the united states, may also be another economic cause of poverty. the free land which has up to the present time existed in this country has been a great aid against poverty. the employment of women and children in factories is another cause of poverty which needs to be mentioned under this head. as we have already seen, this breaks up the home, and in the case of the employment of children stops the development of the child. still another economic cause of poverty is unhealthful and dangerous occupations. the disease-begetting occupations in modern industry are very numerous, such as hat making, glass blowing, the grinding of tools, and the like--any work in which there is a great deal of dust. among dangerous occupations must also be included those in which there are numerous accidents, such as mining and railway occupations. the accidents in mines and on railways in the united states each year cause as many deaths and serious injuries as have often resulted in many a petty war. thus, on the railways of the united states in 1904 there was a total of 10,046 persons killed and 84,155 injured, about three fourths of those injured being employees,--one employee being killed in every three hundred and fifty-seven and one injured in every seventeen. while it is improbable that our great industries can be carried on without some sacrifice of health and life, it seems reasonable to believe that the number of those who are sacrificed at present is far greater than is necessary, and that reasonable precautions in industry might greatly increase the healthfulness of the occupations and diminish the number of accidents to employees. on the whole, it is probable that these economic causes of poverty figure in from 50 to 80 per cent of all cases, not operating alone, to be sure, but often in connection with faults of character or physical or mental defects in the individual; for it is always to be remembered in discussing the causes of poverty that one never finds a case which can be fairly attributed to a single cause. the complexity of causes operating in the case of a single dependent family frequently makes it impossible for any one to say with certainty what is the chief and what are the contributing causes. oftentimes what appears to be the chief cause, such as lack of employment, has back of it defects in individual character which are not apparent to the investigator. researches along this line have shown that the number of cases of distress which may be attributed to lack of employment, for example, may be very greatly reduced when all individual defects are taken into consideration. this, however, is not an argument for regarding the economic causes of poverty as any less important than has been indicated. (2) unsanitary conditions of living are frequent causes of poverty. among these unsanitary conditions may be mentioned especially the housing of the poor. the housing of the poor in badly ventilated, poorly lighted, and unsanitary dwellings greatly increases sickness and death and undoubtedly contributes greatly to their economic depression. thus in new york city in the first ward, where there is only one house on each lot, the death rate is 29 per 1000 of the population, but where rear tenements have been erected it is 62 per 1000 of the population. the importance of public sanitation, and especially of the prevention of overcrowding and the securing of properly lighted and ventilated dwellings for the people, is so great that we need not enlarge upon it. (3) defects in our educational system are certainly productive of poverty. ignorant and illiterate persons are much more liable to become dependent. in particular the lack of industrial training in our public schools is a prolific cause of dependence in our complex industrial civilization. (4) defects in government, permitting corruption on the one hand, or failing to check economic or sanitary evils on the other hand, are manifest causes of poverty. indeed, inasmuch as government exists to regulate the whole social order, wherever it fails to perform this work properly some economic distress must ensue. (5) corruption in social institutions and customs is certainly a cause of poverty: such, for example, is the custom of social drinking, and such also the unwise and indiscriminate charity which has so often existed in the past. (6) unrestricted immigration, especially in our eastern states and cities, is, as we have already seen, a prolific cause of dependence. _the subjective causes of poverty_ are the causes within the individual. among these must be enumerated: (1) physical and mental defects of all sorts, especially those arising from sickness and accidents. sickness causing temporary or permanent disability figures in from 25 to 40 per cent of all cases applying for relief in our large cities. probably it is the most common and most important single cause of poverty with which charity workers have to deal. back of sickness, however, are often remote causes in the environment or in personal character. we have already spoken of accident as a cause of poverty in connection with dangerous occupations. it is only necessary to add that good authorities estimate that there are over 1,000,000 serious accidents in the united states every year, in order to see that disabilities resulting from accident are prolific as causes of poverty, especially in our large industrial centers. the physical and mental defects which manifest themselves in the defective classes proper, such as the feeble-minded, the insane, the epileptics, the deaf-mutes, and the blind, do not need to be dwelt upon as causes of dependence. (2) next after sickness in the list of subjective causes of poverty comes intemperance. while the effect of intemperance in producing poverty has often been exaggerated, there can be no doubt that intemperance is one of the most important causes with which we have to deal. back of intemperance, of course, may often be again causes in the social environment, or other remote causes, but these do not detract from the fact that practically one fourth of all the cases of distress with which charity organization societies have to deal are attributable, more or less, to intemperance. the committee of fifty who investigated this subject found that, in thirty-three cities, out of thirty thousand cases dependence was due to personal intemperance in 18.46 per cent, and due to the intemperance of others in 9.36 per cent, making a total of 27.82 per cent of cases in which intemperance can be traced as a cause of poverty. other investigations conducted in american cities give substantially the same results, although certain other investigations in english cities give higher percentages. it is noteworthy also that in an investigation conducted by the massachusetts bureau of labor 39 per cent of the cases of poverty were attributed directly or indirectly to drink. again the committee of fifty found that in the case of alms-house paupers a considerably higher per cent owed their condition to the influence of drink either directly or indirectly, the percentage being 41.55. (3) sexual vice is undoubtedly a prolific cause of poverty, although it is very hard to trace concretely in the study of specific cases. dr. dugdale, however, in his study of the jukes family places sexual vice even ahead of intemperance as a cause of their degradation, and other similar studies of similar families have reached substantially the same results. (4) shiftlessness and laziness are frequently found in the lists of causes of dependence used by charity organization societies, from 10 to 15 per cent of the cases of distress being attributed more or less to these causes. it is now generally agreed, however, that in most cases these causes may be resolved into more remote causes, laziness being oftentimes attributable to a degenerate or at least undervitalized physical condition. (5) old age, which has not been rendered destitute by vice, drink, or other faults of character, is frequently in itself a cause of dependence. old age seems to figure more largely as a cause of dependence in the european statistics than in american; nevertheless, even in america we frequently find old persons who have worked hard all their lives and yet come to poverty in their old age through no fault of their own. it is for this reason that many are urging old-age pensions as a means of preventing dependence among the aged. (6) neglect and desertion by relatives, or the disregard of family ties, in america at least, may be put down as one of the important causes of dependence. from five to ten per cent of all the cases of distress, for example, which charity organization societies in our large cities deal with are those of deserted wives. again, it is particularly common in america for children to fail to support aged parents and even the desertion of children by parents is of frequent occurrence. (7) death of main support must also be mentioned as an important cause of dependence. widows and their children always figure largely among those helped by charitable societies and institutions. probably from 10 to 20 per cent of all cases dealt with by societies for relieving temporary distress are cases in which the death of the breadwinner has temporarily rendered the family dependent. (8) crime, dishonesty, ignorance, and the like are manifest frequent causes of dependence, and as such need no discussion. we have enumerated in detail some of the more important objective and subjective causes of poverty and dependence in order that the student may see that such causes are very complex, and, as we have already said, there rarely exists a dependent family in which three or more of these causes are not found to be active. certain questions arise from such a brief presentation as this which we may mention but cannot hope adequately to deal with. such, for example, is the question whether the subjective causes of poverty can all be reduced to objective causes. in our opinion this cannot be done, because the subjective causes have their roots in biological and psychological conditions, which cannot be attributed directly to causes in the environment. no doubt, however, many of the subjective causes of poverty are characteristics which have been acquired by individuals from the influence of their environment. when we attribute a certain per cent of poverty to intemperance, for example, it is probable that that particular personal defect may be ascribed almost wholly to the environment. on the other hand, there are other personal defects, such as sickness, vice, and mental deficiency, that cannot always with certainty be traced to environmental factors. it is safest to conclude that while personality is built up largely out of social influences, society is, on the other hand, also rooted in human nature, so that both objective and subjective causes combine to produce practically all social phenomena, and especially the phenomena of poverty and dependence. it is unscientific, therefore, to disregard either the subjective or the objective causes of poverty. another question which is frequently raised in connection with poverty or dependence is, whether it is due to misconduct or misfortune. this question really has not much meaning in it when it is analyzed. as we have already seen in practically every case of poverty, personal defects and bad environment combine. only a few of these personal defects, however, can by any proper use of language be regarded as misconduct. the great mass of poverty, therefore, seems attributable to misfortune rather than to misconduct,--using these words in their popular sense. but such a conclusion as this necessarily rests upon a somewhat superficial examination of the causes of distress which does not enter into the remote springs of personal character and development. on the whole, it seems unwise to attempt to divide the poor into the "worthy" and "unworthy" poor, as has often been done, for no one can say who is the worthy and who is the unworthy in a moral sense. the only sense in which these words may be used scientifically in charitable work is to mean "needy" and "not needy." _pauperism and degeneracy._ in order to see more clearly the biological roots of dependence we must notice briefly the relation of habitual pauperism to degeneracy. studies like that made by dr. dugdale of the jukes family show that unquestionably there is in many instances a close relation between habitual pauperism of various types and degeneracy. out of 709 in the jukes family studied by dugdale 500 had been aided. pauperism was 7 1_2 times as common among the jukes as in the ordinary population. along with the pauperism of the jukes went prostitution, illegitimacy, crime, and physical disease and defects. many other studies have shown the same intimate relation between physical degeneracy and habitual dependence or pauperism. there can be no doubt, therefore, that general physical degeneracy, or biological unfitness, is, as we have already asserted in the beginning, a conspicuous factor in the worst cases of chronic pauperism. _the influence of heredity upon pauperism_. similar studies to those already mentioned have shown that dependence is often times hereditary in families from generation to generation. this is doubtless based upon the inheritance of physical and mental defects. indirectly, therefore, there is such a thing as hereditary pauperism. now we know from the labors of weismann that acquired characteristics are not inherited, but only congenital, or inborn characteristics. it is not the characteristics, in other words, which are acquired from the influence of environment that are transmitted to offspring, but the characteristics that arise through variations in the germ, caused by forces which are not yet well understood. defects that are acquired by the individual in his lifetime, in other words, will not be transmitted; but the defects that arise through accident or other means in the germ are transmitted. this being so, it follows that acquired pauperism or dependence is not transmitted but only the pauperism which rests upon congenital defects. this is illustrated by the case of the deaf. deaf-mutes are of two sorts: persons who are born deaf, or the congenital deaf-mutes, and persons who become deaf-mutes through diseases affecting the ear in early childhood. these latter are styled adventitious deaf-mutes. now when congenital deaf-mutes marry, they show a strong tendency to transmit their defect to offspring, but the children of adventitious deaf-mutes are always normal. dr. fay, in his investigations into the marriages of the deaf in the united states shows that only 0.3 per cent of the children born from the marriages of persons adventitiously deaf and having no deaf relatives are born deaf; while on the other hand, 30.3 per cent of the children born from the marriages of persons congenitally deaf, both parents having deaf relatives, are born deaf. in other words, the number of deaf-mutes born where both parents are congenitally deaf and have deaf relatives is one hundred times greater than where both parents are adventitiously deaf and have no deaf relatives. this is pretty conclusive proof that it is only the congenital defects which are transmissible, but these are so highly transmissible that they may express themselves in pauperism from generation to generation. the marriage of all persons in whom there is an hereditary taint of feeble-mindedness, insanity, epilepsy, and the like ought, therefore, to be forbidden by law. but unless these defective classes were segregated in institutions, the only result of this might be to increase illegitimacy; therefore, any step in eradicating degeneracy and pauperism must look to the isolation and custodial care through life of the hopelessly defective classes. all this gives point to our conclusion that poverty and pauperism have roots which are quite independent of defects in economic conditions, and that, until heredity itself can be controlled, we cannot expect to eliminate poverty entirely. proposed remedies for poverty and pauperism.--the scientific remedies for poverty and pauperism, that is, the scientific methods of dealing with the various dependent classes and of preventing their existence, now form the subject-matter of a great independent science, the science of philanthropy, which, as we have already seen, may be considered a branch of applied sociology. we have not room in this book to discuss adequately these remedies, but we may call the attention of the student again to the vast literature existing upon the subject, and may point out the trend of modern scientific philanthropy in developing scientific methods for removing the causes of dependence and of preventing the existence of the various dependent classes. as we have already seen, poverty is an economic expression of biological or psychological defects of the individual on the one hand, and of a faulty social and industrial organization on the other hand. this implies that the remedies must be along the lines of the biological and psychological adjustment of the individual and of the correction of the faults in social organization. where biological defects of the individual are the cause of dependence, we have just implied that, unless these defects are relatively superficial, the scientific policy for treating these classes of defective individuals would be that of segregation in institutions. the feeble-minded, the chronic insane, the chronic epileptic, and other hopelessly defective persons, in other words, should be permanently kept in institutions where tender and humane care should be provided, but in such a way that they will not reproduce their kind and burden future generations. the policy of segregating the hopelessly defective is one of the most scientifically approved policies of modern philanthropy. in this way, to a certain extent, the reproduction of unfit elements in society might be lessened, and the spread of degeneracy checked. in the case of slightly defective adults, such as the congenitally deaf and the congenitally blind, it is difficult to say exactly what the policy should be. it would seem that many of these persons may be relatively adjusted to free social life, although if they marry and have offspring we know, if their defect is congenital, that a certain proportion of the offspring, according to mendel's law, will inherit the defect. in the case of those individuals whose dependence is due to psychological defects, or defective character, it is evident that we have a different problem. here, in general, the wise policy would seem to be, not to segregate, but to overcome the defective character. psychological defects, we know, are much more frequently acquired than biological defects and much more easily remedied. the work of scientific philanthropy in dealing with this class of individuals must be, therefore, a work of remedying defects in individual character. this is, perhaps, best done through personal relations between the dependent person and those who may help him. defective character is, on the whole, therefore, best remedied by such means as education, religious influences, friendly visiting, and the like. the class of dependents whose condition is due to defective character may be on the whole, therefore, best treated outside of institutions, and probably better through voluntary private charity than through public relief systems. there remains another class of dependents whose condition is not due either to biological nor to psychological defects in themselves, but to faulty social and industrial conditions. for these, the best method of treatment consists in remedying the faulty conditions or in removing them, if possible, from them. this means that, in many cases, society must provide pensions, insurance against accident and sickness, legislation to check social abuses, and, above all, proper facilities for education. here comes in the need of child-labor legislation, of better housing, of industrial insurance, of industrial education, and the like. in the light of these principles, let us review very briefly the different methods of dealing with dependent classes at the present time. _public and private outdoor relief_. by outdoor relief we mean relief given to the poor outside of an institution. usually, outdoor relief refers simply to the public relief of dependents outside of institutions, but we shall use the phrase to cover both public and private relief. it is evident from what has already been said that the class of persons to whom this form of relief is appropriate are those in temporary distress, whose condition of dependence is not a permanent one and, therefore, usually those whose condition is due either to defective personal character or to faulty social organization. if the temporary dependence is due to defective personal character, it is evident that the aid may be so given, if given wisely, as to stimulate the overcoming of the moral defect. hence the need of carefully planned measures of relief in all such cases. hence, also, the need of the friendly visitor, who by personal contact with such a family will help them to become socially adjusted. if, on the other hand, the temporarily dependent person is simply a victim of circumstances, there is, then, also, the need of wise charity in order to overcome those adverse circumstances without impairing the character of the individual who is helped by destroying his self-respect and the like. it is evident that the task of relieving temporarily dependent persons outside of institutions is a delicate and difficult one, and requires carefully trained workers to do it successfully. for this reason, many have argued that outdoor relief should not be undertaken by the state in any of its branches, such as the city or county. in general, it must be admitted that the private society is, in many cases, naturally better fitted to accomplish this delicate and difficult task of restoring the temporarily dependent person. but, on the other hand, it must be said that the whole matter is simply a question of administration. private societies may be quite as lax and unscientific in their charity as the state, and it is conceivable that the state can develop a system of outdoor relief which will be administered by experts quite as carefully as any private organization could administer it. indeed, this is what has been practically done in germany under the _elberfeldt system_, which is a state system for dispensing outdoor relief to the temporarily indigent. in the united states, however, this work of relieving the temporarily dependent in their own homes has been, in our large cities, undertaken with great success by the charity organization societies, which, in general, do the work with such thoroughness as to obviate the necessity for public outdoor relief in our large cities. _state charitable institutions._ indoor relief, or relief within institutions, for the permanently dependent classes is probably best undertaken by the state. originally, the only institution of this sort was the almshouse or the poor house; but with the development of our complex civilization many of the permanently dependent have been provided for in other institutions than the almshouse, and it would seem that ultimately all the permanently dependent would be cared for in specialized state institutions. thus, the permanently dependent, through various sorts of defects, such as the feeble-minded, chronic epileptic, chronic insane, and the like, are properly cared for in institutions especially provided for the purpose by the state and manned by experts. into the details of public care of the unfit and defective of various types it is not necessary to go further than to say that such public care should be of the most scientific character, and with the double aim of reclaiming all those that can be reclaimed, and of providing permanently tender and humane care for those who cannot be fitted for free social life. state institutions then, should be manned by experts, and their activities should be coördinated by some central board. in accordance with this principle, it would seem that the best state policy would be to provide expert commissions for the care of different classes, such as the insane, and the like, and a supervisory board to watch over the work of these commissions and the institutions. _dependent children_. the care of dependent children is manifestly one of the most important forms of remedial philanthropic work, for it is manifest that the dependent child will make a dependent adult unless proper measures are taken to secure his adjustment to the social life. the dependent child is rarely biologically defective. the problem is, usually, in his case, the development of character under proper social conditions. for this reason, both the state and private societies have claimed the field of care of dependent children. while private societies have accomplished in this respect some of the most notable work, it would seem, however, that the work is one which properly belongs to the state in its capacity of legal guardian of all dependent children. the state, through a properly organized system of child helping, could conceivably guarantee that every neglected and dependent child should have normal opportunities to become adjusted to the social life. the system in the state of michigan, with its public school for dependent children at coldwater, and its plan of placing these children, after a few months, in good homes, is a system which cannot receive too high commendation. in general, it is practically agreed by experts that the dependent child cannot be well adjusted to the social life by being reared in an institution, but that the better plan is to find suitable homes in which these children can be placed and reared under state supervision. in this way, practically every dependent child can be guaranteed a good chance in life. in the united states, private societies called "childrens' home societies" are also doing this work with great success. _public and private charity._ as has already been indicated, the ordinary line to be observed between private charity and public relief is that to private charity should be given the more delicate and difficult tasks, such as readjusting the temporarily dependent persons, the care of, in some cases, dependent children and the like, while to public charity should be given the cases which need permanent relief in institutions. this is only a conventional line, however, between private charity and public relief. as has already been pointed out, the state can conceivably, also, undertake the more delicate and difficult tasks of charitable aid, and probably it should do so as rapidly as it demonstrates its fitness to undertake this work, as the state, when once it has achieved certain standards, is a more certain and reliable agency than private institutions or societies. but there is in philanthropic work, a large place for the private society or institution. there will probably always be debatable cases which may better be looked after by private agencies than by public. there is, therefore, in every well-developed community, room for both public and private agencies, although there should be close coöperation where both exist one with the other. the church, through all its history, has undertaken philanthropic work with notable success, and it would be regrettable if the philanthropic activities of the church were to cease at this time, when they are needed as never before, in spite of the large development of public philanthropy. church charity should, however, be made as scientific as any other form of charity, and should be carefully coördinated with the work of the state and other secular agencies. among the secular agencies we have already mentioned the charity organization society as typifying in many ways the highest type of philanthropic activity of the present. it would seem that this society, organizing as it does all the philanthropic forces and agencies of the community, could scarcely be displaced by state activity; and that there would remain to this society, as well as many other private philanthropic societies, a very large field of activity in the future. state activity in the field of charity is, therefore, to be encouraged, but it must not be supposed that such activity can take the place of private charity. _preventive agencies_. a very large task for both private societies and the state is to be found in the field of prevention. this field is so broad, however, that we cannot attempt to even mention the many different movements alone which characterize our present social development. such are the movements for better housing, for better sanitation, for purer food, for juster economic conditions, for the prevention of disease, and the like. the main thing to be said with respect to these movements is that they need to be guided by the larger social view, they need synthesis in order that they may work toward a common goal, and in harmony, also, with the activities of the state. in the field of prevention the state has much to do, especially in forwarding education along lines of social need and in creating juster economic conditions. we may, perhaps, sum up this chapter by saying that it is evident that the cure of poverty is not to be sought merely in certain economic rearrangements, but in scientific control of the whole life process of human society. this means that, in order to get rid of poverty, the defects in education, in government, in religion and morality, in philanthropy, and even in physical heredity, must be got rid of. of course, this can only be done when there is a scientific understanding of the conditions necessary for normal human social life. what some of these requirements for a normal life are will be seen in a subsequent chapter, and it is only necessary to say in conclusion that the wisest measures for removing pauperism will be directed toward the prevention of its causes rather than toward the reclaiming of those who have already been caught in its meshes. select references _for brief reading:_ warner, _american charities,_ revised edition. devine, _misery and its causes._ hunter, _poverty._ _for more extended reading:_ dugdale, _the jukes._ devine, _principles of relief._ henderson, _dependent, defective and delinquent classes._ rus, _how the other half lives._ rowntree, _poverty: a study of town life._ _proceedings of the national conference of charities and correction._ _the survey_ (formerly _charities and the commons_). chapter xiii crime the problem of crime is one of the great problems of social pathology. there have been developed, in order to deal with this problem scientifically, a number of subsidiary sciences, especially criminology and penology, which are sciences dealing with the causes, nature, and treatment of crime. we cannot therefore deal with this problem adequately in this chapter, but again must refer the student to the literature on the subject. the definition of crime.--the best definition of crime and the simplest is that it is a violation of law. it is evident from this definition that crime is primarily a legal matter; and as laws vary from age to age and from country to country, so too the definition of crime varies. nevertheless, because crime is a variable quantity that does not make it impossible of scientific treatment; for law itself is only one aspect or phase of the social life, namely, that which has to do with the control of conduct through organized social authority. therefore, while crime is primarily a legal matter, it is also a social matter and has at the same time psychological and biological implications. while crime is an expression of social maladjustment defined by the law differently under different circumstances, it nevertheless has psychological and biological roots; and these we must take into account in a scientific study of crime. the simplest and best definition of the criminal accordingly is a violator of the law. however, because the criminal lacks social adjustment the causes of this lack of adjustment are very often in certain psychological and biological conditions of the individual. while the criminal is defined by the law differently from age to age, he is nevertheless under all circumstances the socially peculiar and sometimes the psychologically and biologically peculiar person. under all circumstances he is a variation from his group; and whether the causes of his variation are psychological or biological is the problem that concerns us. but in the group of socially maladjusted persons whom we call criminals are many classes and it is necessary to note the chief of these classes before we can understand the many causes of crime. _the classification of criminals_. the legal classification of criminals according to the nature of their crime is manifestly of no use for scientific purposes. what we need is a classification of criminals according to their own peculiar nature. inasmuch as the nature and conduct of a criminal person is largely a matter of his psychology the most scientific classification of criminals must be upon a psychological basis; and a simple psychological classification can be made upon the basis of habit, that is, as to whether the habit of crime is inborn, acquired, or not yet formed. according to this classification then there are three main classes of criminals: (i) the instinctive or born criminal. this is a person in whom the tendency to crime is inborn, and this inborn tendency is always due to some congenital defect. the most common type of the instinctive or born criminal is the moral imbecile, a person only slightly mentally defective who cannot distinguish right from wrong. it is evident that in the instinctive or born criminal biological causes of crime predominate. this class is however relatively small among the general criminal class, and it is estimated by experts that it constitutes not more than from 10 per cent to 15 per cent of our prison population. (2) the habitual criminal. the habitual criminal is a normal person who has acquired the tendency to crime from his environment. the most marked type of the habitual criminal is the professional criminal, who is frequently a person above the average in ability and who deliberately chooses a career of crime, taking the risks of his calling. it is evident that the professional criminal class is the most dangerous class of criminals with whom society has to deal. a more common type of habitual criminal, however, is the occasional habitual criminal, a weak person who drifts into crime through temptation and who has not strength of character enough to throw off the habit. it is estimated that habitual criminals of both types mentioned constitute from 40 per cent to 50 per cent of our prison population. (3) the single offender. the single offender is a normal person who commits only a single crime through some sudden stress or temptation, but lives ever after a law-abiding life. the two types of the single offender are the criminal by passion and the accidental criminal. the criminal by passion is a moral, and oftentimes a conscientious, person who commits a crime through some sudden stress of passion, under great provocation. the accidental criminal, on the other hand, is the weak type of moral person who yields once through some sudden temptation, but who regrets it ever afterward. it is estimated that single offenders constitute from 40 per cent to 50 per cent of our prison population. strictly speaking, they are only legal criminals, and not criminals in the sociological sense, being relatively moral and law-abiding citizens whose variation from the normal is confined to some single offense. nevertheless, single offenders constitute, as we have already seen, a very considerable proportion of our prison population. if this classification of criminals is correct, it is evident that it is very important both in studying the causes of crime and in devising practical measures for dealing with the criminal class; for the instinctive criminal, the habitual criminal, and the single offender manifestly need very different methods of treatment. one of the gravest faults of the criminal law and of penal institutions hitherto is that they have not provided for the different treatment of different classes of criminals. the extent of crime in the united states.--according to the united states census there were in prisons on june 30, 1904, a total of 81,772 prisoners above the age of five years serving sentences. of this number 77,269 were males and 4503 were females; again, 55,111 were whites, and 26,661 were colored. classified according to the prisons in which they were found, 53,292 were in state penitentiaries, 7261 were in state reformatories, 18,544 were in county jails, and 2675 were in city prisons. these were only the persons serving prison sentences. an unknown number were in county and city jails awaiting trial and serving out fines. again, it must be remembered that this was simply the prison population on a single day, june 30, 1904. during 1904 there were, according to the census, 149,691 persons committed to prisons to serve sentences. to all of the above we must add also the 23,034 juvenile delinquents who were found, on june 30, 1904, in the juvenile reformatories of the united states. unfortunately we have no figures from previous censuses with which we can compare the above, as the census of 1890 and previous censuses included prisoners awaiting trial. in 1890, however, there were, deducting the 15,526 awaiting trial and serving out fines, 66,803 persons above the age of five years serving sentences. these prison statistics, however, give us little idea of the actual amount of crime in the united states, because they include only the persons committed to prison to serve sentences, and do not include the vast number who escape the meshes of the law or who simply receive fines, or whose sentences are suspended. it is estimated by competent authorities, basing their estimate upon the number of known convictions of crime in certain large cities, that there are not less than 1,000,000 convictions for crime, annually, in the united states--including, of course, convictions for both felonies and misdemeanors. that this is not an excessive estimate may be indicated by the fact that in the state of new york alone in 1900, a year before the custom of suspending sentence on probation came so largely into vogue, there were nearly 100,000 commitments to prison. all these figures, however, fail to give us any very correct idea of the amount of serious crime in the united states--the prison statistics, because they understate the matter, the statistics of convictions, because they overstate. a peculiarity about serious crime in the united states, it must be remembered, is that so many persons escape through the meshes of the law, and this is particularly true in the case of the characteristic american crime of homicide. an enterprising newspaper, _the chicago tribune_, has for years, with the help of the associated press, collected statistics of homicide and suicide in the united states. while these statistics seem relatively incomplete and inaccurate for the earlier years, since 1892 they present every appearance of great accuracy, and have not been seriously impugned. according to these statistics the united states has had for the last dozen years from six to ten thousand cases of homicide annually, including all cases where one person has killed another. in 1896 the number was 10,652, in 1899, 6225; in 1900, 8275; in 1904, 8482; in 1906, 9350; in 1908, 8592. the census of 1904 showed only 2444 persons committed to prison for homicide in that year, but these figures are not in conflict with those of _the chicago tribune_, because the census statistics omit the vast number of persons who committed homicide but who escaped, were not convicted, were killed, or for some other reason failed to show up in the statistics of commitment. accepting _the chicago tribune's_ figures as relatively accurate, it may be remarked at this point that the number of homicides is far greater in the united states than in other civilized countries, with the exception of italy, spain, and some other countries of the mediterranean region. england, for example, has only between three and four hundred cases of homicide annually as compared with our six to ten thousand, although england's population is about 30,000,000 as against over 80,000,000 for the united states. the greatest number of these homicides take place in the southern and western states, texas leading, according to the statistics, with about one thousand homicides annually. this suggests that to some extent our high homicide rate is due to the survival of frontier conditions in a large number of the states, although it is probably even more due to american individualism and lawlessness, the tendency of every man to take the law into his own hands. there can be no doubt that the amount of serious crime in the united states is relatively high, although there is no reason to believe that the serious crimes against property are proportionate to the serious crimes against persons. _the cost of crime in the united states_. the hon. eugene smith, a lawyer of new york city, in a paper read before the national prison association in 1900, estimated that the criminal population of the united states costs not less than $600,000,000 annually. he based his estimate upon the cost of crime in new york city and other large cities of the country. he found that the probable expenses of government in the united states attributable to crime, that is, the cost of police, criminal courts, prisons, and other institutions connected with the prevention and repression of crime, amounted to about $200,000,000 per year. this is the amount paid by the taxpayers for the repression and extirpation of crime annually. in addition there is the cost of the criminal class through the destruction of property, their plunder, and the like. mr. smith estimated that there were no less than 250,000 dangerous criminals in the united states and that each such criminal cost the people of the united states, on the average $1600 annually. accordingly, the 250,000 criminals would cost a total of $400,000,000 annually, which, added to the $200,000,000 paid out in taxes for the repression of the criminal class and protection against crime, makes a total of $600,000,000 paid out every year by the people of the united states as the cost of supporting the criminal class. while this figure seems enormous, careful students of the matter consider that it is an underestimate rather than an overestimate of the total cost of crime. we may compare the amount with certain other figures. the cost of public education in the united states is about $350,000,000 annually; the annual value of our wheat crop is about $600,000,000, and of our cotton crop about the same. it is evident that the problem of crime is worthy of serious study even from a financial standpoint alone. _is crime increasing?_ how we answer this question will, of course, depend upon the length of time considered. we have no statistics going back further than fifty years in this country. moreover, it is entirely possible to hold that while crime has decreased during the historic era among civilized peoples, it has increased during the last twenty-five or fifty years. all statistics of crime in the united states seem to show that it has increased. in 1850 for example, the number of prisoners was 6737 which was one prisoner to every 3442 of the population. but the census of 1850 was seriously defective, and we would better take the census of 1860 as the basis of our comparison. in 1860 the census showed a total prison population of 19,086, which was one prisoner to every 1647 of the population. in 1890 the census showed 82,329 prisoners in the total population, which was one in every 757. in other words, between 1860 and 1890 the total population of the country just doubled, while the number of prisoners quadrupled. inasmuch as the census of 1904 was taken upon an entirely different basis, we cannot bring the comparison down to that year. the value of these statistics has often been questioned, but it has been questioned chiefly by people who have not taken other corroborative evidence into account. the chief corroborating evidence is to be found in the statistics of prisoners in our state prisons from 1880 to 1904. now only those are sent to state prisons who are guilty of felonies, and the length of term of sentence in our state prisons has steadily shortened during the last twenty-five years, while within the last few years the practice of suspending sentence on probation for first felons has been largely introduced. we should expect, therefore, a decrease in the state prison population in proportion to the general population. but we find that the number in state prisons rose from 30,659 in 1880, to 45,233 in 1890, an increase of 47.5 per cent, while the general population increased only 24.86 per cent. again the number rose in 1904 to 60,553, an increase of 33 per cent, while the general population increased about 30 per cent. apparently, therefore, the amount of serious crime in the united states is increasing more rapidly than the population. corroborating evidence is also found from massachusetts statistics, which indicate that between 1850 and 1880 the prison population increased twice as rapidly as the general population. other evidence could be cited, but the statistics of our state penitentiaries may be considered conclusive when all facts are taken into consideration. there is apparently no escape from the conclusion that serious crime between 1880 and 1904 increased more rapidly than the population. the amount of minor offenses, every one admits, has increased. the statistics of all european countries show this, and there is no reason to suppose that the united states is an exception in this regard. england is the only country of the civilized world in which there has been apparently a decrease in proportion to population of both serious crimes and minor offenses. this decrease of crime in england may be attributed largely to england's excellent prison system, and also to the swiftness and certainty of english courts of justice. the causes of crime.--the causes of crime may be classified best, as we classified the causes of poverty, into objective and subjective. objective causes are those outside of the individual, in the environment; subjective causes are causes in the individual, whether in his bodily make-up or his mental peculiarities. _the objective causes of crime_. the objective causes of crime may be divided into causes in the physical environment and causes in the social environment. the causes in the physical environment are relatively unimportant, but are worthy of note as showing how many various factors enter into this social phenomenon of crime. climate and season seem to be the two chief physical factors that influence crime; and in connection with these we have two general rules, abundantly verified by statistics; namely, crimes against the person are more numerous in southern climates than crimes against property; and again crimes against the person are more numerous in summer than in winter, while crimes against property are more numerous in winter than in summer. all this is of course simply an outcome of the effect of climate and season upon general living conditions. the causes of crime in the social environment are of course much the most important objective causes of crime, and, many students think, altogether the most important causes of crime in general. let us briefly note some of the more important social conditions that give rise to crime. (1) conditions connected with the family life have a great influence on crime; indeed, inasmuch as the family is the chief agency in society for socializing the young, perhaps domestic conditions are more important in the production of crime than any other set of causes. we cannot enter into the discussion of the matter fully, but we have already seen in former chapters that demoralized homes contribute an undue proportion of criminals. it is estimated by those in charge of reform schools for delinquent children that from 85 to 90 per cent of the children in those institutions come from more or less demoralized or disrupted families. illegitimate children notoriously drift into the criminal classes, while dependent children who grow up in charitable institutions are prone also to take the same course. domestic conditions have of course an influence on the criminality or non-criminality of adults. this is best shown perhaps by the fact that the great proportion of criminals in our prisons are unmarried persons. thus the united states prison census of 1904 showed that 64 per cent of all prisoners were single persons. statistics from other countries are practically the same. this means that, on the one hand, the family life is a preventive of crime, and on the other that the socially abnormal classes who drift into crime are not apt to marry. (2) industrial conditions also have a profound influence upon criminal statistics. economic crises, hard times, strikes, lockouts, are all productive of crime. quetelet, the belgian statistician, thought that the general rule could be laid down that, as the price of food increases, crimes against property increase, while crimes against persons decrease. at any rate, increase in the cost of the necessities of life is very apt to increase crimes of certain sorts. the various industrial classes show a different ratio of criminality. in general among industrial classes the least crime is committed by the agricultural classes, while the most crime is committed by the unemployed or those with no occupation. the census of 1904 showed that 50 per cent of all prisoners that year were non-agricultural laborers or servants. (3) the demographical conditions, conditions concerning the distribution and density of the population, have an influence upon crime. in general there is more crime in the cities than in the country districts. the statistics of all civilized countries seem to show about twice as great a percentage of crime in their large cities as in the rural districts. (4) the influence of race and nationality seems to be marked in criminal statistics. we have already noted that the ratio of criminality among the negroes in the united states is from four to five times higher than among the whites. we have also seen that among our recent immigrants the southern italians have a pronounced tendency to crime, especially serious crime. among our older immigrants the irish on the other hand, owing largely to their love of liquor, have a pronounced tendency toward minor offenses. even in 1904, 36.2 per cent of the foreign-born prisoners were irish, while the irish constituted but 15.6 per cent of the total foreign-born population. (5) defects in government and law are among the most potent causes of crime. these are so numerous that we cannot attempt even to mention all. it is obvious that such things as too great leniency on the part of our judges and shortness of sentence if convicted; difficulty or uncertainty in securing justice in criminal courts; costliness of obtaining justice in our civil courts; bad prison systems in which first offenders and hardened criminals mingle; lack of police surveillance of habitual criminals; corrupt methods of appointing the police; partisanship in the administration of government, and the like, all conduce to crime. and many of these things, we may add, have been especially in evidence in america. (6) educational conditions have undoubtedly a great influence upon crime. while education in the sense of school education could never in itself stamp out crime, still defective educational conditions greatly increase crime. this is shown sufficiently by the fact that illiterates are much more liable to commit crime than those who have a fair education. the prison census of 1904 showed that 12.6 per cent of the prisoners were illiterate, while only 10.7 per cent of the general population were illiterate; and of the major offenders not less than 20 per cent were illiterate. the defects in our educational conditions which especially favor the development of crime in certain classes are chiefly: lack of facilities for industrial education, lack of physical education, and lack of specific moral instruction. the need of these three things in a socialized school system need not here be more than emphasized. the influence of the press as a popular educator must here be mentioned as one of the important stimuli to crime under modern conditions. the excessive exploitation of crimes in the modern sensational press no doubt conduces to increase criminality in certain classes, for it has been demonstrated that crime is often a matter of suggestion or imitation. when 75 per cent of the space in our daily newspapers is taken up with reports of crime and immorality, as it is in some cases, it is not to be wondered at that the contagion of crime is sown broadcast in society. (7) the influence of certain social institutions in producing crime must be mentioned. here comes in especially the lack of opportunity for wholesome social amusements among our poorer classes, particularly in our large cities. lacking these, the masses resort to the saloon, gambling-houses, cheap music and dance halls, and vulgar theatrical entertainments. the influence of all of these institutions is undoubtedly to spread the contagion of vice and crime among their patrons. (8) the influence of manners and customs upon crime cannot be overlooked. the custom in certain communities, for example, of carrying concealed weapons undoubtedly has much to do with the swollen homicide statistics of the united states. vicious and corrupting customs, such as compulsory social drinking, and the like, undoubtedly greatly influence crime. even the luxury and extravagance of the rich might easily be shown to have a demoralizing effect, both upon the upper and the lower classes of society. the list of causes of crime in the social environment might be indefinitely extended until the student would perhaps think that practically everything was a cause of crime in one way or another; and it is true that everything that depresses men in society is a cause of crime. however, if the student has gained an impression of the great complexity of the causes of crime, that is the main thing. a question may here be raised whether it is possible to reduce all the causes of crime to causes in the social environment--that is, all subjective causes to objective. many writers have contended that this is possible, but we shall see that there are causes in heredity and causes in psychological conditions, to say nothing of some possible free will in individuals, which cannot be derived from social conditions and which would produce crime quite independent of objective social conditions, unless these subjective factors were also controlled. there is no reason to believe that a perfectly just social organization which did not attempt to control heredity and the moral character of individuals would succeed in eliminating crime. on the contrary, biological variation alone arising from influences independent of the environment would produce a certain amount of crime. crime, in other words, is, to a certain extent, like pauperism, an expression of the elimination of the inferior variants in society, and will continue to exist as long as we allow the process of evolution by natural selection to go on. nevertheless, it is true in a certain sense, as lacassagne says, that "every society has the criminals it deserves;" that is, every society could, by taking proper means, practically eliminate crime and the criminal class. this would have to be done, however, by something more radical than a mere reorganization of human society in an industrial way. three things are necessary for society practically to eliminate crime: first, the correction of defects in social conditions, particularly of economic evils in society; second, the proper control of physical heredity by a rational system of eugenics; third, the proper education and training of every child for social life from infancy up. _the subjective causes of crime._ in order to see all that is involved in the above program let us study somewhat the subjective causes of crime. these may be divided into biological and psychological. among the biological causes of crime, and one which certainly cannot be reduced to the environment, is sex. as we have already seen, crime is a social phenomenon which is chiefly confined to the male sex. in 1904, for example, 94.5 per cent of the prison population in the united states were males, and in the statistics of convictions it is estimated that ninety-one men are convicted for every nine women. the statistics for all civilized countries show practically the same conditions, although in most european countries the proportion of female prisoners is somewhat higher, owing, undoubtedly, to certain influences in the social environment. another subjective factor in crime, which again cannot be reduced to environment, is age. practically all crime falls in the active period of life, and the bulk of it between the ages of twenty-one and forty years. the average of men in our state penitentiaries is frequently not above twenty-seven or twenty-eight years. other subjective biological conditions that cause crime may be summed up under the word "degeneracy." these abnormal conditions, however, we shall examine later. among the psychological conditions of the individual that give rise to crime the most common are habits, aims, and ideals. of peculiar interest among personal habits that have an influence upon crime is intemperance, and this is such an important cause of crime that we must stop to examine it in some detail. it is often said that 95 per cent of the crime of our country results from this cause alone. the committee of fifty, however, investigated the cases of 13,402 convicts with reference to this matter, and found that intemperance was a cause of crime in the cases of 49.95 per cent. it was a chief cause of crime, however, only in the cases of 31.18 per cent. in the remaining cases the intemperance was that of ancestors or associates. other investigators have found that intemperance figures as a cause of crime in from 60 to 80 per cent of the cases, but these investigations were not so full as that of the committee of fifty, and it is safer to conclude, for the present at least, that intemperance figures as a cause in about fifty per cent in the cases of serious crime. the wonder is that any one cause could figure in so many cases when there are so many varied influences in society depressing men. of course intemperance can, as has already been said, in large part be ascribed to the influence of external stimuli in the environment, but it has also causes in the biological and psychological make-up of certain individuals that cannot be easily reduced to environmental factors. _influence of physical degeneracy upon crime_. by degeneracy we mean, to use morel's definition, "a morbid deviation from the normal type." that is, degeneracy is such an alteration of organic structures and functions that the organism becomes incapable of adapting itself to more or less complex conditions. ordinary forms of degeneracy that are well recognized are feeble-mindedness, chronic insanity, chronic epilepsy, congenital deaf-mutism, habitual pauperism, and the like. now there can be no doubt that criminality in some of its forms is related to these functional forms of degeneracy. even ordinary people have noticed its similarity to insanity, while lombroso has traced an elaborate parallel between criminality and epilepsy. without accepting extreme views, it may be claimed that criminality is, in some cases, a form of biological degeneracy for the following reasons: (1) the investigations of criminal anthropologists have established the fact that criminals as a class present a much larger number of structural and functional abnormalities than does the average man. the prisoners in our state prisons, for example, with few exceptions, could not measure up to the requirements laid down by the united states army authorities for the enlistment of soldiers. (2) investigations, like that of the jukes family by dr. dugdale, have established the fact that criminals, paupers, imbeciles, drunkards, prostitutes, and other degenerates frequently spring from the same family stock. a very large percentage of the prisoners in our prisons have come from more or less degenerate family stocks. (3) criminals more often show other forms of degeneracy than criminality than does the average population; that is, criminals often belong to one of the well-recognized degenerate classes, such as imbeciles, epileptics, and insane. these three arguments may be considered to be conclusive proof that criminality is in some cases a manifestation of physiological degeneracy; but they do not show that the bulk of criminals come from physiologically degenerate stocks. on the contrary it is highly probable that the marks of physiological degeneracy are not to be seen in from more than 25 to 30 per cent of our criminal class. these marks of degeneracy are of course especially common among the instinctive or born criminals, and to some extent they are found among the habitual criminals also. _the influence of heredity on crime_. a word must be said about the influence of heredity on crime. the student will remember that, according to the modern theory of heredity, acquired characters, or characteristics, are not transmissible. accordingly, when we find crime running in a family for generations, as in the jukes or zero families, we must assume either that the criminal tendency is transmitted by the social environment or that it is due to some congenital variation in some ancestor. in other words, if a person is a criminal by hereditary defect, if the criminal tendency is born in him, as it is in the instinctive criminal, he will transmit the tendency toward crime to his offspring; but if a normal person becomes a criminal by acquired habit he will transmit no tendency toward crime to his children, although his children may of course acquire the tendency from their social environment. this is not saying, however, that in such cases as habitual drunkenness and habitual vice an impaired constitution may not be transmitted to offspring. but this, strictly speaking, is not the transmission of any specific acquired characteristic, but only a general transmission of impaired vitality which may show itself in crime and in various forms of degeneracy. the germ cells are of course a part of the body, and anything that profoundly impairs the nutrition of the body generally, such as alcoholism and constitutional diseases, would also impair the nutrition of the germ cells, and result in a weakened constitution in offspring. _lombroso's theory of crime_. lombroso, and the italian school of criminologists generally, attribute crime chiefly to atavism, that is, reversion to primitive types. they claim that the criminal in modern society is merely a biological reversion to the savage type of man; that the criminal constitutes therefore a distinct "anthropological variety"; and that there is a marked "criminal type" which can be made out even before a person has committed a crime. they say further that the criminal type is marked physically by having five or more of the stigmata of degeneration, and that it is marked mentally by having the characteristics of the savage or nature man. we cannot stop to criticize in full this completely biological theory of crime which is offered by lombroso and his followers. undoubtedly crime has biological roots, and these we have attempted to point out in discussing the influence of degeneracy upon crime. but to claim that the criminal constitutes a well-marked "anthropological variety" of the human species, as lombroso argues, is to set up a claim for which there is no foundation. what lombroso thinks are the marks of the criminal are simply the marks belonging to the degenerate classes in general. that is, they are found among the insane and feeble-minded, for example, as well as in some classes of criminals. there is then no criminal type which clearly separates the criminal from other classes of degenerates, and which will mark a man out as belonging to the criminal class even before he has committed a crime. lombroso and some of his school have altogether overemphasized the physical and anatomical side of the study of the criminal, and slighted the sociological side of such study. moreover, lombroso's statements, which he makes in very general terms, apply, if they apply at all, not to criminals as a class, but only to instinctive criminals, as indeed he himself has acknowledged. remedies for crime.--the remedies for crime are dealt with by the subsidiary science of penology, which may be regarded as a branch of scientific philanthropy. we can only direct the student's attention here to the vast literature on the subject and remark that the cure for crime consists not in some social panacea or in social revolution, but in dealing with the causes of crime so as to prevent the existence of the criminal class. in a general way, we have already indicated in discussing the remedies for poverty and pauperism what the steps must be to eradicate crime. in order practically to wipe out crime in society, as we have already said, three things are necessary. first, every individual must have a good birth; that is, heredity must be controlled so that only those who are physically and mentally sound are allowed to marry and reproduce. the difficulties of doing this we have already noted. second, every individual must have a good training, both at home and at school, so as to adjust him properly to the social life. his education must fit him to take his place among other men, make him able to take care of himself, and to help others; and make him, in every possible way, acquainted with the social inheritance of the race. last but not least, just social conditions must be provided. everything in the social environment must be carefully looked after in order to insure the best development of the individual and to prevent his environment from being in any way a drawback to him. these things, if it were possible to bring them about, would wipe out crime, or, at least, minimize it to the lowest terms. of course, this cannot be done in a generation, perhaps not in many generations, but it is evident that the problem of crime is in no way an insoluble problem in human society. with time and care and scientific knowledge, crime, as well as poverty and pauperism, could be wiped out. but curative measures are important, also, in dealing with the criminal, and each distinct class must be dealt with differently. we noted in the beginning of the chapter the three great character types in the criminal class: the instinctive criminal, in whom the tendency toward a life of crime is inborn; the habitual criminal, who acquires the habit of crime from his surroundings; and the single offender, who, while committing a single offense, never becomes a criminal in the strictest sense. these three distinct classes of criminals, whom we might style the degenerates, the derelicts, and the accidental offenders, need to be recognized in our criminal law and to be dealt with differently by our criminal courts and correctional institutions. the instinctive criminal can scarcely be adjusted to normal social life. he is, as we have already seen, essentially a defective, usually more or less feeble-minded. reformation in the fullest sense of the word is almost out of the question in his case. the proper policy for society with reference to the instinctive criminal class, which constitutes but a small portion of our total criminal population, would be segregation for life. practically, of course, this may have its difficulties until we perfect our means of discovering slight mental defects in individuals which make them incapable of social adjustment, but practically, also, we have found means of recognizing this type by such marks as incorrigibility, recidivism, and the stigmata of degeneracy. the habitual criminal, who originally was a normal person, can be, at least in the early part of his career, fully reformed. children and adolescents, even though habitual offenders, are easily susceptible of reformation, but this is difficult with the adult habitual offender past thirty years of age who has a long criminal record behind him. like the instinctive criminal, he is scarcely capable of reformation. hardened habitual offenders, and especially professional criminals, should, therefore, be sentenced upon indeterminate sentences, terminable only when adequate evidence of their reformation has been secured. this can best be accomplished by what is known as the "habitual criminal act," providing that persons guilty of three or four felonies shall be sent to prison for life, to be released only upon satisfactory evidence of reformation. the single offender, who is usually a reputable citizen who commits crime through passion or through great temptation, can usually best be dealt with outside of prison walls. the young single offender, if not properly handled, may be easily transformed into an habitual criminal. on the whole, a young single offender who has had no criminal record is, perhaps, best dealt with by the system of probation which we will note later. on the other hand, certain single offenders past thirty years of age, such as bribe-givers and bribe-takers, society may have to punish in order to make an example of. exemplary punishment is, undoubtedly, still necessary in some cases, and in the main it should be reserved for this class of mature offenders in society who have otherwise lived reputable lives. just how far exemplary punishment should be used in society as a deterrent to crime is a disputed question among penologists. whether, as in cases of homicide, it should ever go to the extent of capital punishment or not depends very much upon the civilization of the group. in a civilization like ours, where blood vengeance is so often demanded by mobs, it is probably unwise, for the present at least, to seek the abolition of capital punishment for murder in the first degree. _the prison system._ every state should have at least six distinct sets of institutions to deal with the criminal class. 1. county and city jails for the detention of offenders awaiting trial. 2. reform schools for delinquent children under sixteen years of age who require institutional treatment. 3. industrial reformatories for adult first offenders between sixteen and thirty years of age who require institutional treatment. 4. special reformatories for vagrants, inebriates, and prostitutes. 5. a hospital prison for the criminal insane. 6. county and state penitentiaries for incorrigible, hardened criminals. if any one of these sets of institutions is lacking in a state, it is impossible for the state to deal properly in a remedial way with the problem of crime. all these institutions, of course, need to be manned by experts and equipped in the best possible way. the present condition of our jails, of our penitentiaries, and to some extent of our reform schools, frequently makes them schools of crime. nothing is more demoralizing in any community than a bad jail where criminals of all classes are herded together in idleness. again, the administration of some of our state penitentiaries with an eye to profit only, makes them places for the deformation of character rather than for its reformation. again, the lack of special institutions to deal with habitual vagrants, drunkards, and prostitutes, is one of the great reasons why we find it so difficult to stamp out crime. into the details of the organization, construction, and management of these institutions we cannot go in this book. it is sufficient to say that all these institutions should furnish specialized scientific treatment for the various delinquent classes with which they deal, and to do this they should aim to reproduce the conditions and discipline of free life as far as possible. these institutions, in other words, with the exception of the penitentiaries and other institutions for segregation, should aim at overcoming defective character in individuals. their work is mainly, therefore, a work of remedying psychical defects in the individual which prevent his proper adjustment to society. in the case of penitentiaries, however, the work is one mainly of segregation, of providing humane care under such conditions as least to burden society, and at the same time give such opportunity as there may be for reformation. _substitutes for imprisonment._ we have already noted that some classes of offenders may be reformed outside of prison walls. this is especially true of children, of the younger misdemeanants, and of those who have committed their first felony. it has been found that by suspending sentences in such cases, giving the person liberty upon certain conditions, and placing him under the surveillance of an officer of the court who will stand in the relation of friend and quasi-guardian to him, that reformation can, in many cases, be easily accomplished. this is known as the probation system. it has been characterized as "a reformatory without walls." originating in massachusetts, it has been increasingly put into practice of recent years in many states with much success. the system, however, will not work well without trained probation officers to watch over those who are given conditional liberty. the practice of placing upon probation without probation officers is a questionable one and is liable to bring in disrepute the whole system. probation is not mere leniency, as some suppose, but is rather a system of reformation in line with the most scientific approved methods. coupled with probation should often go fines and restitution to injured parties. in such cases, when the person is placed upon probation, the fine or restitution may often be paid in installments, and it has been found to have a decidedly reformatory effect upon the character of the offender. fines without probation are, however, but little more than retribution, or exemplary punishment. _delinquent children._ the treatment of delinquent children constitutes a special problem in itself. it has recently come to be well recognized that criminal tendencies nearly always appear in childhood, and that if we can overcome these tendencies in the delinquent child, we shall largely prevent the existence of an habitual criminal class. strictly speaking, of course, the child is a presumptive rather than a real criminal. the delinquent child is socially maladjusted and is scarcely ever to be considered an enemy of organized society. delinquent children should be dealt with, therefore, as presumptive rather than as genuine criminals. in general, therefore, they should not be arrested, should not be put in jail with older offenders, and should be tried by a special court in which the judge representing the state plays the role of a parent. for the most part, delinquent children may be dealt with, as we have already seen by putting them upon probation under the care of proper probation officers. when the home surroundings are not good, such children may often be placed in families and their reformation more easily secured than if placed in institutions. in any case, they should never be sent to the reform school except as a last resort. the parent or guardian, also, should be held responsible for the delinquency of the child if he is contributory thereto by his negligence or otherwise. we may sum up this chapter, then, by repeating that the problem of crime is in no way an insoluble problem in human society, though, perhaps, a certain amount of occasional and accidental crime will always exist. the solution of the problem, as we have seen, only demands that man should secure the same mastery over his social environment and over human nature that he has already practically achieved over physical nature; and the gradual development of the social sciences will certainly make this possible some time in the future. select references _for brief reading:_ ellis, _the criminal._ wines, _punishment and reformation._ boies, _the science of penology._ _for more extended reading:_ barrows, _the reformatory system in the united states._ barrows, _children's courts in the united states._ drahms, _the criminal._ ferri, _criminal sociology._ morrison, _crime and its causes._ morrison, _our juvenile offenders._ parmelee, _anthropology and sociology in relation to criminal procedure._ travis, _the young malefactor._ chapter xiv socialism in the light of sociology there have been many "short-cuts" proposed to the solution of social problems. among these the various schemes for reorganizing human society and industry, brought together under the general name of "socialism," have attracted most attention and deserve most serious consideration. in criticizing the most conspicuous of these schemes of social reconstruction, the so-called "scientific socialism," it should be understood at the outset that there is no intention of questioning the general aims of the socialists. those aims, as voiced by their best representatives, are in entire accord with sound science, religion, and ethics. that humanity should gain collective control over the conditions of its existence is the ultimate and highest aim of all science, all education, and all government. no student of sociology doubts that human society has steadily moved, though with interruptions, toward a larger control over its own processes; and no sane man doubts that such collective control over the conditions of existence is desirable. these general aims, which the socialists share with all workers for humanity, are not in question. what is in question are the specific means or methods by which the socialists propose to reconstruct human society--to gain collective control over the means of existence. in order to criticize socialism we must see a little more narrowly what socialism is and what it proposes to do. socialism defined.--as a recent socialist writer has declared, socialism, like christianity, is a term which has come to have no definite meaning. it is used by all sorts of people to cover all sorts of vague and indefinite schemes to improve or revolutionize society. [footnote: it has been said that the word "socialism," as currently used, has four distinct meanings: (1) utopian socialism, i.e., schemes like more's utopia; (2) the socialist party and its program, i.e., "the socialization of the instruments of production;" (3) the marxist doctrine of social evolution, i.e., "the materialistic conception of history;" (4) a vague body of beliefs of the working classes, more or less derived from (2) and (3). it is of course only socialism in the second and third senses which is discussed in this chapter.] such a vague conception would, of course, be impossible of scientific criticism. but fortunately the word historically has come to have a fairly clear and definite meaning. it has come to stand for the social and political program of a party, the social-democratic party of germany and other european states. karl marx and his associates were the founders of this party, hence historical socialism is synonymous with marxian socialism, and we shall so use the word. the cardinal tenet or principle of the socialist party is the public ownership of all capital, that is, of the means of production. certain other things are, however, involved in this, and we may define the full program of marxian socialism by saying that it proposes: (1) the common ownership of the means of production (abolition of private property in capital); (2) common management of the means of production (industry) by democratically selected authorities; (3) distribution of the product by these common authorities in accordance with some democratically approved principle; (4) private property in incomes (consumption goods) to be retained. it is evident from this outline of "orthodox" or marxian socialism that it is primarily and dominantly an economic program. it is true that it emphasizes democratic forms of government, but this is only incidental to its main purpose of securing a just distribution of economic goods. strictly speaking, in a correct use of scientific terms, marxian socialism should be called "economic socialism." the theoretical basis of marxian socialism.--marx's socialism is frequently called scientific socialism, because its followers believe that it rests upon a scientific theory of social evolution. this theory is best stated in marx's own words, as he gives it in his _critique of political economy_, namely, that "the method of the production of material life determines the social, political, and spiritual life process in general." we find it stated in other words, though in substance the same, by engels, marx's friend and coworker. engels says, "in every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organization _necessarily_ following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch." in other words, according to marx and his followers, the economic element in human society determines all other elements; if the other elements cannot be fully derived from the economic, their form and expression is at least determined by the economic. this is the so-called "materialistic conception of history" upon which marxian socialists believe their program to have a firm scientific foundation. [footnote: in several utterances of his later years marx qualified considerably his "materialistic conception of history," but the more radical or revolutionary wing of his followers have always adhered to the extreme form of the theory.] the followers of marx, indeed, declare that with this principle marx explains social evolution quite as fully as darwin explained organic evolution through natural selection; and they do not hesitate to compare marx's work in the social sciences with darwin's work in the biological sciences. it may certainly be agreed that this social philosophy which we have already said is best characterized as "economic determinism," is the logically necessary foundation of economic socialism. if the change of the economic or industrial order of human society is going to work such wonders as the socialists claim, then it must follow that the economic element is the fundamental and determining element in the social life. if what is wrong with human society is chiefly wrong economic conditions, then the changing of those conditions should, of course, change the whole social superstructure. it would seem, therefore, that the dominantly economic program of marxian socialists must stand or fall with the economic interpretation of social organization and evolution which marx proposed. if it can be shown that marx's philosophy of human society is essentially unsound, then the proposition to regenerate human society simply by economic reorganization is also unsound. let us see whether the positions of the economic socialists are tenable in the light of the sociological principles which have been emphasized in the previous chapters of this book. criticism of marxian socialism.--the student has already been told that human society is a complex of living organisms, responding now this way, now that, to external stimuli in the environment. these stimuli in the environment we have roughly, but inaccurately, spoken of as causes, though they are not causes in a mechanical sense. the responses which are given to these stimuli by individuals and groups vary greatly according to heredity, instincts, and habits,--the inner nature, in other words, of the organisms composing society. now, the stimuli in the environment which give rise to the activities of individuals and societies, though not in any mechanical way, may be classified into several great groups, such as the economic, the reproductive, the political, the religious, and so on. the economic stimuli would be those that have to do with the processes of production, distribution, and consumption of wealth; that is, the economic stimuli are those which are concerned with economic values. now, while the student has not been even introduced to the psychological theory of human society, he perhaps knows enough of individual human nature to see that there is no reason in the nature of things why one's responses to economic stimuli, those connected with economic values, should determine his response to all other stimuli; and this is what scientific sociology and scientific psychology exactly find; namely, that there is no reason for believing that economic stimuli determine in any exact way or to any such extent, as marx thought, responses to other stimuli. it is true that our habits of response to a certain class of stimuli affect to a certain extent our habits of response to all other classes. thus it follows that the economic phase of human society affects to a very great degree all other phases of human society. but this is simply the doctrine of the unity of personality and the interdependence of all phases of the social life, and it is very different from marx's theory that the economic determines all the other phases; for under the doctrine of social interdependence we can see it is quite as reasonable to state that the religious and political phases of the social life determine the economic as it is to state that the economic determines the political and religious. let us bring the discussion down to more concrete terms. the student has seen that in every social problem there are a multitude of factors or stimuli (causes) at work, and that in no problem is the economic factor so all important that it may be said that the other factors are simply subsidiary. on the contrary, in such a problem as crime the methods of production and distribution of material goods, while important factors in the problem of crime, in no way determine that problem; and ideal conditions of the production and distribution of wealth would in no way solve the problem of crime. so, too, the negro problem is hardly touched by the question of the forms of industry or the economic organization of society. we might go on with a whole list of social problems and show that in every case the economic factor is no more important than many other factors, and that the economic reorganization of society would in some cases scarcely affect these problems at all. _the social problem, therefore,--the problem of the relations of men to one another,--is not simply nor fundamentally an economic problem; rather it is fundamentally a biological and psychological problem,_--if you please, a moral problem. this brings us to a second criticism of socialism, namely, that it proposes to reorganize human society upon an economic basis, not upon a biological basis. the program of the socialist looks forward to the satisfaction of economic needs, but it has failed to take into account the biological requirements for existence. it would be far more scientific to reorganize society upon the basis of the needs of the family than to reorganize it simply upon the basis of industry. the reproductive process which the economic socialists ignore, or leave unregulated almost entirely, is far more important for the continued existence of human society than all its economic processes,--if by the reproductive process we mean the rearing as well as the birth of offspring; and if by the economic process we mean merely the forms and methods of the production and distribution of material goods. in other words, the socialistic program leaves the future out of account, and aims simply to satisfy the present generation with a just distribution of material goods. if it could be shown that a just distribution of material goods would insure the future of the race and of civilization, then, of course, the socialist plea would be made good. but this is just what is doubtful. on the whole, it must be said that the socialist program is based upon the wishes and desires of the adult, not upon the needs of the child or of the race. the extreme emphasis which marxian socialism throws upon economic and industrial conditions in human society is, therefore, not justified by the scientific facts which we know about collective human life. rather it must be said that this is the vital weakness of marxian socialism,--that it over-emphasizes the economic element. of course, we are not saying that control over economic conditions is not necessary to collective control over the general conditions of existence, which society is undoubtedly aiming at, but it is saying that conceivably collective control over the social life process might be upon some other basis than the economic. it might emphasize, for example, the health and continuity of the race, or individual moral character, far more than the distribution of economic values. modern economic socialism proposes simply to carry a step further our already predominatingly economic social organization by frankly recognizing the economic as the basis of all things in the social life. modern economic socialism is, therefore, rightfully judged as materialistic. it is really an expression of the industrial and commercial spirit of the present age. when the perspective of life becomes shifted again to the more important biological and spiritual elements in life, socialism will lose its prevailingly economic character, or it will cease to exist. it must be emphasized here that all the material and economic progress of the modern world has not added greatly to the happiness or betterment of man. it is true that material progress is important, yes, necessary for spiritual progress. but material progress alone does not lead to spiritual progress, and therefore mere material progress can never add anything to the real happiness and social betterment of the race. on the contrary, it is possible to conceive of a society in which every one has an economic surplus,--a society rolling in wealth, approximately equally divided, and yet one in which human misery in its worst forms of vice and crime, pessimism and self-destruction, prevail. it is an old truth that making men "better-off" does not necessarily make them "better," and one which cannot be too often emphasized, but one which the modern socialist gets angry at when it is mentioned to him. it is therefore a matter of comparative indifference, from the standpoint of the happiness and ultimate survival of the race, whether economic goods are distributed relatively evenly in human society or not. we say comparative indifference, because, of course, no one can be indifferent to the material needs of life, inasmuch as they are the basis of its higher development. but after a certain minimum is assured it is extremely doubtful whether a surplus will be of benefit or not, and this minimum necessary for the higher spiritual development of the social life can be secured through the reform of present society without trying the doubtful social revolution which the socialists advocate. this brings us to a third criticism of marxian socialism. traditionally marxian socialism has been revolutionary socialism. the vast mass of the socialist party to-day look forward to some revolution which will, as they say, "socialize the instruments of production," that is, transfer capital from private ownership and management to public ownership and management. probably rightly, many socialists hold that such a wholesale transfer from private to public ownership would be the only way in which a socialistic regime could be successfully inaugurated. but if this revolution were accomplished it is evident that it is highly uncertain whether its results would be permanent. for all that we have learned concerning human society leads us to say that social organization at any particular time is very largely a matter of habit. now collective habits are less easily changed than individual habits, because any change in collective habits practically necessitates the consent of all the individuals who make up the social group. we know also that even in individual life old habits are not easily supplanted by new ones and that there is always a tendency to revert to the old. all historical evidence shows that revolutions are always followed by periods of reaction, and that this reaction is usually proportionate to the extent and suddenness of change in social organization. some modern socialists have argued from de vries's mutation theory in biology that in social evolution we must expect mutations also, and that, therefore, the great changes in human society are normally accomplished by means of revolution. but this argument rests wholly on analogy, and arguments from analogy in science are practically worthless. it may be asserted, on the other hand, that all the great changes in human society which have been desirable have come about only after prolonged preparation and after a series of gradual steps which led up to the final change. the greco-roman world, for example, was becoming ripe for christianity before christianity finally appeared and became triumphant. the centuries from the fourteenth to the sixteenth had prepared for the protestant reformation in the countries of modern europe before the reformation became an established fact. thus, radical reconstruction of the social life by means of revolution is scarcely possible. the instincts and habits of individual human nature upon which the social order rests cannot be easily changed by revolutionary programs in legislation or in institutions. the only probable result of such an attempt would be the collapse of the new social order, because it would have insufficient foundations in individual character upon which to rest. the idea of ushering in the social millennium through some vast social revolution is therefore chimerical. it is not the place in this book to take up the practical objections to economic socialism. these practical objections are for the most part of a political and economic nature, and they accordingly can be better dealt with in treatises on politics and economics than in one on sociology. it is perhaps sufficient to say that the political and economic objections to socialism are not less weighty than the sociological objections. government, for example, exists in human society to regulate, and not to carry on directly, all social activities. if the state were in its various forms called upon to own and manage all productive wealth in society, it is extremely probable that such an experiment would break down of its own weight, since the state would be attempting that which, in the nature of things, as the chief regulative institution of society, it is not fitted to do. but it is not our purpose, as has just been said, to go into the political and economic objections to economic or marxian socialism. to understand these the student must consult the leading works on economic and political science. substitutes for economic socialism.--certain steps sociology and all social sciences already indicate as necessary for larger collective control over the conditions of social existence. these steps, however, aim not at instituting a new social order, but at removing certain demonstrated causes of social maladjustment which exist in present society; and as in the solution of special social problems we have seen reason to reject "short-cuts" and "cure-alls," so in a scientific reconstruction of human society we have good reason to reject the social revolution which the followers of marx advocate, and to offer as a substitute in its stead some social reforms which will make more nearly possible a normal social life. perhaps the necessary steps for bringing about such a normal social life have never been better summed up than by professor devine in his book on _misery and its causes_. rather than offer a program of our own we shall, therefore, give a brief resume of the conditions which professor devine names as essential to normal social life, believing that these offer a program upon which all sane social workers and reformers can unite. professor devine names ten conditions essential to a normal social life: (1) the securing of a sound physical heredity, that is, a good birth for every child, by a rational system of eugenics; (2) the securing of a protected childhood, which will assure the normal development of the child, and of a protected motherhood, which will assure the proper care of the child; (3) a system of education which shall be adapted to social needs, inspired by the ideals of rational living and social service; (4) the securing of freedom from preventable disease; (5) the elimination of professional vice and crime; (6) the securing of a prolonged working period for both men and women; (7) a general system of insurance against the ordinary contingencies of life which now cause poverty or dependence; (8) a liberal relief system which will meet the material needs of those who become accidentally dependent; (9) a standard of living sufficiently high to insure full nourishment, reasonable recreation, proper housing, and the other elementary necessities of life; (10) a social religion which shall make the service of humanity the highest aim of all individuals. it is sufficient to say, in closing this chapter, that if these ten essentials of a normal social life could be realized--and there is no reason why they cannot be--there would be no need to try the social revolution which marxian socialism advocates. there can be no question that the ultimate aim of the social sciences is to provide society with the knowledge necessary for collective control over its own life processes. sociology and the special social sciences are aiming, therefore, in an indirect way to accomplish the same thing which political socialism aims at accomplishing through economic revolution. there would seem to be no danger in trusting science to work out this problem of collective control over the conditions of existence. there are no risks to run by the scientific method, for it proceeds step by step, adequately testing theories by facts as it goes along. the thing to do, therefore, for those who wish to see "a humanity adjusted to the requirements of its existence" is to encourage scientific social research along all lines. with a fuller knowledge of human nature and human society it will be possible to indicate sane and safe reconstructions in the social order, so that ultimately humanity will control its social environment and its own human nature even more completely than it now controls the forces of physical nature. but the ultimate reliance in all such reconstruction, as we will try to show in the next chapter, must be, not revolution, nor even legislation, but education. select references _for brief reading:_ ely, _socialism and social reform._ spargo, _socialism._ revised edition. gilman, _socialism and the american spirit._ _for more extended reading_: hunter, _socialists at work._ kirkup, _history of socialism._ schaeffle, _quintessence of socialism._ wells, _new worlds for old._ chapter xv education and social progress as has just been said, the ultimate reliance in all social reform or social reconstruction must be upon the education of the individual. social organization can never be more complex or of a higher type than the individual character and intelligence of the members of the group warrants. at any given stage of society, therefore, the intelligence and moral character of its individual members limits social organization. only by raising the intelligence and character of the individual members of society can a higher type of social life permanently result. another fact to which the student needs his attention called is that all progress in human society, it follows, from what has just been said, depends upon the relation between one generation and its successor. only as new life comes into society is there opportunity to improve the character of that life. if at any given time intelligence and character limit the possibilities of social organization, then it is equally manifest that only in the new individuals of society can that intelligence and character be greatly improved. there are, of course, two possible ways of bringing about such improvement:--first, through the selection of the hereditary elements in society, eliminating the unfit and preserving the more fit; but, as we have repeatedly pointed out, such a scheme of artificial selection is far in the future, and in any case its inauguration would have to depend upon the _second_ method of improving individual character, which is through education and training. as we have insisted, not only may the natural instincts and tendencies of individuals be greatly modified by training but through education the habits and hence the character of individuals can be controlled. therefore the main reliance of society in all forward movements must be upon education, that is, upon artificial means of controlling the formation of character and habit in individuals. the finality of education in social betterment can be, perhaps, further illustrated by reconsidering for a moment some of the social problems which we have just studied. take for example the problem of crime. there are only three possible means, as we have already seen, of eliminating crime from human society:--first, through changes in individual human nature, brought about by biological selection, that is, through a system of selective breeding, eliminating all who show any criminal tendencies. this method would, perhaps, eliminate certain types of criminals as we have already seen, namely, those in whom the hereditary tendency to crime is dominant. a second means of attacking the problem of crime would be by improving social and economic conditions by means of the interference of the organized authority of society in the form of the state. legislation and administration directed to social ends might accomplish much in reducing the temptations and opportunities for crime in any group. the correction of evils in social and industrial organization would, no doubt, again greatly lessen crime but it is entirely conceivable, from all that we know of human nature and human society, that crime might still persist under a just social and industrial organization. crime could be completely eliminated only through a third means, namely, the careful training of each new individual in society as he came on the stage of life, so that he would be moral and law-abiding, respecting the rights of others and the institutions of society. moreover, neither selective breeding nor governmental interference in social conditions could accomplish very much in eliminating crime unless these were backed by a wise system of social education. now what is true of crime is equally true of all social problems. they may be approached from either of three sides:--first, from the biological side, or the side of physical heredity; second, from the side of social organization, or the improvement of the social environment; third, from the side of individual character, or the psychical adjustment of the individual to society. as professor ward and many other sociologists have emphasized, it is this latter side which is the most available point of attack on all social problems; for when we have secured a right attitude of the individual toward society all social problems will be more than half solved. thus, as we said at the beginning of this book, education has a bearing upon every social problem, and every social problem also has a bearing upon education. just how important this reciprocal relationship between education and social life is, we can appreciate only when we have considered somewhat more fully the nature of social progress. the nature of social progress.--social progress has been defined in many ways by the social thinkers of the past. without entering into any formal definition of social progress, we believe that it will be evident to the reader of this book that social progress consists, for one thing, in the more complete adaptation of society to the conditions of life. we regard those changes as progressive whether they be moral, intellectual, or material, which bring about a better adaptation of individuals to one another in society, and of social groups to the requirements of their existence. social progress means, in other words, the adaptation of society to a wider and more universal environment. the ideal of human progress is apparently adaptation to a perfectly universal environment, such an adaptation as shall harmonize all factors whether internal or external, present or remote, in the life of humanity. social progress means, therefore, greater harmony among the members of a group. it means also greater efficiency of those members in performing their work. finally, it means greater ability on the part of the group to survive. social progress includes, therefore, the ideals of social harmony, social efficiency, and social survival. things which do not ultimately conduce to these ends can scarcely be called progressive. now it is evident that adaptation on the part of individuals and groups to the requirements of life may be in part accomplished by biological selection, that is, by eliminating the least adapted. but selection is, after all, a very clumsy and imperfect instrument for securing the highest type of adaptation. again, it is evident that a certain degree of adaptation can be secured through the constraint of government and law; but only a relatively low type of adaptation can be secured in such an external way. it is finally evident, therefore, that the highest type of adaptation in either individual or social life can be secured only by training the intelligence and moral character of individuals so that they will be sufficient to meet the requirements of existence. another feature of social progress which we have not yet mentioned in this chapter, though we have noted it repeatedly in earlier chapters, is the increased complexity of social organization. this increased complexity is in part due to the mere increase in numbers. it is also due to the various processes themselves by which wider and more universal adaptation is brought about in society. thus, while every useful mechanical invention aids man to conquer nature, it at the same time increases the complexity of social life. now in a more complex society there is more opportunity for conflicts of habit between individuals, more opportunity for social maladjustment, and therefore more opportunity for the failure of some part or all of the group in achieving a social life characterized by harmony, efficiency, and capacity for survival. hence, the adaptation of individuals in the large and complex groups of modern civilized societies becomes a greater and greater problem. the regulative institutions of society, such as government, law, religion, and education, have to grapple with this problem of adjusting individuals to the requirements of an increasingly complex social life. no doubt religion, government, and law have a great function to perform in increasing social regulation, but they can only perform it effectively after they enlist education on their side. the social function of education.--we are now prepared to understand the meaning of educational systems in civilized society and to see what the true function of education is. education exists to adapt individuals to their social life. it is for the purpose of fitting the individual to take his place in the social group and to add something to the life of the group. educational systems exist not to train the individual to develop his powers and capacity simply as an individual unit, but rather to fit him effectively to carry on the social life before he actively participates in it. in other words, the social function of education is to guide and control the formation of habit and character on the part of the individual, as well as to develop his capacity and powers, so that he shall become an efficient member of society. this work is not, at least in complex civilizations like our own, one which we carry on simply in order to achieve social perfection, but it is rather something which is necessary for the survival of large and complex groups. otherwise, as we have pointed out, the conflicts in the acquirement of habit and character on the part of individuals would be so great that there would be no possibility of their working together harmoniously in a common social life. just so far as the system of education is defective, is insufficient to meet social needs, in so far may we expect the production of individuals who are socially maladjusted, as shown in pauperism, defectiveness, and crime. education is, then, the great means of controlling habit and character in complex social groups, and as such it is the chief means to which society must look for all substantial social progress. it is the instrument by which human nature may be apparently indefinitely modified, and hence, also, the instrument by which society may be perfected. the task of social regeneration is essentially a task of education. education as a factor in past social evolution.--does past social history justify these large claims for education as a factor in social development? it must be replied that the history of human society undoubtedly substantiates this position, but even if it did not, we should still have good ground for claiming that education can be such an all-powerful factor in the social future. the sociological study of past civilizations, however, shows quite conclusively that all of them have depended in one way or another upon educational processes, not only for continuity, but largely, also, for their development. as we have already seen, the life history of a culture or a civilization is frequently the life history of a religion. but religious beliefs, together with the moral and social beliefs, which become attached to them, were effectively transmitted only through the instruction of the young. the religious element did scarcely more than afford a powerful sanction for the moral and social beliefs upon which the social organization of the past rested; hence, when we ascribe great importance to the religious factor in social evolution, we also ascribe, at the same time, great importance to education, because it was essentially the educational process, together with religious sanction, which made possible most of the civilizations and social progress of the past. indeed, we have no record of any people of any very considerable culture that did not employ educational processes to the largest degree to preserve and transmit that culture from generation to generation. culture has been passed down in human history, therefore, essentially by educational processes. these educational processes have controlled the formation of habits and character, of ways of thinking and ways of acting, in successive generations of individuals. the educational processes have had much more to do, therefore, with the civilizations and social organization of the past than industrial conditions. industrial conditions have been rather relatively external factors in the social environment to which society has had to adapt itself more or less. in the same way, political authority has rested on, and been derived from, the social traditions rather than the reverse. it is therefore not too much for the sociologist to say, agreeing with thomas davidson, that education is the last and highest method of social evolution. the lowest method of evolution was by selection, and _that_, as we have already emphasized, cannot be neglected. the next method of social evolution apparently to develop was the method of adaptation by organized authority, and, as we have already seen, organized authority in society, or social regulation by means of authority, must indefinitely persist and perhaps increase, rather than diminish; but the latest and highest method of social evolution is not through biological selection nor through the exercise of despotic authority, but through the education of the individual, so that he shall become adjusted to the social life in habits and character before he participates in it. human society may be modified, we now see, best through modifying the nature of the individual, and the most direct method to do this is through education. the socialized education of the future.--if what has been said is substantially correct, then education should become conscious of its social mission and purpose. the educator should conserve education as the chief means of social progress, and education should be directed to producing efficient members of society. the education of the future must aim, in other words, not at producing lawyers, physicians, engineers, but at producing citizens. education for citizenship means that there must be radical reconstruction in the educational processes of the present. the education of the nineteenth century aimed at developing largely power and capacity in the individual as such. its implicit, and oftentimes its avowed, aim was individual success. the popularity of higher education in the nineteenth century especially rested upon the cult of individual success. it became, therefore, largely commercialized, and emphasized chiefly the professions and occupations which best assured the individual a successful career among a commercial and industrial people. it is needless to say that the individualistic, commercialized education of the latter years of the nineteenth century very often failed to produce the good citizen. on the contrary, with its ideal of individual power and success, it frequently produced the cultured freebooter, which our modern industry has so often afforded examples of. education, instead of being a socializing agency and the chief instrument of social regeneration, became an individualizing agency dissolving the social order itself. very slowly our educators are becoming conscious of the fact that this type of education is a social menace, and that our educational system needs reformation from bottom to top in order to become again equal to the social task imposed upon it by the more complex social conditions of the twentieth century. hence the demand for a socialized education, which is proceeding, not only from sociologists and social workers, but from the progressive leaders of education itself. what this socialized education of the future shall be is not the province of this book to discuss, but a few of its essential characteristics may be noted. as has already been said, such education will aim, first of all, at producing the citizen before it aims at producing the lawyer, the engineer, the physician, or any other professional or occupational type. no doubt, this means, for one thing, that all individuals shall be taught to be good fathers and mothers, good neighbors and members of communities, even more than they are taught the accomplishments of life. no doubt, also, the socialized education of the future will emphasize the adjustment of the individual to the industrial order of society, because it is necessary that individuals shall be producers if they are to be efficient citizens. the necessity and value of industrial training in our system of education has already been emphasized in discussing other social problems. such training has its place and that place, as we have already seen, is a very important and fundamental one; but it must not be forgotten that the relations of men to one another are more important than the relations of men to nature. in industrial training, the element which is apt to be emphasized is the relations of the individual to the physical facts and forces of nature; but this is only a beginning of the training for citizenship, because good citizenship consists essentially in harmonious and efficient functioning in the social group. therefore, the study of the relationships of men to one another must be the final and crowning element in a system of social education. such studies as history, government, economics, ethics, and sociology must occupy a larger and larger place in the education of the future if we are to secure a humanity adjusted to the requirements of its existence. historical and sociological instruction should lead up, moreover, to direct ethical instruction. if the industrial element in the social life is important, the moral element is even more so, since it is, as we have already said, the ideal aspect of the social. in some way or another, our public schools, from the kindergarten up, must make a place for social and ethical instruction of a direct and explicit character. in the higher education, the social sciences must be especially emphasized, because it is those who receive higher education who become the leaders of society, and it is important, no matter what occupation or profession they may serve society in, that they understand the bearings of their work upon social welfare. they must know their duties as citizens and understand how society may best be served. in other words, our higher education should put to the front the ideal, not of individual power and success, but of social service; and this means that, in addition to the technical or professional education which the more highly educated are giving, there must be a sufficient knowledge of social conditions and of the laws and principles of social progress given them to enable them to serve society rightly. intelligent social service cannot exist without social knowledge. all this implies that the older idea that education can be given regardless of content is, from the social point of view, a great mistake. social knowledge is necessary, as we have just said, for efficient social service, and a socialized education can have no other end than social service. therefore, sociological knowledge in the broadest sense should be required in the education of every citizen, and particularly those who are to become social leaders. professor ward has ably argued that if sufficient information of the facts, conditions, and laws of human society could be given to all, that alone would bring about in the highest degree social progress. whether we agree or not that the mere giving of information will of itself lead to progressive or dynamic action in society, it must be admitted that right social information is indispensable for right social action. as professor cooley has said, "we live in a system, and to achieve right ends, or any rational ends whatever, we must learn to understand that system." hence, the commanding place which sociology and the social sciences should occupy in the education of all classes, and especially in the training of the teacher himself. it is not unreasonable to believe that the development of the social sciences will show us the way to remove many, if not all, social evils; and it is also not unreasonable to believe that the knowledge which these sciences will furnish will stimulate in the vast mass of individuals an impetus to remove these evils. moreover, training in the social sciences will check many of the most menacing tendencies of our present civilization. for one thing, training in the social sciences will lessen the practical materialism of modern civilization, for it will throw the emphasis on the relations of men to one another rather than on the relations of man to nature. the social sciences, aiming at the control of the social conditions and of social progress, necessarily emphasize the higher life of man, and they therefore set before the student as the goal, not material achievement or individual success, but the service of man. again, training in the social sciences will check the exaggerated individualism, which, as we have already seen, is one of the most menacing tendencies of our time; for the social sciences show the solidarity of the society and the interdependence of its parts. they show that no individual lives to himself, and that his acts evidently affect the whole of society. finally, training in the social sciences will insure the development of true moral freedom in our social life, for these sciences involve a searching but impersonal criticism of social institutions and public policies. now the very breath of life of a free society is intelligent public criticism of its institutions and policies. without this, there can be no change, no progress. but intelligent criticism implies scientific criticism, that is, criticism based upon adequate scientific knowledge and without personal bias. this means the scientific study of institutions and social organization. if the american people are to perfect their institutions, they must maintain and develop their moral freedom; and to maintain true moral freedom, they must encourage the scientific study of social conditions and institutions. to secure an unbiased attitude toward social and political problems, to train every citizen for social service, to reconstruct social organization along scientific lines, it is necessary, therefore, to give the social sciences an honored place in the education of all classes and professions. select references _for brief reading_: ward, _applied sociology_, chaps. viii-xii. ward, _dynamic sociology_, vol. ii, chap. xiv. horne, _the philosophy of education_, chaps. iv and v. dewey, _the school and society_. _for more extended reading_: davidson, _history of education_. graves, _history of education_. monroe, _history of education_. the theory of the leisure class by thorstein veblen chapter one ~~ introductory the institution of a leisure class is found in its best development at the higher stages of the barbarian culture; as, for instance, in feudal europe or feudal japan. in such communities the distinction between classes is very rigorously observed; and the feature of most striking economic significance in these class differences is the distinction maintained between the employments proper to the several classes. the upper classes are by custom exempt or excluded from industrial occupations, and are reserved for certain employments to which a degree of honour attaches. chief among the honourable employments in any feudal community is warfare; and priestly service is commonly second to warfare. if the barbarian community is not notably warlike, the priestly office may take the precedence, with that of the warrior second. but the rule holds with but slight exceptions that, whether warriors or priests, the upper classes are exempt from industrial employments, and this exemption is the economic expression of their superior rank. brahmin india affords a fair illustration of the industrial exemption of both these classes. in the communities belonging to the higher barbarian culture there is a considerable differentiation of sub-classes within what may be comprehensively called the leisure class; and there is a corresponding differentiation of employments between these sub-classes. the leisure class as a whole comprises the noble and the priestly classes, together with much of their retinue. the occupations of the class are correspondingly diversified; but they have the common economic characteristic of being non-industrial. these non-industrial upper-class occupations may be roughly comprised under government, warfare, religious observances, and sports. at an earlier, but not the earliest, stage of barbarism, the leisure class is found in a less differentiated form. neither the class distinctions nor the distinctions between leisure-class occupations are so minute and intricate. the polynesian islanders generally show this stage of the development in good form, with the exception that, owing to the absence of large game, hunting does not hold the usual place of honour in their scheme of life. the icelandic community in the time of the sagas also affords a fair instance. in such a community there is a rigorous distinction between classes and between the occupations peculiar to each class. manual labour, industry, whatever has to do directly with the everyday work of getting a livelihood, is the exclusive occupation of the inferior class. this inferior class includes slaves and other dependents, and ordinarily also all the women. if there are several grades of aristocracy, the women of high rank are commonly exempt from industrial employment, or at least from the more vulgar kinds of manual labour. the men of the upper classes are not only exempt, but by prescriptive custom they are debarred, from all industrial occupations. the range of employments open to them is rigidly defined. as on the higher plane already spoken of, these employments are government, warfare, religious observances, and sports. these four lines of activity govern the scheme of life of the upper classes, and for the highest rank--the kings or chieftains--these are the only kinds of activity that custom or the common sense of the community will allow. indeed, where the scheme is well developed even sports are accounted doubtfully legitimate for the members of the highest rank. to the lower grades of the leisure class certain other employments are open, but they are employments that are subsidiary to one or another of these typical leisure-class occupations. such are, for instance, the manufacture and care of arms and accoutrements and of war canoes, the dressing and handling of horses, dogs, and hawks, the preparation of sacred apparatus, etc. the lower classes are excluded from these secondary honourable employments, except from such as are plainly of an industrial character and are only remotely related to the typical leisure-class occupations. if we go a step back of this exemplary barbarian culture, into the lower stages of barbarism, we no longer find the leisure class in fully developed form. but this lower barbarism shows the usages, motives, and circumstances out of which the institution of a leisure class has arisen, and indicates the steps of its early growth. nomadic hunting tribes in various parts of the world illustrate these more primitive phases of the differentiation. any one of the north american hunting tribes may be taken as a convenient illustration. these tribes can scarcely be said to have a defined leisure class. there is a differentiation of function, and there is a distinction between classes on the basis of this difference of function, but the exemption of the superior class from work has not gone far enough to make the designation "leisure class" altogether applicable. the tribes belonging on this economic level have carried the economic differentiation to the point at which a marked distinction is made between the occupations of men and women, and this distinction is of an invidious character. in nearly all these tribes the women are, by prescriptive custom, held to those employments out of which the industrial occupations proper develop at the next advance. the men are exempt from these vulgar employments and are reserved for war, hunting, sports, and devout observances. a very nice discrimination is ordinarily shown in this matter. this division of labour coincides with the distinction between the working and the leisure class as it appears in the higher barbarian culture. as the diversification and specialisation of employments proceed, the line of demarcation so drawn comes to divide the industrial from the non-industrial employments. the man's occupation as it stands at the earlier barbarian stage is not the original out of which any appreciable portion of later industry has developed. in the later development it survives only in employments that are not classed as industrial,--war, politics, sports, learning, and the priestly office. the only notable exceptions are a portion of the fishery industry and certain slight employments that are doubtfully to be classed as industry; such as the manufacture of arms, toys, and sporting goods. virtually the whole range of industrial employments is an outgrowth of what is classed as woman's work in the primitive barbarian community. the work of the men in the lower barbarian culture is no less indispensable to the life of the group than the work done by the women. it may even be that the men's work contributes as much to the food supply and the other necessary consumption of the group. indeed, so obvious is this "productive" character of the men's work that in the conventional economic writings the hunter's work is taken as the type of primitive industry. but such is not the barbarian's sense of the matter. in his own eyes he is not a labourer, and he is not to be classed with the women in this respect; nor is his effort to be classed with the women's drudgery, as labour or industry, in such a sense as to admit of its being confounded with the latter. there is in all barbarian communities a profound sense of the disparity between man's and woman's work. his work may conduce to the maintenance of the group, but it is felt that it does so through an excellence and an efficacy of a kind that cannot without derogation be compared with the uneventful diligence of the women. at a farther step backward in the cultural scale--among savage groups--the differentiation of employments is still less elaborate and the invidious distinction between classes and employments is less consistent and less rigorous. unequivocal instances of a primitive savage culture are hard to find. few of these groups or communities that are classed as "savage" show no traces of regression from a more advanced cultural stage. but there are groups--some of them apparently not the result of retrogression--which show the traits of primitive savagery with some fidelity. their culture differs from that of the barbarian communities in the absence of a leisure class and the absence, in great measure, of the animus or spiritual attitude on which the institution of a leisure class rests. these communities of primitive savages in which there is no hierarchy of economic classes make up but a small and inconspicuous fraction of the human race. as good an instance of this phase of culture as may be had is afforded by the tribes of the andamans, or by the todas of the nilgiri hills. the scheme of life of these groups at the time of their earliest contact with europeans seems to have been nearly typical, so far as regards the absence of a leisure class. as a further instance might be cited the ainu of yezo, and, more doubtfully, also some bushman and eskimo groups. some pueblo communities are less confidently to be included in the same class. most, if not all, of the communities here cited may well be cases of degeneration from a higher barbarism, rather than bearers of a culture that has never risen above its present level. if so, they are for the present purpose to be taken with the allowance, but they may serve none the less as evidence to the same effect as if they were really "primitive" populations. these communities that are without a defined leisure class resemble one another also in certain other features of their social structure and manner of life. they are small groups and of a simple (archaic) structure; they are commonly peaceable and sedentary; they are poor; and individual ownership is not a dominant feature of their economic system. at the same time it does not follow that these are the smallest of existing communities, or that their social structure is in all respects the least differentiated; nor does the class necessarily include all primitive communities which have no defined system of individual ownership. but it is to be noted that the class seems to include the most peaceable--perhaps all the characteristically peaceable--primitive groups of men. indeed, the most notable trait common to members of such communities is a certain amiable inefficiency when confronted with force or fraud. the evidence afforded by the usages and cultural traits of communities at a low stage of development indicates that the institution of a leisure class has emerged gradually during the transition from primitive savagery to barbarism; or more precisely, during the transition from a peaceable to a consistently warlike habit of life. the conditions apparently necessary to its emergence in a consistent form are: (1) the community must be of a predatory habit of life (war or the hunting of large game or both); that is to say, the men, who constitute the inchoate leisure class in these cases, must be habituated to the infliction of injury by force and stratagem; (2) subsistence must be obtainable on sufficiently easy terms to admit of the exemption of a considerable portion of the community from steady application to a routine of labour. the institution of leisure class is the outgrowth of an early discrimination between employments, according to which some employments are worthy and others unworthy. under this ancient distinction the worthy employments are those which may be classed as exploit; unworthy are those necessary everyday employments into which no appreciable element of exploit enters. this distinction has but little obvious significance in a modern industrial community, and it has, therefore, received but slight attention at the hands of economic writers. when viewed in the light of that modern common sense which has guided economic discussion, it seems formal and insubstantial. but it persists with great tenacity as a commonplace preconception even in modern life, as is shown, for instance, by our habitual aversion to menial employments. it is a distinction of a personal kind--of superiority and inferiority. in the earlier stages of culture, when the personal force of the individual counted more immediately and obviously in shaping the course of events, the element of exploit counted for more in the everyday scheme of life. interest centred about this fact to a greater degree. consequently a distinction proceeding on this ground seemed more imperative and more definitive then than is the case to-day. as a fact in the sequence of development, therefore, the distinction is a substantial one and rests on sufficiently valid and cogent grounds. the ground on which a discrimination between facts is habitually made changes as the interest from which the facts are habitually viewed changes. those features of the facts at hand are salient and substantial upon which the dominant interest of the time throws its light. any given ground of distinction will seem insubstantial to any one who habitually apprehends the facts in question from a different point of view and values them for a different purpose. the habit of distinguishing and classifying the various purposes and directions of activity prevails of necessity always and everywhere; for it is indispensable in reaching a working theory or scheme of life. the particular point of view, or the particular characteristic that is pitched upon as definitive in the classification of the facts of life depends upon the interest from which a discrimination of the facts is sought. the grounds of discrimination, and the norm of procedure in classifying the facts, therefore, progressively change as the growth of culture proceeds; for the end for which the facts of life are apprehended changes, and the point of view consequently changes also. so that what are recognised as the salient and decisive features of a class of activities or of a social class at one stage of culture will not retain the same relative importance for the purposes of classification at any subsequent stage. but the change of standards and points of view is gradual only, and it seldom results in the subversion or entire suppression of a standpoint once accepted. a distinction is still habitually made between industrial and non-industrial occupations; and this modern distinction is a transmuted form of the barbarian distinction between exploit and drudgery. such employments as warfare, politics, public worship, and public merrymaking, are felt, in the popular apprehension, to differ intrinsically from the labour that has to do with elaborating the material means of life. the precise line of demarcation is not the same as it was in the early barbarian scheme, but the broad distinction has not fallen into disuse. the tacit, common-sense distinction to-day is, in effect, that any effort is to be accounted industrial only so far as its ultimate purpose is the utilisation of non-human things. the coercive utilisation of man by man is not felt to be an industrial function; but all effort directed to enhance human life by taking advantage of the non-human environment is classed together as industrial activity. by the economists who have best retained and adapted the classical tradition, man's "power over nature" is currently postulated as the characteristic fact of industrial productivity. this industrial power over nature is taken to include man's power over the life of the beasts and over all the elemental forces. a line is in this way drawn between mankind and brute creation. in other times and among men imbued with a different body of preconceptions this line is not drawn precisely as we draw it to-day. in the savage or the barbarian scheme of life it is drawn in a different place and in another way. in all communities under the barbarian culture there is an alert and pervading sense of antithesis between two comprehensive groups of phenomena, in one of which barbarian man includes himself, and in the other, his victual. there is a felt antithesis between economic and non-economic phenomena, but it is not conceived in the modern fashion; it lies not between man and brute creation, but between animate and inert things. it may be an excess of caution at this day to explain that the barbarian notion which it is here intended to convey by the term "animate" is not the same as would be conveyed by the word "living". the term does not cover all living things, and it does cover a great many others. such a striking natural phenomenon as a storm, a disease, a waterfall, are recognised as "animate"; while fruits and herbs, and even inconspicuous animals, such as house-flies, maggots, lemmings, sheep, are not ordinarily apprehended as "animate" except when taken collectively. as here used the term does not necessarily imply an indwelling soul or spirit. the concept includes such things as in the apprehension of the animistic savage or barbarian are formidable by virtue of a real or imputed habit of initiating action. this category comprises a large number and range of natural objects and phenomena. such a distinction between the inert and the active is still present in the habits of thought of unreflecting persons, and it still profoundly affects the prevalent theory of human life and of natural processes; but it does not pervade our daily life to the extent or with the far-reaching practical consequences that are apparent at earlier stages of culture and belief. to the mind of the barbarian, the elaboration and utilisation of what is afforded by inert nature is activity on quite a different plane from his dealings with "animate" things and forces. the line of demarcation may be vague and shifting, but the broad distinction is sufficiently real and cogent to influence the barbarian scheme of life. to the class of things apprehended as animate, the barbarian fancy imputes an unfolding of activity directed to some end. it is this teleological unfolding of activity that constitutes any object or phenomenon an "animate" fact. wherever the unsophisticated savage or barbarian meets with activity that is at all obtrusive, he construes it in the only terms that are ready to hand--the terms immediately given in his consciousness of his own actions. activity is, therefore, assimilated to human action, and active objects are in so far assimilated to the human agent. phenomena of this character--especially those whose behaviour is notably formidable or baffling--have to be met in a different spirit and with proficiency of a different kind from what is required in dealing with inert things. to deal successfully with such phenomena is a work of exploit rather than of industry. it is an assertion of prowess, not of diligence. under the guidance of this naive discrimination between the inert and the animate, the activities of the primitive social group tend to fall into two classes, which would in modern phrase be called exploit and industry. industry is effort that goes to create a new thing, with a new purpose given it by the fashioning hand of its maker out of passive ("brute") material; while exploit, so far as it results in an outcome useful to the agent, is the conversion to his own ends of energies previously directed to some other end by an other agent. we still speak of "brute matter" with something of the barbarian's realisation of a profound significance in the term. the distinction between exploit and drudgery coincides with a difference between the sexes. the sexes differ, not only in stature and muscular force, but perhaps even more decisively in temperament, and this must early have given rise to a corresponding division of labour. the general range of activities that come under the head of exploit falls to the males as being the stouter, more massive, better capable of a sudden and violent strain, and more readily inclined to self assertion, active emulation, and aggression. the difference in mass, in physiological character, and in temperament may be slight among the members of the primitive group; it appears, in fact, to be relatively slight and inconsequential in some of the more archaic communities with which we are acquainted--as for instance the tribes of the andamans. but so soon as a differentiation of function has well begun on the lines marked out by this difference in physique and animus, the original difference between the sexes will itself widen. a cumulative process of selective adaptation to the new distribution of employments will set in, especially if the habitat or the fauna with which the group is in contact is such as to call for a considerable exercise of the sturdier virtues. the habitual pursuit of large game requires more of the manly qualities of massiveness, agility, and ferocity, and it can therefore scarcely fail to hasten and widen the differentiation of functions between the sexes. and so soon as the group comes into hostile contact with other groups, the divergence of function will take on the developed form of a distinction between exploit and industry. in such a predatory group of hunters it comes to be the able-bodied men's office to fight and hunt. the women do what other work there is to do--other members who are unfit for man's work being for this purpose classed with women. but the men's hunting and fighting are both of the same general character. both are of a predatory nature; the warrior and the hunter alike reap where they have not strewn. their aggressive assertion of force and sagacity differs obviously from the women's assiduous and uneventful shaping of materials; it is not to be accounted productive labour but rather an acquisition of substance by seizure. such being the barbarian man's work, in its best development and widest divergence from women's work, any effort that does not involve an assertion of prowess comes to be unworthy of the man. as the tradition gains consistency, the common sense of the community erects it into a canon of conduct; so that no employment and no acquisition is morally possible to the self respecting man at this cultural stage, except such as proceeds on the basis of prowess--force or fraud. when the predatory habit of life has been settled upon the group by long habituation, it becomes the able-bodied man's accredited office in the social economy to kill, to destroy such competitors in the struggle for existence as attempt to resist or elude him, to overcome and reduce to subservience those alien forces that assert themselves refractorily in the environment. so tenaciously and with such nicety is this theoretical distinction between exploit and drudgery adhered to that in many hunting tribes the man must not bring home the game which he has killed, but must send his woman to perform that baser office. as has already been indicated, the distinction between exploit and drudgery is an invidious distinction between employments. those employments which are to be classed as exploit are worthy, honourable, noble; other employments, which do not contain this element of exploit, and especially those which imply subservience or submission, are unworthy, debasing, ignoble. the concept of dignity, worth, or honour, as applied either to persons or conduct, is of first-rate consequence in the development of classes and of class distinctions, and it is therefore necessary to say something of its derivation and meaning. its psychological ground may be indicated in outline as follows. as a matter of selective necessity, man is an agent. he is, in his own apprehension, a centre of unfolding impulsive activity--"teleological" activity. he is an agent seeking in every act the accomplishment of some concrete, objective, impersonal end. by force of his being such an agent he is possessed of a taste for effective work, and a distaste for futile effort. he has a sense of the merit of serviceability or efficiency and of the demerit of futility, waste, or incapacity. this aptitude or propensity may be called the instinct of workmanship. wherever the circumstances or traditions of life lead to an habitual comparison of one person with another in point of efficiency, the instinct of workmanship works out in an emulative or invidious comparison of persons. the extent to which this result follows depends in some considerable degree on the temperament of the population. in any community where such an invidious comparison of persons is habitually made, visible success becomes an end sought for its own utility as a basis of esteem. esteem is gained and dispraise is avoided by putting one's efficiency in evidence. the result is that the instinct of workmanship works out in an emulative demonstration of force. during that primitive phase of social development, when the community is still habitually peaceable, perhaps sedentary, and without a developed system of individual ownership, the efficiency of the individual can be shown chiefly and most consistently in some employment that goes to further the life of the group. what emulation of an economic kind there is between the members of such a group will be chiefly emulation in industrial serviceability. at the same time the incentive to emulation is not strong, nor is the scope for emulation large. when the community passes from peaceable savagery to a predatory phase of life, the conditions of emulation change. the opportunity and the incentive to emulate increase greatly in scope and urgency. the activity of the men more and more takes on the character of exploit; and an invidious comparison of one hunter or warrior with another grows continually easier and more habitual. tangible evidences of prowess--trophies--find a place in men's habits of thought as an essential feature of the paraphernalia of life. booty, trophies of the chase or of the raid, come to be prized as evidence of pre-eminent force. aggression becomes the accredited form of action, and booty serves as prima facie evidence of successful aggression. as accepted at this cultural stage, the accredited, worthy form of self-assertion is contest; and useful articles or services obtained by seizure or compulsion, serve as a conventional evidence of successful contest. therefore, by contrast, the obtaining of goods by other methods than seizure comes to be accounted unworthy of man in his best estate. the performance of productive work, or employment in personal service, falls under the same odium for the same reason. an invidious distinction in this way arises between exploit and acquisition on the other hand. labour acquires a character of irksomeness by virtue of the indignity imputed to it. with the primitive barbarian, before the simple content of the notion has been obscured by its own ramifications and by a secondary growth of cognate ideas, "honourable" seems to connote nothing else than assertion of superior force. "honourable" is "formidable"; "worthy" is "prepotent". a honorific act is in the last analysis little if anything else than a recognised successful act of aggression; and where aggression means conflict with men and beasts, the activity which comes to be especially and primarily honourable is the assertion of the strong hand. the naive, archaic habit of construing all manifestations of force in terms of personality or "will power" greatly fortifies this conventional exaltation of the strong hand. honorific epithets, in vogue among barbarian tribes as well as among peoples of a more advance culture, commonly bear the stamp of this unsophisticated sense of honour. epithets and titles used in addressing chieftains, and in the propitiation of kings and gods, very commonly impute a propensity for overbearing violence and an irresistible devastating force to the person who is to be propitiated. this holds true to an extent also in the more civilised communities of the present day. the predilection shown in heraldic devices for the more rapacious beasts and birds of prey goes to enforce the same view. under this common-sense barbarian appreciation of worth or honour, the taking of life--the killing of formidable competitors, whether brute or human--is honourable in the highest degree. and this high office of slaughter, as an expression of the slayer's prepotence, casts a glamour of worth over every act of slaughter and over all the tools and accessories of the act. arms are honourable, and the use of them, even in seeking the life of the meanest creatures of the fields, becomes a honorific employment. at the same time, employment in industry becomes correspondingly odious, and, in the common-sense apprehension, the handling of the tools and implements of industry falls beneath the dignity of able-bodied men. labour becomes irksome. it is here assumed that in the sequence of cultural evolution primitive groups of men have passed from an initial peaceable stage to a subsequent stage at which fighting is the avowed and characteristic employment of the group. but it is not implied that there has been an abrupt transition from unbroken peace and good-will to a later or higher phase of life in which the fact of combat occurs for the first time. neither is it implied that all peaceful industry disappears on the transition to the predatory phase of culture. some fighting, it is safe to say, would be met with at any early stage of social development. fights would occur with more or less frequency through sexual competition. the known habits of primitive groups, as well as the habits of the anthropoid apes, argue to that effect, and the evidence from the well-known promptings of human nature enforces the same view. it may therefore be objected that there can have been no such initial stage of peaceable life as is here assumed. there is no point in cultural evolution prior to which fighting does not occur. but the point in question is not as to the occurrence of combat, occasional or sporadic, or even more or less frequent and habitual; it is a question as to the occurrence of an habitual; it is a question as to the occurrence of an habitual bellicose frame of mind--a prevalent habit of judging facts and events from the point of view of the fight. the predatory phase of culture is attained only when the predatory attitude has become the habitual and accredited spiritual attitude for the members of the group; when the fight has become the dominant note in the current theory of life; when the common-sense appreciation of men and things has come to be an appreciation with a view to combat. the substantial difference between the peaceable and the predatory phase of culture, therefore, is a spiritual difference, not a mechanical one. the change in spiritual attitude is the outgrowth of a change in the material facts of the life of the group, and it comes on gradually as the material circumstances favourable to a predatory attitude supervene. the inferior limit of the predatory culture is an industrial limit. predation can not become the habitual, conventional resource of any group or any class until industrial methods have been developed to such a degree of efficiency as to leave a margin worth fighting for, above the subsistence of those engaged in getting a living. the transition from peace to predation therefore depends on the growth of technical knowledge and the use of tools. a predatory culture is similarly impracticable in early times, until weapons have been developed to such a point as to make man a formidable animal. the early development of tools and of weapons is of course the same fact seen from two different points of view. the life of a given group would be characterised as peaceable so long as habitual recourse to combat has not brought the fight into the foreground in men's every day thoughts, as a dominant feature of the life of man. a group may evidently attain such a predatory attitude with a greater or less degree of completeness, so that its scheme of life and canons of conduct may be controlled to a greater or less extent by the predatory animus. the predatory phase of culture is therefore conceived to come on gradually, through a cumulative growth of predatory aptitudes habits, and traditions this growth being due to a change in the circumstances of the group's life, of such a kind as to develop and conserve those traits of human nature and those traditions and norms of conduct that make for a predatory rather than a peaceable life. the evidence for the hypothesis that there has been such a peaceable stage of primitive culture is in great part drawn from psychology rather than from ethnology, and cannot be detailed here. it will be recited in part in a later chapter, in discussing the survival of archaic traits of human nature under the modern culture. chapter two ~~ pecuniary emulation in the sequence of cultural evolution the emergence of a leisure class coincides with the beginning of ownership. this is necessarily the case, for these two institutions result from the same set of economic forces. in the inchoate phase of their development they are but different aspects of the same general facts of social structure. it is as elements of social structure--conventional facts--that leisure and ownership are matters of interest for the purpose in hand. an habitual neglect of work does not constitute a leisure class; neither does the mechanical fact of use and consumption constitute ownership. the present inquiry, therefore, is not concerned with the beginning of indolence, nor with the beginning of the appropriation of useful articles to individual consumption. the point in question is the origin and nature of a conventional leisure class on the one hand and the beginnings of individual ownership as a conventional right or equitable claim on the other hand. the early differentiation out of which the distinction between a leisure and a working class arises is a division maintained between men's and women's work in the lower stages of barbarism. likewise the earliest form of ownership is an ownership of the women by the able bodied men of the community. the facts may be expressed in more general terms, and truer to the import of the barbarian theory of life, by saying that it is an ownership of the woman by the man. there was undoubtedly some appropriation of useful articles before the custom of appropriating women arose. the usages of existing archaic communities in which there is no ownership of women is warrant for such a view. in all communities the members, both male and female, habitually appropriate to their individual use a variety of useful things; but these useful things are not thought of as owned by the person who appropriates and consumes them. the habitual appropriation and consumption of certain slight personal effects goes on without raising the question of ownership; that is to say, the question of a conventional, equitable claim to extraneous things. the ownership of women begins in the lower barbarian stages of culture, apparently with the seizure of female captives. the original reason for the seizure and appropriation of women seems to have been their usefulness as trophies. the practice of seizing women from the enemy as trophies, gave rise to a form of ownership-marriage, resulting in a household with a male head. this was followed by an extension of slavery to other captives and inferiors, besides women, and by an extension of ownership-marriage to other women than those seized from the enemy. the outcome of emulation under the circumstances of a predatory life, therefore, has been on the one hand a form of marriage resting on coercion, and on the other hand the custom of ownership. the two institutions are not distinguishable in the initial phase of their development; both arise from the desire of the successful men to put their prowess in evidence by exhibiting some durable result of their exploits. both also minister to that propensity for mastery which pervades all predatory communities. from the ownership of women the concept of ownership extends itself to include the products of their industry, and so there arises the ownership of things as well as of persons. in this way a consistent system of property in goods is gradually installed. and although in the latest stages of the development, the serviceability of goods for consumption has come to be the most obtrusive element of their value, still, wealth has by no means yet lost its utility as a honorific evidence of the owner's prepotence. wherever the institution of private property is found, even in a slightly developed form, the economic process bears the character of a struggle between men for the possession of goods. it has been customary in economic theory, and especially among those economists who adhere with least faltering to the body of modernised classical doctrines, to construe this struggle for wealth as being substantially a struggle for subsistence. such is, no doubt, its character in large part during the earlier and less efficient phases of industry. such is also its character in all cases where the "niggardliness of nature" is so strict as to afford but a scanty livelihood to the community in return for strenuous and unremitting application to the business of getting the means of subsistence. but in all progressing communities an advance is presently made beyond this early stage of technological development. industrial efficiency is presently carried to such a pitch as to afford something appreciably more than a bare livelihood to those engaged in the industrial process. it has not been unusual for economic theory to speak of the further struggle for wealth on this new industrial basis as a competition for an increase of the comforts of life,--primarily for an increase of the physical comforts which the consumption of goods affords. the end of acquisition and accumulation is conventionally held to be the consumption of the goods accumulated--whether it is consumption directly by the owner of the goods or by the household attached to him and for this purpose identified with him in theory. this is at least felt to be the economically legitimate end of acquisition, which alone it is incumbent on the theory to take account of. such consumption may of course be conceived to serve the consumer's physical wants--his physical comfort--or his so-called higher wants--spiritual, aesthetic, intellectual, or what not; the latter class of wants being served indirectly by an expenditure of goods, after the fashion familiar to all economic readers. but it is only when taken in a sense far removed from its naive meaning that consumption of goods can be said to afford the incentive from which accumulation invariably proceeds. the motive that lies at the root of ownership is emulation; and the same motive of emulation continues active in the further development of the institution to which it has given rise and in the development of all those features of the social structure which this institution of ownership touches. the possession of wealth confers honour; it is an invidious distinction. nothing equally cogent can be said for the consumption of goods, nor for any other conceivable incentive to acquisition, and especially not for any incentive to accumulation of wealth. it is of course not to be overlooked that in a community where nearly all goods are private property the necessity of earning a livelihood is a powerful and ever present incentive for the poorer members of the community. the need of subsistence and of an increase of physical comfort may for a time be the dominant motive of acquisition for those classes who are habitually employed at manual labour, whose subsistence is on a precarious footing, who possess little and ordinarily accumulate little; but it will appear in the course of the discussion that even in the case of these impecunious classes the predominance of the motive of physical want is not so decided as has sometimes been assumed. on the other hand, so far as regards those members and classes of the community who are chiefly concerned in the accumulation of wealth, the incentive of subsistence or of physical comfort never plays a considerable part. ownership began and grew into a human institution on grounds unrelated to the subsistence minimum. the dominant incentive was from the outset the invidious distinction attaching to wealth, and, save temporarily and by exception, no other motive has usurped the primacy at any later stage of the development. property set out with being booty held as trophies of the successful raid. so long as the group had departed and so long as it still stood in close contact with other hostile groups, the utility of things or persons owned lay chiefly in an invidious comparison between their possessor and the enemy from whom they were taken. the habit of distinguishing between the interests of the individual and those of the group to which he belongs is apparently a later growth. invidious comparison between the possessor of the honorific booty and his less successful neighbours within the group was no doubt present early as an element of the utility of the things possessed, though this was not at the outset the chief element of their value. the man's prowess was still primarily the group's prowess, and the possessor of the booty felt himself to be primarily the keeper of the honour of his group. this appreciation of exploit from the communal point of view is met with also at later stages of social growth, especially as regards the laurels of war. but as soon as the custom of individual ownership begins to gain consistency, the point of view taken in making the invidious comparison on which private property rests will begin to change. indeed, the one change is but the reflex of the other. the initial phase of ownership, the phase of acquisition by naive seizure and conversion, begins to pass into the subsequent stage of an incipient organization of industry on the basis of private property (in slaves); the horde develops into a more or less self-sufficing industrial community; possessions then come to be valued not so much as evidence of successful foray, but rather as evidence of the prepotence of the possessor of these goods over other individuals within the community. the invidious comparison now becomes primarily a comparison of the owner with the other members of the group. property is still of the nature of trophy, but, with the cultural advance, it becomes more and more a trophy of successes scored in the game of ownership carried on between the members of the group under the quasi-peaceable methods of nomadic life. gradually, as industrial activity further displaced predatory activity in the community's everyday life and in men's habits of thought, accumulated property more and more replaces trophies of predatory exploit as the conventional exponent of prepotence and success. with the growth of settled industry, therefore, the possession of wealth gains in relative importance and effectiveness as a customary basis of repute and esteem. not that esteem ceases to be awarded on the basis of other, more direct evidence of prowess; not that successful predatory aggression or warlike exploit ceases to call out the approval and admiration of the crowd, or to stir the envy of the less successful competitors; but the opportunities for gaining distinction by means of this direct manifestation of superior force grow less available both in scope and frequency. at the same time opportunities for industrial aggression, and for the accumulation of property, increase in scope and availability. and it is even more to the point that property now becomes the most easily recognised evidence of a reputable degree of success as distinguished from heroic or signal achievement. it therefore becomes the conventional basis of esteem. its possession in some amount becomes necessary in order to any reputable standing in the community. it becomes indispensable to accumulate, to acquire property, in order to retain one's good name. when accumulated goods have in this way once become the accepted badge of efficiency, the possession of wealth presently assumes the character of an independent and definitive basis of esteem. the possession of goods, whether acquired aggressively by one's own exertion or passively by transmission through inheritance from others, becomes a conventional basis of reputability. the possession of wealth, which was at the outset valued simply as an evidence of efficiency, becomes, in popular apprehension, itself a meritorious act. wealth is now itself intrinsically honourable and confers honour on its possessor. by a further refinement, wealth acquired passively by transmission from ancestors or other antecedents presently becomes even more honorific than wealth acquired by the possessor's own effort; but this distinction belongs at a later stage in the evolution of the pecuniary culture and will be spoken of in its place. prowess and exploit may still remain the basis of award of the highest popular esteem, although the possession of wealth has become the basis of common place reputability and of a blameless social standing. the predatory instinct and the consequent approbation of predatory efficiency are deeply ingrained in the habits of thought of those peoples who have passed under the discipline of a protracted predatory culture. according to popular award, the highest honours within human reach may, even yet, be those gained by an unfolding of extraordinary predatory efficiency in war, or by a quasi-predatory efficiency in statecraft; but for the purposes of a commonplace decent standing in the community these means of repute have been replaced by the acquisition and accumulation of goods. in order to stand well in the eyes of the community, it is necessary to come up to a certain, somewhat indefinite, conventional standard of wealth; just as in the earlier predatory stage it is necessary for the barbarian man to come up to the tribe's standard of physical endurance, cunning, and skill at arms. a certain standard of wealth in the one case, and of prowess in the other, is a necessary condition of reputability, and anything in excess of this normal amount is meritorious. those members of the community who fall short of this, somewhat indefinite, normal degree of prowess or of property suffer in the esteem of their fellow-men; and consequently they suffer also in their own esteem, since the usual basis of self-respect is the respect accorded by one's neighbours. only individuals with an aberrant temperament can in the long run retain their self-esteem in the face of the disesteem of their fellows. apparent exceptions to the rule are met with, especially among people with strong religious convictions. but these apparent exceptions are scarcely real exceptions, since such persons commonly fall back on the putative approbation of some supernatural witness of their deeds. so soon as the possession of property becomes the basis of popular esteem, therefore, it becomes also a requisite to the complacency which we call self-respect. in any community where goods are held in severalty it is necessary, in order to his own peace of mind, that an individual should possess as large a portion of goods as others with whom he is accustomed to class himself; and it is extremely gratifying to possess something more than others. but as fast as a person makes new acquisitions, and becomes accustomed to the resulting new standard of wealth, the new standard forthwith ceases to afford appreciably greater satisfaction than the earlier standard did. the tendency in any case is constantly to make the present pecuniary standard the point of departure for a fresh increase of wealth; and this in turn gives rise to a new standard of sufficiency and a new pecuniary classification of one's self as compared with one's neighbours. so far as concerns the present question, the end sought by accumulation is to rank high in comparison with the rest of the community in point of pecuniary strength. so long as the comparison is distinctly unfavourable to himself, the normal, average individual will live in chronic dissatisfaction with his present lot; and when he has reached what may be called the normal pecuniary standard of the community, or of his class in the community, this chronic dissatisfaction will give place to a restless straining to place a wider and ever-widening pecuniary interval between himself and this average standard. the invidious comparison can never become so favourable to the individual making it that he would not gladly rate himself still higher relatively to his competitors in the struggle for pecuniary reputability. in the nature of the case, the desire for wealth can scarcely be satiated in any individual instance, and evidently a satiation of the average or general desire for wealth is out of the question. however widely, or equally, or "fairly", it may be distributed, no general increase of the community's wealth can make any approach to satiating this need, the ground of which is the desire of every one to excel every one else in the accumulation of goods. if, as is sometimes assumed, the incentive to accumulation were the want of subsistence or of physical comfort, then the aggregate economic wants of a community might conceivably be satisfied at some point in the advance of industrial efficiency; but since the struggle is substantially a race for reputability on the basis of an invidious comparison, no approach to a definitive attainment is possible. what has just been said must not be taken to mean that there are no other incentives to acquisition and accumulation than this desire to excel in pecuniary standing and so gain the esteem and envy of one's fellow-men. the desire for added comfort and security from want is present as a motive at every stage of the process of accumulation in a modern industrial community; although the standard of sufficiency in these respects is in turn greatly affected by the habit of pecuniary emulation. to a great extent this emulation shapes the methods and selects the objects of expenditure for personal comfort and decent livelihood. besides this, the power conferred by wealth also affords a motive to accumulation. that propensity for purposeful activity and that repugnance to all futility of effort which belong to man by virtue of his character as an agent do not desert him when he emerges from the naive communal culture where the dominant note of life is the unanalysed and undifferentiated solidarity of the individual with the group with which his life is bound up. when he enters upon the predatory stage, where self-seeking in the narrower sense becomes the dominant note, this propensity goes with him still, as the pervasive trait that shapes his scheme of life. the propensity for achievement and the repugnance to futility remain the underlying economic motive. the propensity changes only in the form of its expression and in the proximate objects to which it directs the man's activity. under the regime of individual ownership the most available means of visibly achieving a purpose is that afforded by the acquisition and accumulation of goods; and as the self-regarding antithesis between man and man reaches fuller consciousness, the propensity for achievement--the instinct of workmanship--tends more and more to shape itself into a straining to excel others in pecuniary achievement. relative success, tested by an invidious pecuniary comparison with other men, becomes the conventional end of action. the currently accepted legitimate end of effort becomes the achievement of a favourable comparison with other men; and therefore the repugnance to futility to a good extent coalesces with the incentive of emulation. it acts to accentuate the struggle for pecuniary reputability by visiting with a sharper disapproval all shortcoming and all evidence of shortcoming in point of pecuniary success. purposeful effort comes to mean, primarily, effort directed to or resulting in a more creditable showing of accumulated wealth. among the motives which lead men to accumulate wealth, the primacy, both in scope and intensity, therefore, continues to belong to this motive of pecuniary emulation. in making use of the term "invidious", it may perhaps be unnecessary to remark, there is no intention to extol or depreciate, or to commend or deplore any of the phenomena which the word is used to characterise. the term is used in a technical sense as describing a comparison of persons with a view to rating and grading them in respect of relative worth or value--in an aesthetic or moral sense--and so awarding and defining the relative degrees of complacency with which they may legitimately be contemplated by themselves and by others. an invidious comparison is a process of valuation of persons in respect of worth. chapter three ~~ conspicuous leisure if its working were not disturbed by other economic forces or other features of the emulative process, the immediate effect of such a pecuniary struggle as has just been described in outline would be to make men industrious and frugal. this result actually follows, in some measure, so far as regards the lower classes, whose ordinary means of acquiring goods is productive labour. this is more especially true of the labouring classes in a sedentary community which is at an agricultural stage of industry, in which there is a considerable subdivision of industry, and whose laws and customs secure to these classes a more or less definite share of the product of their industry. these lower classes can in any case not avoid labour, and the imputation of labour is therefore not greatly derogatory to them, at least not within their class. rather, since labour is their recognised and accepted mode of life, they take some emulative pride in a reputation for efficiency in their work, this being often the only line of emulation that is open to them. for those for whom acquisition and emulation is possible only within the field of productive efficiency and thrift, the struggle for pecuniary reputability will in some measure work out in an increase of diligence and parsimony. but certain secondary features of the emulative process, yet to be spoken of, come in to very materially circumscribe and modify emulation in these directions among the pecuniary inferior classes as well as among the superior class. but it is otherwise with the superior pecuniary class, with which we are here immediately concerned. for this class also the incentive to diligence and thrift is not absent; but its action is so greatly qualified by the secondary demands of pecuniary emulation, that any inclination in this direction is practically overborne and any incentive to diligence tends to be of no effect. the most imperative of these secondary demands of emulation, as well as the one of widest scope, is the requirement of abstention from productive work. this is true in an especial degree for the barbarian stage of culture. during the predatory culture labour comes to be associated in men's habits of thought with weakness and subjection to a master. it is therefore a mark of inferiority, and therefore comes to be accounted unworthy of man in his best estate. by virtue of this tradition labour is felt to be debasing, and this tradition has never died out. on the contrary, with the advance of social differentiation it has acquired the axiomatic force due to ancient and unquestioned prescription. in order to gain and to hold the esteem of men it is not sufficient merely to possess wealth or power. the wealth or power must be put in evidence, for esteem is awarded only on evidence. and not only does the evidence of wealth serve to impress one's importance on others and to keep their sense of his importance alive and alert, but it is of scarcely less use in building up and preserving one's self-complacency. in all but the lowest stages of culture the normally constituted man is comforted and upheld in his self-respect by "decent surroundings" and by exemption from "menial offices". enforced departure from his habitual standard of decency, either in the paraphernalia of life or in the kind and amount of his everyday activity, is felt to be a slight upon his human dignity, even apart from all conscious consideration of the approval or disapproval of his fellows. the archaic theoretical distinction between the base and the honourable in the manner of a man's life retains very much of its ancient force even today. so much so that there are few of the better class who are not possessed of an instinctive repugnance for the vulgar forms of labour. we have a realising sense of ceremonial uncleanness attaching in an especial degree to the occupations which are associated in our habits of thought with menial service. it is felt by all persons of refined taste that a spiritual contamination is inseparable from certain offices that are conventionally required of servants. vulgar surroundings, mean (that is to say, inexpensive) habitations, and vulgarly productive occupations are unhesitatingly condemned and avoided. they are incompatible with life on a satisfactory spiritual plane __ with "high thinking". from the days of the greek philosophers to the present, a degree of leisure and of exemption from contact with such industrial processes as serve the immediate everyday purposes of human life has ever been recognised by thoughtful men as a prerequisite to a worthy or beautiful, or even a blameless, human life. in itself and in its consequences the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men's eyes. this direct, subjective value of leisure and of other evidences of wealth is no doubt in great part secondary and derivative. it is in part a reflex of the utility of leisure as a means of gaining the respect of others, and in part it is the result of a mental substitution. the performance of labour has been accepted as a conventional evidence of inferior force; therefore it comes itself, by a mental short-cut, to be regarded as intrinsically base. during the predatory stage proper, and especially during the earlier stages of the quasi-peaceable development of industry that follows the predatory stage, a life of leisure is the readiest and most conclusive evidence of pecuniary strength, and therefore of superior force; provided always that the gentleman of leisure can live in manifest ease and comfort. at this stage wealth consists chiefly of slaves, and the benefits accruing from the possession of riches and power take the form chiefly of personal service and the immediate products of personal service. conspicuous abstention from labour therefore becomes the conventional mark of superior pecuniary achievement and the conventional index of reputability; and conversely, since application to productive labour is a mark of poverty and subjection, it becomes inconsistent with a reputable standing in the community. habits of industry and thrift, therefore, are not uniformly furthered by a prevailing pecuniary emulation. on the contrary, this kind of emulation indirectly discountenances participation in productive labour. labour would unavoidably become dishonourable, as being an evidence indecorous under the ancient tradition handed down from an earlier cultural stage. the ancient tradition of the predatory culture is that productive effort is to be shunned as being unworthy of able-bodied men, and this tradition is reinforced rather than set aside in the passage from the predatory to the quasi-peaceable manner of life. even if the institution of a leisure class had not come in with the first emergence of individual ownership, by force of the dishonour attaching to productive employment, it would in any case have come in as one of the early consequences of ownership. and it is to be remarked that while the leisure class existed in theory from the beginning of predatory culture, the institution takes on a new and fuller meaning with the transition from the predatory to the next succeeding pecuniary stage of culture. it is from this time forth a "leisure class" in fact as well as in theory. from this point dates the institution of the leisure class in its consummate form. during the predatory stage proper the distinction between the leisure and the labouring class is in some degree a ceremonial distinction only. the able bodied men jealously stand aloof from whatever is in their apprehension, menial drudgery; but their activity in fact contributes appreciably to the sustenance of the group. the subsequent stage of quasi-peaceable industry is usually characterised by an established chattel slavery, herds of cattle, and a servile class of herdsmen and shepherds; industry has advanced so far that the community is no longer dependent for its livelihood on the chase or on any other form of activity that can fairly be classed as exploit. from this point on, the characteristic feature of leisure class life is a conspicuous exemption from all useful employment. the normal and characteristic occupations of the class in this mature phase of its life history are in form very much the same as in its earlier days. these occupations are government, war, sports, and devout observances. persons unduly given to difficult theoretical niceties may hold that these occupations are still incidentally and indirectly "productive"; but it is to be noted as decisive of the question in hand that the ordinary and ostensible motive of the leisure class in engaging in these occupations is assuredly not an increase of wealth by productive effort. at this as at any other cultural stage, government and war are, at least in part, carried on for the pecuniary gain of those who engage in them; but it is gain obtained by the honourable method of seizure and conversion. these occupations are of the nature of predatory, not of productive, employment. something similar may be said of the chase, but with a difference. as the community passes out of the hunting stage proper, hunting gradually becomes differentiated into two distinct employments. on the one hand it is a trade, carried on chiefly for gain; and from this the element of exploit is virtually absent, or it is at any rate not present in a sufficient degree to clear the pursuit of the imputation of gainful industry. on the other hand, the chase is also a sport--an exercise of the predatory impulse simply. as such it does not afford any appreciable pecuniary incentive, but it contains a more or less obvious element of exploit. it is this latter development of the chase--purged of all imputation of handicraft--that alone is meritorious and fairly belongs in the scheme of life of the developed leisure class. abstention from labour is not only a honorific or meritorious act, but it presently comes to be a requisite of decency. the insistence on property as the basis of reputability is very naive and very imperious during the early stages of the accumulation of wealth. abstention from labour is the convenient evidence of wealth and is therefore the conventional mark of social standing; and this insistence on the meritoriousness of wealth leads to a more strenuous insistence on leisure. nota notae est nota rei ipsius. according to well established laws of human nature, prescription presently seizes upon this conventional evidence of wealth and fixes it in men's habits of thought as something that is in itself substantially meritorious and ennobling; while productive labour at the same time and by a like process becomes in a double sense intrinsically unworthy. prescription ends by making labour not only disreputable in the eyes of the community, but morally impossible to the noble, freeborn man, and incompatible with a worthy life. this tabu on labour has a further consequence in the industrial differentiation of classes. as the population increases in density and the predatory group grows into a settled industrial community, the constituted authorities and the customs governing ownership gain in scope and consistency. it then presently becomes impracticable to accumulate wealth by simple seizure, and, in logical consistency, acquisition by industry is equally impossible for high minded and impecunious men. the alternative open to them is beggary or privation. wherever the canon of conspicuous leisure has a chance undisturbed to work out its tendency, there will therefore emerge a secondary, and in a sense spurious, leisure class--abjectly poor and living in a precarious life of want and discomfort, but morally unable to stoop to gainful pursuits. the decayed gentleman and the lady who has seen better days are by no means unfamiliar phenomena even now. this pervading sense of the indignity of the slightest manual labour is familiar to all civilized peoples, as well as to peoples of a less advanced pecuniary culture. in persons of a delicate sensibility who have long been habituated to gentle manners, the sense of the shamefulness of manual labour may become so strong that, at a critical juncture, it will even set aside the instinct of self-preservation. so, for instance, we are told of certain polynesian chiefs, who, under the stress of good form, preferred to starve rather than carry their food to their mouths with their own hands. it is true, this conduct may have been due, at least in part, to an excessive sanctity or tabu attaching to the chief's person. the tabu would have been communicated by the contact of his hands, and so would have made anything touched by him unfit for human food. but the tabu is itself a derivative of the unworthiness or moral incompatibility of labour; so that even when construed in this sense the conduct of the polynesian chiefs is truer to the canon of honorific leisure than would at first appear. a better illustration, or at least a more unmistakable one, is afforded by a certain king of france, who is said to have lost his life through an excess of moral stamina in the observance of good form. in the absence of the functionary whose office it was to shift his master's seat, the king sat uncomplaining before the fire and suffered his royal person to be toasted beyond recovery. but in so doing he saved his most christian majesty from menial contamination. summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudori, et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas. it has already been remarked that the term "leisure", as here used, does not connote indolence or quiescence. what it connotes is non-productive consumption of time. time is consumed non-productively (1) from a sense of the unworthiness of productive work, and (2) as an evidence of pecuniary ability to afford a life of idleness. but the whole of the life of the gentleman of leisure is not spent before the eyes of the spectators who are to be impressed with that spectacle of honorific leisure which in the ideal scheme makes up his life. for some part of the time his life is perforce withdrawn from the public eye, and of this portion which is spent in private the gentleman of leisure should, for the sake of his good name, be able to give a convincing account. he should find some means of putting in evidence the leisure that is not spent in the sight of the spectators. this can be done only indirectly, through the exhibition of some tangible, lasting results of the leisure so spent--in a manner analogous to the familiar exhibition of tangible, lasting products of the labour performed for the gentleman of leisure by handicraftsmen and servants in his employ. the lasting evidence of productive labour is its material product--commonly some article of consumption. in the case of exploit it is similarly possible and usual to procure some tangible result that may serve for exhibition in the way of trophy or booty. at a later phase of the development it is customary to assume some badge of insignia of honour that will serve as a conventionally accepted mark of exploit, and which at the same time indicates the quantity or degree of exploit of which it is the symbol. as the population increases in density, and as human relations grow more complex and numerous, all the details of life undergo a process of elaboration and selection; and in this process of elaboration the use of trophies develops into a system of rank, titles, degrees and insignia, typical examples of which are heraldic devices, medals, and honorary decorations. as seen from the economic point of view, leisure, considered as an employment, is closely allied in kind with the life of exploit; and the achievements which characterise a life of leisure, and which remain as its decorous criteria, have much in common with the trophies of exploit. but leisure in the narrower sense, as distinct from exploit and from any ostensibly productive employment of effort on objects which are of no intrinsic use, does not commonly leave a material product. the criteria of a past performance of leisure therefore commonly take the form of "immaterial" goods. such immaterial evidences of past leisure are quasi-scholarly or quasi-artistic accomplishments and a knowledge of processes and incidents which do not conduce directly to the furtherance of human life. so, for instance, in our time there is the knowledge of the dead languages and the occult sciences; of correct spelling; of syntax and prosody; of the various forms of domestic music and other household art; of the latest properties of dress, furniture, and equipage; of games, sports, and fancy-bred animals, such as dogs and race-horses. in all these branches of knowledge the initial motive from which their acquisition proceeded at the outset, and through which they first came into vogue, may have been something quite different from the wish to show that one's time had not been spent in industrial employment; but unless these accomplishments had approved themselves as serviceable evidence of an unproductive expenditure of time, they would not have survived and held their place as conventional accomplishments of the leisure class. these accomplishments may, in some sense, be classed as branches of learning. beside and beyond these there is a further range of social facts which shade off from the region of learning into that of physical habit and dexterity. such are what is known as manners and breeding, polite usage, decorum, and formal and ceremonial observances generally. this class of facts are even more immediately and obtrusively presented to the observation, and they therefore more widely and more imperatively insisted on as required evidences of a reputable degree of leisure. it is worth while to remark that all that class of ceremonial observances which are classed under the general head of manners hold a more important place in the esteem of men during the stage of culture at which conspicuous leisure has the greatest vogue as a mark of reputability, than at later stages of the cultural development. the barbarian of the quasi-peaceable stage of industry is notoriously a more high-bred gentleman, in all that concerns decorum, than any but the very exquisite among the men of a later age. indeed, it is well known, or at least it is currently believed, that manners have progressively deteriorated as society has receded from the patriarchal stage. many a gentleman of the old school has been provoked to remark regretfully upon the under-bred manners and bearing of even the better classes in the modern industrial communities; and the decay of the ceremonial code--or as it is otherwise called, the vulgarisation of life--among the industrial classes proper has become one of the chief enormities of latter-day civilisation in the eyes of all persons of delicate sensibilities. the decay which the code has suffered at the hands of a busy people testifies--all depreciation apart--to the fact that decorum is a product and an exponent of leisure class life and thrives in full measure only under a regime of status. the origin, or better the derivation, of manners is no doubt, to be sought elsewhere than in a conscious effort on the part of the well-mannered to show that much time has been spent in acquiring them. the proximate end of innovation and elaboration has been the higher effectiveness of the new departure in point of beauty or of expressiveness. in great part the ceremonial code of decorous usages owes its beginning and its growth to the desire to conciliate or to show good-will, as anthropologists and sociologists are in the habit of assuming, and this initial motive is rarely if ever absent from the conduct of well-mannered persons at any stage of the later development. manners, we are told, are in part an elaboration of gesture, and in part they are symbolical and conventionalised survivals representing former acts of dominance or of personal service or of personal contact. in large part they are an expression of the relation of status,--a symbolic pantomime of mastery on the one hand and of subservience on the other. wherever at the present time the predatory habit of mind, and the consequent attitude of mastery and of subservience, gives its character to the accredited scheme of life, there the importance of all punctilios of conduct is extreme, and the assiduity with which the ceremonial observance of rank and titles is attended to approaches closely to the ideal set by the barbarian of the quasi-peaceable nomadic culture. some of the continental countries afford good illustrations of this spiritual survival. in these communities the archaic ideal is similarly approached as regards the esteem accorded to manners as a fact of intrinsic worth. decorum set out with being symbol and pantomime and with having utility only as an exponent of the facts and qualities symbolised; but it presently suffered the transmutation which commonly passes over symbolical facts in human intercourse. manners presently came, in popular apprehension, to be possessed of a substantial utility in themselves; they acquired a sacramental character, in great measure independent of the facts which they originally prefigured. deviations from the code of decorum have become intrinsically odious to all men, and good breeding is, in everyday apprehension, not simply an adventitious mark of human excellence, but an integral feature of the worthy human soul. there are few things that so touch us with instinctive revulsion as a breach of decorum; and so far have we progressed in the direction of imputing intrinsic utility to the ceremonial observances of etiquette that few of us, if any, can dissociate an offence against etiquette from a sense of the substantial unworthiness of the offender. a breach of faith may be condoned, but a breach of decorum can not. "manners maketh man." none the less, while manners have this intrinsic utility, in the apprehension of the performer and the beholder alike, this sense of the intrinsic rightness of decorum is only the proximate ground of the vogue of manners and breeding. their ulterior, economic ground is to be sought in the honorific character of that leisure or non-productive employment of time and effort without which good manners are not acquired. the knowledge and habit of good form come only by long-continued use. refined tastes, manners, habits of life are a useful evidence of gentility, because good breeding requires time, application and expense, and can therefore not be compassed by those whose time and energy are taken up with work. a knowledge of good form is prima facie evidence that that portion of the well-bred person's life which is not spent under the observation of the spectator has been worthily spent in acquiring accomplishments that are of no lucrative effect. in the last analysis the value of manners lies in the fact that they are the voucher of a life of leisure. therefore, conversely, since leisure is the conventional means of pecuniary repute, the acquisition of some proficiency in decorum is incumbent on all who aspire to a modicum of pecuniary decency. so much of the honourable life of leisure as is not spent in the sight of spectators can serve the purposes of reputability only in so far as it leaves a tangible, visible result that can be put in evidence and can be measured and compared with products of the same class exhibited by competing aspirants for repute. some such effect, in the way of leisurely manners and carriage, etc., follows from simple persistent abstention from work, even where the subject does not take thought of the matter and studiously acquire an air of leisurely opulence and mastery. especially does it seem to be true that a life of leisure in this way persisted in through several generations will leave a persistent, ascertainable effect in the conformation of the person, and still more in his habitual bearing and demeanour. but all the suggestions of a cumulative life of leisure, and all the proficiency in decorum that comes by the way of passive habituation, may be further improved upon by taking thought and assiduously acquiring the marks of honourable leisure, and then carrying the exhibition of these adventitious marks of exemption from employment out in a strenuous and systematic discipline. plainly, this is a point at which a diligent application of effort and expenditure may materially further the attainment of a decent proficiency in the leisure-class properties. conversely, the greater the degree of proficiency and the more patent the evidence of a high degree of habituation to observances which serve no lucrative or other directly useful purpose, the greater the consumption of time and substance impliedly involved in their acquisition, and the greater the resultant good repute. hence under the competitive struggle for proficiency in good manners, it comes about that much pains in taken with the cultivation of habits of decorum; and hence the details of decorum develop into a comprehensive discipline, conformity to which is required of all who would be held blameless in point of repute. and hence, on the other hand, this conspicuous leisure of which decorum is a ramification grows gradually into a laborious drill in deportment and an education in taste and discrimination as to what articles of consumption are decorous and what are the decorous methods of consuming them. in this connection it is worthy of notice that the possibility of producing pathological and other idiosyncrasies of person and manner by shrewd mimicry and a systematic drill have been turned to account in the deliberate production of a cultured class--often with a very happy effect. in this way, by the process vulgarly known as snobbery, a syncopated evolution of gentle birth and breeding is achieved in the case of a goodly number of families and lines of descent. this syncopated gentle birth gives results which, in point of serviceability as a leisure-class factor in the population, are in no wise substantially inferior to others who may have had a longer but less arduous training in the pecuniary properties. there are, moreover, measureable degrees of conformity to the latest accredited code of the punctilios as regards decorous means and methods of consumption. differences between one person and another in the degree of conformity to the ideal in these respects can be compared, and persons may be graded and scheduled with some accuracy and effect according to a progressive scale of manners and breeding. the award of reputability in this regard is commonly made in good faith, on the ground of conformity to accepted canons of taste in the matters concerned, and without conscious regard to the pecuniary standing or the degree of leisure practised by any given candidate for reputability; but the canons of taste according to which the award is made are constantly under the surveillance of the law of conspicuous leisure, and are indeed constantly undergoing change and revision to bring them into closer conformity with its requirements. so that while the proximate ground of discrimination may be of another kind, still the pervading principle and abiding test of good breeding is the requirement of a substantial and patent waste of time. there may be some considerable range of variation in detail within the scope of this principle, but they are variations of form and expression, not of substance. much of the courtesy of everyday intercourse is of course a direct expression of consideration and kindly good-will, and this element of conduct has for the most part no need of being traced back to any underlying ground of reputability to explain either its presence or the approval with which it is regarded; but the same is not true of the code of properties. these latter are expressions of status. it is of course sufficiently plain, to any one who cares to see, that our bearing towards menials and other pecuniary dependent inferiors is the bearing of the superior member in a relation of status, though its manifestation is often greatly modified and softened from the original expression of crude dominance. similarly, our bearing towards superiors, and in great measure towards equals, expresses a more or less conventionalised attitude of subservience. witness the masterful presence of the high-minded gentleman or lady, which testifies to so much of dominance and independence of economic circumstances, and which at the same time appeals with such convincing force to our sense of what is right and gracious. it is among this highest leisure class, who have no superiors and few peers, that decorum finds its fullest and maturest expression; and it is this highest class also that gives decorum that definite formulation which serves as a canon of conduct for the classes beneath. and there also the code is most obviously a code of status and shows most plainly its incompatibility with all vulgarly productive work. a divine assurance and an imperious complaisance, as of one habituated to require subservience and to take no thought for the morrow, is the birthright and the criterion of the gentleman at his best; and it is in popular apprehension even more than that, for this demeanour is accepted as an intrinsic attribute of superior worth, before which the base-born commoner delights to stoop and yield. as has been indicated in an earlier chapter, there is reason to believe that the institution of ownership has begun with the ownership of persons, primarily women. the incentives to acquiring such property have apparently been: (1) a propensity for dominance and coercion; (2) the utility of these persons as evidence of the prowess of the owner; (3) the utility of their services. personal service holds a peculiar place in the economic development. during the stage of quasi-peaceable industry, and especially during the earlier development of industry within the limits of this general stage, the utility of their services seems commonly to be the dominant motive to the acquisition of property in persons. servants are valued for their services. but the dominance of this motive is not due to a decline in the absolute importance of the other two utilities possessed by servants. it is rather that the altered circumstance of life accentuate the utility of servants for this last-named purpose. women and other slaves are highly valued, both as an evidence of wealth and as a means of accumulating wealth. together with cattle, if the tribe is a pastoral one, they are the usual form of investment for a profit. to such an extent may female slavery give its character to the economic life under the quasi-peaceable culture that the women even comes to serve as a unit of value among peoples occupying this cultural stage--as for instance in homeric times. where this is the case there need be little question but that the basis of the industrial system is chattel slavery and that the women are commonly slaves. the great, pervading human relation in such a system is that of master and servant. the accepted evidence of wealth is the possession of many women, and presently also of other slaves engaged in attendance on their master's person and in producing goods for him. a division of labour presently sets in, whereby personal service and attendance on the master becomes the special office of a portion of the servants, while those who are wholly employed in industrial occupations proper are removed more and more from all immediate relation to the person of their owner. at the same time those servants whose office is personal service, including domestic duties, come gradually to be exempted from productive industry carried on for gain. this process of progressive exemption from the common run of industrial employment will commonly begin with the exemption of the wife, or the chief wife. after the community has advanced to settled habits of life, wife-capture from hostile tribes becomes impracticable as a customary source of supply. where this cultural advance has been achieved, the chief wife is ordinarily of gentle blood, and the fact of her being so will hasten her exemption from vulgar employment. the manner in which the concept of gentle blood originates, as well as the place which it occupies in the development of marriage, cannot be discussed in this place. for the purpose in hand it will be sufficient to say that gentle blood is blood which has been ennobled by protracted contact with accumulated wealth or unbroken prerogative. the women with these antecedents is preferred in marriage, both for the sake of a resulting alliance with her powerful relatives and because a superior worth is felt to inhere in blood which has been associated with many goods and great power. she will still be her husband's chattel, as she was her father's chattel before her purchase, but she is at the same time of her father's gentle blood; and hence there is a moral incongruity in her occupying herself with the debasing employments of her fellow-servants. however completely she may be subject to her master, and however inferior to the male members of the social stratum in which her birth has placed her, the principle that gentility is transmissible will act to place her above the common slave; and so soon as this principle has acquired a prescriptive authority it will act to invest her in some measure with that prerogative of leisure which is the chief mark of gentility. furthered by this principle of transmissible gentility the wife's exemption gains in scope, if the wealth of her owner permits it, until it includes exemption from debasing menial service as well as from handicraft. as the industrial development goes on and property becomes massed in relatively fewer hands, the conventional standard of wealth of the upper class rises. the same tendency to exemption from handicraft, and in the course of time from menial domestic employments, will then assert itself as regards the other wives, if such there are, and also as regards other servants in immediate attendance upon the person of their master. the exemption comes more tardily the remoter the relation in which the servant stands to the person of the master. if the pecuniary situation of the master permits it, the development of a special class of personal or body servants is also furthered by the very grave importance which comes to attach to this personal service. the master's person, being the embodiment of worth and honour, is of the most serious consequence. both for his reputable standing in the community and for his self-respect, it is a matter of moment that he should have at his call efficient specialised servants, whose attendance upon his person is not diverted from this their chief office by any by-occupation. these specialised servants are useful more for show than for service actually performed. in so far as they are not kept for exhibition simply, they afford gratification to their master chiefly in allowing scope to his propensity for dominance. it is true, the care of the continually increasing household apparatus may require added labour; but since the apparatus is commonly increased in order to serve as a means of good repute rather than as a means of comfort, this qualification is not of great weight. all these lines of utility are better served by a larger number of more highly specialised servants. there results, therefore, a constantly increasing differentiation and multiplication of domestic and body servants, along with a concomitant progressive exemption of such servants from productive labour. by virtue of their serving as evidence of ability to pay, the office of such domestics regularly tends to include continually fewer duties, and their service tends in the end to become nominal only. this is especially true of those servants who are in most immediate and obvious attendance upon their master. so that the utility of these comes to consist, in great part, in their conspicuous exemption from productive labour and in the evidence which this exemption affords of their master's wealth and power. after some considerable advance has been made in the practice of employing a special corps of servants for the performance of a conspicuous leisure in this manner, men begin to be preferred above women for services that bring them obtrusively into view. men, especially lusty, personable fellows, such as footmen and other menials should be, are obviously more powerful and more expensive than women. they are better fitted for this work, as showing a larger waste of time and of human energy. hence it comes about that in the economy of the leisure class the busy housewife of the early patriarchal days, with her retinue of hard-working handmaidens, presently gives place to the lady and the lackey. in all grades and walks of life, and at any stage of the economic development, the leisure of the lady and of the lackey differs from the leisure of the gentleman in his own right in that it is an occupation of an ostensibly laborious kind. it takes the form, in large measure, of a painstaking attention to the service of the master, or to the maintenance and elaboration of the household paraphernalia; so that it is leisure only in the sense that little or no productive work is performed by this class, not in the sense that all appearance of labour is avoided by them. the duties performed by the lady, or by the household or domestic servants, are frequently arduous enough, and they are also frequently directed to ends which are considered extremely necessary to the comfort of the entire household. so far as these services conduce to the physical efficiency or comfort of the master or the rest of the household, they are to be accounted productive work. only the residue of employment left after deduction of this effective work is to be classed as a performance of leisure. but much of the services classed as household cares in modern everyday life, and many of the "utilities" required for a comfortable existence by civilised man, are of a ceremonial character. they are, therefore, properly to be classed as a performance of leisure in the sense in which the term is here used. they may be none the less imperatively necessary from the point of view of decent existence: they may be none the less requisite for personal comfort even, although they may be chiefly or wholly of a ceremonial character. but in so far as they partake of this character they are imperative and requisite because we have been taught to require them under pain of ceremonial uncleanness or unworthiness. we feel discomfort in their absence, but not because their absence results directly in physical discomfort; nor would a taste not trained to discriminate between the conventionally good and the conventionally bad take offence at their omission. in so far as this is true the labour spent in these services is to be classed as leisure; and when performed by others than the economically free and self-directed head of the establishment, they are to be classed as vicarious leisure. the vicarious leisure performed by housewives and menials, under the head of household cares, may frequently develop into drudgery, especially where the competition for reputability is close and strenuous. this is frequently the case in modern life. where this happens, the domestic service which comprises the duties of this servant class might aptly be designated as wasted effort, rather than as vicarious leisure. but the latter term has the advantage of indicating the line of derivation of these domestic offices, as well as of neatly suggesting the substantial economic ground of their utility; for these occupations are chiefly useful as a method of imputing pecuniary reputability to the master or to the household on the ground that a given amount of time and effort is conspicuously wasted in that behalf. in this way, then, there arises a subsidiary or derivative leisure class, whose office is the performance of a vicarious leisure for the behoof of the reputability of the primary or legitimate leisure class. this vicarious leisure class is distinguished from the leisure class proper by a characteristic feature of its habitual mode of life. the leisure of the master class is, at least ostensibly, an indulgence of a proclivity for the avoidance of labour and is presumed to enhance the master's own well-being and fulness of life; but the leisure of the servant class exempt from productive labour is in some sort a performance exacted from them, and is not normally or primarily directed to their own comfort. the leisure of the servant is not his own leisure. so far as he is a servant in the full sense, and not at the same time a member of a lower order of the leisure class proper, his leisure normally passes under the guise of specialised service directed to the furtherance of his master's fulness of life. evidence of this relation of subservience is obviously present in the servant's carriage and manner of life. the like is often true of the wife throughout the protracted economic stage during which she is still primarily a servant--that is to say, so long as the household with a male head remains in force. in order to satisfy the requirements of the leisure class scheme of life, the servant should show not only an attitude of subservience, but also the effects of special training and practice in subservience. the servant or wife should not only perform certain offices and show a servile disposition, but it is quite as imperative that they should show an acquired facility in the tactics of subservience--a trained conformity to the canons of effectual and conspicuous subservience. even today it is this aptitude and acquired skill in the formal manifestation of the servile relation that constitutes the chief element of utility in our highly paid servants, as well as one of the chief ornaments of the well-bred housewife. the first requisite of a good servant is that he should conspicuously know his place. it is not enough that he knows how to effect certain desired mechanical results; he must above all, know how to effect these results in due form. domestic service might be said to be a spiritual rather than a mechanical function. gradually there grows up an elaborate system of good form, specifically regulating the manner in which this vicarious leisure of the servant class is to be performed. any departure from these canons of form is to be depreciated, not so much because it evinces a shortcoming in mechanical efficiency, or even that it shows an absence of the servile attitude and temperament, but because, in the last analysis, it shows the absence of special training. special training in personal service costs time and effort, and where it is obviously present in a high degree, it argues that the servant who possesses it, neither is nor has been habitually engaged in any productive occupation. it is prima facie evidence of a vicarious leisure extending far back in the past. so that trained service has utility, not only as gratifying the master's instinctive liking for good and skilful workmanship and his propensity for conspicuous dominance over those whose lives are subservient to his own, but it has utility also as putting in evidence a much larger consumption of human service than would be shown by the mere present conspicuous leisure performed by an untrained person. it is a serious grievance if a gentleman's butler or footman performs his duties about his master's table or carriage in such unformed style as to suggest that his habitual occupation may be ploughing or sheepherding. such bungling work would imply inability on the master's part to procure the service of specially trained servants; that is to say, it would imply inability to pay for the consumption of time, effort, and instruction required to fit a trained servant for special service under the exacting code of forms. if the performance of the servant argues lack of means on the part of his master, it defeats its chief substantial end; for the chief use of servants is the evidence they afford of the master's ability to pay. what has just been said might be taken to imply that the offence of an under-trained servant lies in a direct suggestion of inexpensiveness or of usefulness. such, of course, is not the case. the connection is much less immediate. what happens here is what happens generally. whatever approves itself to us on any ground at the outset, presently comes to appeal to us as a gratifying thing in itself; it comes to rest in our habits of though as substantially right. but in order that any specific canon of deportment shall maintain itself in favour, it must continue to have the support of, or at least not be incompatible with, the habit or aptitude which constitutes the norm of its development. the need of vicarious leisure, or conspicuous consumption of service, is a dominant incentive to the keeping of servants. so long as this remains true it may be set down without much discussion that any such departure from accepted usage as would suggest an abridged apprenticeship in service would presently be found insufferable. the requirement of an expensive vicarious leisure acts indirectly, selectively, by guiding the formation of our taste,--of our sense of what is right in these matters,--and so weeds out unconformable departures by withholding approval of them. as the standard of wealth recognized by common consent advances, the possession and exploitation of servants as a means of showing superfluity undergoes a refinement. the possession and maintenance of slaves employed in the production of goods argues wealth and prowess, but the maintenance of servants who produce nothing argues still higher wealth and position. under this principle there arises a class of servants, the more numerous the better, whose sole office is fatuously to wait upon the person of their owner, and so to put in evidence his ability unproductively to consume a large amount of service. there supervenes a division of labour among the servants or dependents whose life is spent in maintaining the honour of the gentleman of leisure. so that, while one group produces goods for him, another group, usually headed by the wife, or chief, consumes for him in conspicuous leisure; thereby putting in evidence his ability to sustain large pecuniary damage without impairing his superior opulence. this somewhat idealized and diagrammatic outline of the development and nature of domestic service comes nearest being true for that cultural stage which was here been named the "quasi-peaceable" stage of industry. at this stage personal service first rises to the position of an economic institution, and it is at this stage that it occupies the largest place in the community's scheme of life. in the cultural sequence, the quasi-peaceable stage follows the predatory stage proper, the two being successive phases of barbarian life. its characteristic feature is a formal observance of peace and order, at the same time that life at this stage still has too much of coercion and class antagonism to be called peaceable in the full sense of the word. for many purposes, and from another point of view than the economic one, it might as well be named the stage of status. the method of human relation during this stage, and the spiritual attitude of men at this level of culture, is well summed up under the term. but as a descriptive term to characterise the prevailing methods of industry, as well as to indicate the trend of industrial development at this point in economic evolution, the term "quasi-peaceable" seems preferable. so far as concerns the communities of the western culture, this phase of economic development probably lies in the past; except for a numerically small though very conspicuous fraction of the community in whom the habits of thought peculiar to the barbarian culture have suffered but a relatively slight disintegration. personal service is still an element of great economic importance, especially as regards the distribution and consumption of goods; but its relative importance even in this direction is no doubt less than it once was. the best development of this vicarious leisure lies in the past rather than in the present; and its best expression in the present is to be found in the scheme of life of the upper leisure class. to this class the modern culture owes much in the way of the conservation of traditions, usages, and habits of thought which belong on a more archaic cultural plane, so far as regards their widest acceptance and their most effective development. in the modern industrial communities the mechanical contrivances available for the comfort and convenience of everyday life are highly developed. so much so that body servants, or, indeed, domestic servants of any kind, would now scarcely be employed by anybody except on the ground of a canon of reputability carried over by tradition from earlier usage. the only exception would be servants employed to attend on the persons of the infirm and the feeble-minded. but such servants properly come under the head of trained nurses rather than under that of domestic servants, and they are, therefore, an apparent rather than a real exception to the rule. the proximate reason for keeping domestic servants, for instance, in the moderately well-to-do household of to-day, is (ostensibly) that the members of the household are unable without discomfort to compass the work required by such a modern establishment. and the reason for their being unable to accomplish it is (1) that they have too many "social duties", and (2) that the work to be done is too severe and that there is too much of it. these two reasons may be restated as follows: (1) under the mandatory code of decency, the time and effort of the members of such a household are required to be ostensibly all spent in a performance of conspicuous leisure, in the way of calls, drives, clubs, sewing-circles, sports, charity organisations, and other like social functions. those persons whose time and energy are employed in these matters privately avow that all these observances, as well as the incidental attention to dress and other conspicuous consumption, are very irksome but altogether unavoidable. (2) under the requirement of conspicuous consumption of goods, the apparatus of living has grown so elaborate and cumbrous, in the way of dwellings, furniture, bric-a-brac, wardrobe and meals, that the consumers of these things cannot make way with them in the required manner without help. personal contact with the hired persons whose aid is called in to fulfil the routine of decency is commonly distasteful to the occupants of the house, but their presence is endured and paid for, in order to delegate to them a share in this onerous consumption of household goods. the presence of domestic servants, and of the special class of body servants in an eminent degree, is a concession of physical comfort to the moral need of pecuniary decency. the largest manifestation of vicarious leisure in modern life is made up of what are called domestic duties. these duties are fast becoming a species of services performed, not so much for the individual behoof of the head of the household as for the reputability of the household taken as a corporate unit--a group of which the housewife is a member on a footing of ostensible equality. as fast as the household for which they are performed departs from its archaic basis of ownership-marriage, these household duties of course tend to fall out of the category of vicarious leisure in the original sense; except so far as they are performed by hired servants. that is to say, since vicarious leisure is possible only on a basis of status or of hired service, the disappearance of the relation of status from human intercourse at any point carries with it the disappearance of vicarious leisure so far as regards that much of life. but it is to be added, in qualification of this qualification, that so long as the household subsists, even with a divided head, this class of non-productive labour performed for the sake of the household reputability must still be classed as vicarious leisure, although in a slightly altered sense. it is now leisure performed for the quasi-personal corporate household, instead of, as formerly, for the proprietary head of the household. chapter four ~~ conspicuous consumption in what has been said of the evolution of the vicarious leisure class and its differentiation from the general body of the working classes, reference has been made to a further division of labour,--that between the different servant classes. one portion of the servant class, chiefly those persons whose occupation is vicarious leisure, come to undertake a new, subsidiary range of duties--the vicarious consumption of goods. the most obvious form in which this consumption occurs is seen in the wearing of liveries and the occupation of spacious servants' quarters. another, scarcely less obtrusive or less effective form of vicarious consumption, and a much more widely prevalent one, is the consumption of food, clothing, dwelling, and furniture by the lady and the rest of the domestic establishment. but already at a point in economic evolution far antedating the emergence of the lady, specialised consumption of goods as an evidence of pecuniary strength had begun to work out in a more or less elaborate system. the beginning of a differentiation in consumption even antedates the appearance of anything that can fairly be called pecuniary strength. it is traceable back to the initial phase of predatory culture, and there is even a suggestion that an incipient differentiation in this respect lies back of the beginnings of the predatory life. this most primitive differentiation in the consumption of goods is like the later differentiation with which we are all so intimately familiar, in that it is largely of a ceremonial character, but unlike the latter it does not rest on a difference in accumulated wealth. the utility of consumption as an evidence of wealth is to be classed as a derivative growth. it is an adaption to a new end, by a selective process, of a distinction previously existing and well established in men's habits of thought. in the earlier phases of the predatory culture the only economic differentiation is a broad distinction between an honourable superior class made up of the able-bodied men on the one side, and a base inferior class of labouring women on the other. according to the ideal scheme of life in force at the time it is the office of the men to consume what the women produce. such consumption as falls to the women is merely incidental to their work; it is a means to their continued labour, and not a consumption directed to their own comfort and fulness of life. unproductive consumption of goods is honourable, primarily as a mark of prowess and a perquisite of human dignity; secondarily it becomes substantially honourable to itself, especially the consumption of the more desirable things. the consumption of choice articles of food, and frequently also of rare articles of adornment, becomes tabu to the women and children; and if there is a base (servile) class of men, the tabu holds also for them. with a further advance in culture this tabu may change into simple custom of a more or less rigorous character; but whatever be the theoretical basis of the distinction which is maintained, whether it be a tabu or a larger conventionality, the features of the conventional scheme of consumption do not change easily. when the quasi-peaceable stage of industry is reached, with its fundamental institution of chattel slavery, the general principle, more or less rigorously applied, is that the base, industrious class should consume only what may be necessary to their subsistence. in the nature of things, luxuries and the comforts of life belong to the leisure class. under the tabu, certain victuals, and more particularly certain beverages, are strictly reserved for the use of the superior class. the ceremonial differentiation of the dietary is best seen in the use of intoxicating beverages and narcotics. if these articles of consumption are costly, they are felt to be noble and honorific. therefore the base classes, primarily the women, practice an enforced continence with respect to these stimulants, except in countries where they are obtainable at a very low cost. from archaic times down through all the length of the patriarchal regime it has been the office of the women to prepare and administer these luxuries, and it has been the perquisite of the men of gentle birth and breeding to consume them. drunkenness and the other pathological consequences of the free use of stimulants therefore tend in their turn to become honorific, as being a mark, at the second remove, of the superior status of those who are able to afford the indulgence. infirmities induced by over-indulgence are among some peoples freely recognised as manly attributes. it has even happened that the name for certain diseased conditions of the body arising from such an origin has passed into everyday speech as a synonym for "noble" or "gentle". it is only at a relatively early stage of culture that the symptoms of expensive vice are conventionally accepted as marks of a superior status, and so tend to become virtues and command the deference of the community; but the reputability that attaches to certain expensive vices long retains so much of its force as to appreciably lesson the disapprobation visited upon the men of the wealthy or noble class for any excessive indulgence. the same invidious distinction adds force to the current disapproval of any indulgence of this kind on the part of women, minors, and inferiors. this invidious traditional distinction has not lost its force even among the more advanced peoples of today. where the example set by the leisure class retains its imperative force in the regulation of the conventionalities, it is observable that the women still in great measure practise the same traditional continence with regard to stimulants. this characterisation of the greater continence in the use of stimulants practised by the women of the reputable classes may seem an excessive refinement of logic at the expense of common sense. but facts within easy reach of any one who cares to know them go to say that the greater abstinence of women is in some part due to an imperative conventionality; and this conventionality is, in a general way, strongest where the patriarchal tradition--the tradition that the woman is a chattel--has retained its hold in greatest vigour. in a sense which has been greatly qualified in scope and rigour, but which has by no means lost its meaning even yet, this tradition says that the woman, being a chattel, should consume only what is necessary to her sustenance,--except so far as her further consumption contributes to the comfort or the good repute of her master. the consumption of luxuries, in the true sense, is a consumption directed to the comfort of the consumer himself, and is, therefore, a mark of the master. any such consumption by others can take place only on a basis of sufferance. in communities where the popular habits of thought have been profoundly shaped by the patriarchal tradition we may accordingly look for survivals of the tabu on luxuries at least to the extent of a conventional deprecation of their use by the unfree and dependent class. this is more particularly true as regards certain luxuries, the use of which by the dependent class would detract sensibly from the comfort or pleasure of their masters, or which are held to be of doubtful legitimacy on other grounds. in the apprehension of the great conservative middle class of western civilisation the use of these various stimulants is obnoxious to at least one, if not both, of these objections; and it is a fact too significant to be passed over that it is precisely among these middle classes of the germanic culture, with their strong surviving sense of the patriarchal proprieties, that the women are to the greatest extent subject to a qualified tabu on narcotics and alcoholic beverages. with many qualifications--with more qualifications as the patriarchal tradition has gradually weakened--the general rule is felt to be right and binding that women should consume only for the benefit of their masters. the objection of course presents itself that expenditure on women's dress and household paraphernalia is an obvious exception to this rule; but it will appear in the sequel that this exception is much more obvious than substantial. during the earlier stages of economic development, consumption of goods without stint, especially consumption of the better grades of goods,--ideally all consumption in excess of the subsistence minimum,--pertains normally to the leisure class. this restriction tends to disappear, at least formally, after the later peaceable stage has been reached, with private ownership of goods and an industrial system based on wage labour or on the petty household economy. but during the earlier quasi-peaceable stage, when so many of the traditions through which the institution of a leisure class has affected the economic life of later times were taking form and consistency, this principle has had the force of a conventional law. it has served as the norm to which consumption has tended to conform, and any appreciable departure from it is to be regarded as an aberrant form, sure to be eliminated sooner or later in the further course of development. the quasi-peaceable gentleman of leisure, then, not only consumes of the staff of life beyond the minimum required for subsistence and physical efficiency, but his consumption also undergoes a specialisation as regards the quality of the goods consumed. he consumes freely and of the best, in food, drink, narcotics, shelter, services, ornaments, apparel, weapons and accoutrements, amusements, amulets, and idols or divinities. in the process of gradual amelioration which takes place in the articles of his consumption, the motive principle and proximate aim of innovation is no doubt the higher efficiency of the improved and more elaborate products for personal comfort and well-being. but that does not remain the sole purpose of their consumption. the canon of reputability is at hand and seizes upon such innovations as are, according to its standard, fit to survive. since the consumption of these more excellent goods is an evidence of wealth, it becomes honorific; and conversely, the failure to consume in due quantity and quality becomes a mark of inferiority and demerit. this growth of punctilious discrimination as to qualitative excellence in eating, drinking, etc. presently affects not only the manner of life, but also the training and intellectual activity of the gentleman of leisure. he is no longer simply the successful, aggressive male,--the man of strength, resource, and intrepidity. in order to avoid stultification he must also cultivate his tastes, for it now becomes incumbent on him to discriminate with some nicety between the noble and the ignoble in consumable goods. he becomes a connoisseur in creditable viands of various degrees of merit, in manly beverages and trinkets, in seemly apparel and architecture, in weapons, games, dancers, and the narcotics. this cultivation of aesthetic faculty requires time and application, and the demands made upon the gentleman in this direction therefore tend to change his life of leisure into a more or less arduous application to the business of learning how to live a life of ostensible leisure in a becoming way. closely related to the requirement that the gentleman must consume freely and of the right kind of goods, there is the requirement that he must know how to consume them in a seemly manner. his life of leisure must be conducted in due form. hence arise good manners in the way pointed out in an earlier chapter. high-bred manners and ways of living are items of conformity to the norm of conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption. conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure. as wealth accumulates on his hands, his own unaided effort will not avail to sufficiently put his opulence in evidence by this method. the aid of friends and competitors is therefore brought in by resorting to the giving of valuable presents and expensive feasts and entertainments. presents and feasts had probably another origin than that of naive ostentation, but they required their utility for this purpose very early, and they have retained that character to the present; so that their utility in this respect has now long been the substantial ground on which these usages rest. costly entertainments, such as the potlatch or the ball, are peculiarly adapted to serve this end. the competitor with whom the entertainer wishes to institute a comparison is, by this method, made to serve as a means to the end. he consumes vicariously for his host at the same time that he is witness to the consumption of that excess of good things which his host is unable to dispose of single-handed, and he is also made to witness his host's facility in etiquette. in the giving of costly entertainments other motives, of more genial kind, are of course also present. the custom of festive gatherings probably originated in motives of conviviality and religion; these motives are also present in the later development, but they do not continue to be the sole motives. the latter-day leisure-class festivities and entertainments may continue in some slight degree to serve the religious need and in a higher degree the needs of recreation and conviviality, but they also serve an invidious purpose; and they serve it none the less effectually for having a colorable non-invidious ground in these more avowable motives. but the economic effect of these social amenities is not therefore lessened, either in the vicarious consumption of goods or in the exhibition of difficult and costly achievements in etiquette. as wealth accumulates, the leisure class develops further in function and structure, and there arises a differentiation within the class. there is a more or less elaborate system of rank and grades. this differentiation is furthered by the inheritance of wealth and the consequent inheritance of gentility. with the inheritance of gentility goes the inheritance of obligatory leisure; and gentility of a sufficient potency to entail a life of leisure may be inherited without the complement of wealth required to maintain a dignified leisure. gentle blood may be transmitted without goods enough to afford a reputably free consumption at one's ease. hence results a class of impecunious gentlemen of leisure, incidentally referred to already. these half-caste gentlemen of leisure fall into a system of hierarchical gradations. those who stand near the higher and the highest grades of the wealthy leisure class, in point of birth, or in point of wealth, or both, outrank the remoter-born and the pecuniarily weaker. these lower grades, especially the impecunious, or marginal, gentlemen of leisure, affiliate themselves by a system of dependence or fealty to the great ones; by so doing they gain an increment of repute, or of the means with which to lead a life of leisure, from their patron. they become his courtiers or retainers, servants; and being fed and countenanced by their patron they are indices of his rank and vicarious consumer of his superfluous wealth. many of these affiliated gentlemen of leisure are at the same time lesser men of substance in their own right; so that some of them are scarcely at all, others only partially, to be rated as vicarious consumers. so many of them, however, as make up the retainer and hangers-on of the patron may be classed as vicarious consumer without qualification. many of these again, and also many of the other aristocracy of less degree, have in turn attached to their persons a more or less comprehensive group of vicarious consumer in the persons of their wives and children, their servants, retainers, etc. throughout this graduated scheme of vicarious leisure and vicarious consumption the rule holds that these offices must be performed in some such manner, or under some such circumstance or insignia, as shall point plainly to the master to whom this leisure or consumption pertains, and to whom therefore the resulting increment of good repute of right inures. the consumption and leisure executed by these persons for their master or patron represents an investment on his part with a view to an increase of good fame. as regards feasts and largesses this is obvious enough, and the imputation of repute to the host or patron here takes place immediately, on the ground of common notoriety. where leisure and consumption is performed vicariously by henchmen and retainers, imputation of the resulting repute to the patron is effected by their residing near his person so that it may be plain to all men from what source they draw. as the group whose good esteem is to be secured in this way grows larger, more patent means are required to indicate the imputation of merit for the leisure performed, and to this end uniforms, badges, and liveries come into vogue. the wearing of uniforms or liveries implies a considerable degree of dependence, and may even be said to be a mark of servitude, real or ostensible. the wearers of uniforms and liveries may be roughly divided into two classes-the free and the servile, or the noble and the ignoble. the services performed by them are likewise divisible into noble and ignoble. of course the distinction is not observed with strict consistency in practice; the less debasing of the base services and the less honorific of the noble functions are not infrequently merged in the same person. but the general distinction is not on that account to be overlooked. what may add some perplexity is the fact that this fundamental distinction between noble and ignoble, which rests on the nature of the ostensible service performed, is traversed by a secondary distinction into honorific and humiliating, resting on the rank of the person for whom the service is performed or whose livery is worn. so, those offices which are by right the proper employment of the leisure class are noble; such as government, fighting, hunting, the care of arms and accoutrements, and the like--in short, those which may be classed as ostensibly predatory employments. on the other hand, those employments which properly fall to the industrious class are ignoble; such as handicraft or other productive labor, menial services and the like. but a base service performed for a person of very high degree may become a very honorific office; as for instance the office of a maid of honor or of a lady in waiting to the queen, or the king's master of the horse or his keeper of the hounds. the two offices last named suggest a principle of some general bearing. whenever, as in these cases, the menial service in question has to do directly with the primary leisure employments of fighting and hunting, it easily acquires a reflected honorific character. in this way great honor may come to attach to an employment which in its own nature belongs to the baser sort. in the later development of peaceable industry, the usage of employing an idle corps of uniformed men-at-arms gradually lapses. vicarious consumption by dependents bearing the insignia of their patron or master narrows down to a corps of liveried menials. in a heightened degree, therefore, the livery comes to be a badge of servitude, or rather servility. something of a honorific character always attached to the livery of the armed retainer, but this honorific character disappears when the livery becomes the exclusive badge of the menial. the livery becomes obnoxious to nearly all who are required to wear it. we are yet so little removed from a state of effective slavery as still to be fully sensitive to the sting of any imputation of servility. this antipathy asserts itself even in the case of the liveries or uniforms which some corporations prescribe as the distinctive dress of their employees. in this country the aversion even goes the length of discrediting--in a mild and uncertain way--those government employments, military and civil, which require the wearing of a livery or uniform. with the disappearance of servitude, the number of vicarious consumers attached to any one gentleman tends, on the whole, to decrease. the like is of course true, and perhaps in a still higher degree, of the number of dependents who perform vicarious leisure for him. in a general way, though not wholly nor consistently, these two groups coincide. the dependent who was first delegated for these duties was the wife, or the chief wife; and, as would be expected, in the later development of the institution, when the number of persons by whom these duties are customarily performed gradually narrows, the wife remains the last. in the higher grades of society a large volume of both these kinds of service is required; and here the wife is of course still assisted in the work by a more or less numerous corps of menials. but as we descend the social scale, the point is presently reached where the duties of vicarious leisure and consumption devolve upon the wife alone. in the communities of the western culture, this point is at present found among the lower middle class. and here occurs a curious inversion. it is a fact of common observance that in this lower middle class there is no pretense of leisure on the part of the head of the household. through force of circumstances it has fallen into disuse. but the middle-class wife still carries on the business of vicarious leisure, for the good name of the household and its master. in descending the social scale in any modern industrial community, the primary fact-the conspicuous leisure of the master of the household-disappears at a relatively high point. the head of the middle-class household has been reduced by economic circumstances to turn his hand to gaining a livelihood by occupations which often partake largely of the character of industry, as in the case of the ordinary business man of today. but the derivative fact-the vicarious leisure and consumption rendered by the wife, and the auxiliary vicarious performance of leisure by menials-remains in vogue as a conventionality which the demands of reputability will not suffer to be slighted. it is by no means an uncommon spectacle to find a man applying himself to work with the utmost assiduity, in order that his wife may in due form render for him that degree of vicarious leisure which the common sense of the time demands. the leisure rendered by the wife in such cases is, of course, not a simple manifestation of idleness or indolence. it almost invariably occurs disguised under some form of work or household duties or social amenities, which prove on analysis to serve little or no ulterior end beyond showing that she does not occupy herself with anything that is gainful or that is of substantial use. as has already been noticed under the head of manners, the greater part of the customary round of domestic cares to which the middle-class housewife gives her time and effort is of this character. not that the results of her attention to household matters, of a decorative and mundificatory character, are not pleasing to the sense of men trained in middle-class proprieties; but the taste to which these effects of household adornment and tidiness appeal is a taste which has been formed under the selective guidance of a canon of propriety that demands just these evidences of wasted effort. the effects are pleasing to us chiefly because we have been taught to find them pleasing. there goes into these domestic duties much solicitude for a proper combination of form and color, and for other ends that are to be classed as aesthetic in the proper sense of the term; and it is not denied that effects having some substantial aesthetic value are sometimes attained. pretty much all that is here insisted on is that, as regards these amenities of life, the housewife's efforts are under the guidance of traditions that have been shaped by the law of conspicuously wasteful expenditure of time and substance. if beauty or comfort is achieved-and it is a more or less fortuitous circumstance if they are-they must be achieved by means and methods that commend themselves to the great economic law of wasted effort. the more reputable, "presentable" portion of middle-class household paraphernalia are, on the one hand, items of conspicuous consumption, and on the other hand, apparatus for putting in evidence the vicarious leisure rendered by the housewife. the requirement of vicarious consumption at the hands of the wife continues in force even at a lower point in the pecuniary scale than the requirement of vicarious leisure. at a point below which little if any pretense of wasted effort, in ceremonial cleanness and the like, is observable, and where there is assuredly no conscious attempt at ostensible leisure, decency still requires the wife to consume some goods conspicuously for the reputability of the household and its head. so that, as the latter-day outcome of this evolution of an archaic institution, the wife, who was at the outset the drudge and chattel of the man, both in fact and in theory--the producer of goods for him to consume--has become the ceremonial consumer of goods which he produces. but she still quite unmistakably remains his chattel in theory; for the habitual rendering of vicarious leisure and consumption is the abiding mark of the unfree servant. this vicarious consumption practiced by the household of the middle and lower classes can not be counted as a direct expression of the leisure-class scheme of life, since the household of this pecuniary grade does not belong within the leisure class. it is rather that the leisure-class scheme of life here comes to an expression at the second remove. the leisure class stands at the head of the social structure in point of reputability; and its manner of life and its standards of worth therefore afford the norm of reputability for the community. the observance of these standards, in some degree of approximation, becomes incumbent upon all classes lower in the scale. in modern civilized communities the lines of demarcation between social classes have grown vague and transient, and wherever this happens the norm of reputability imposed by the upper class extends its coercive influence with but slight hindrance down through the social structure to the lowest strata. the result is that the members of each stratum accept as their ideal of decency the scheme of life in vogue in the next higher stratum, and bend their energies to live up to that ideal. on pain of forfeiting their good name and their self-respect in case of failure, they must conform to the accepted code, at least in appearance. the basis on which good repute in any highly organized industrial community ultimately rests is pecuniary strength; and the means of showing pecuniary strength, and so of gaining or retaining a good name, are leisure and a conspicuous consumption of goods. accordingly, both of these methods are in vogue as far down the scale as it remains possible; and in the lower strata in which the two methods are employed, both offices are in great part delegated to the wife and children of the household. lower still, where any degree of leisure, even ostensible, has become impracticable for the wife, the conspicuous consumption of goods remains and is carried on by the wife and children. the man of the household also can do something in this direction, and indeed, he commonly does; but with a still lower descent into the levels of indigence--along the margin of the slums--the man, and presently also the children, virtually cease to consume valuable goods for appearances, and the woman remains virtually the sole exponent of the household's pecuniary decency. no class of society, not even the most abjectly poor, forgoes all customary conspicuous consumption. the last items of this category of consumption are not given up except under stress of the direst necessity. very much of squalor and discomfort will be endured before the last trinket or the last pretense of pecuniary decency is put away. there is no class and no country that has yielded so abjectly before the pressure of physical want as to deny themselves all gratification of this higher or spiritual need. from the foregoing survey of the growth of conspicuous leisure and consumption, it appears that the utility of both alike for the purposes of reputability lies in the element of waste that is common to both. in the one case it is a waste of time and effort, in the other it is a waste of goods. both are methods of demonstrating the possession of wealth, and the two are conventionally accepted as equivalents. the choice between them is a question of advertising expediency simply, except so far as it may be affected by other standards of propriety, springing from a different source. on grounds of expediency the preference may be given to the one or the other at different stages of the economic development. the question is, which of the two methods will most effectively reach the persons whose convictions it is desired to affect. usage has answered this question in different ways under different circumstances. so long as the community or social group is small enough and compact enough to be effectually reached by common notoriety alone that is to say, so long as the human environment to which the individual is required to adapt himself in respect of reputability is comprised within his sphere of personal acquaintance and neighborhood gossip--so long the one method is about as effective as the other. each will therefore serve about equally well during the earlier stages of social growth. but when the differentiation has gone farther and it becomes necessary to reach a wider human environment, consumption begins to hold over leisure as an ordinary means of decency. this is especially true during the later, peaceable economic stage. the means of communication and the mobility of the population now expose the individual to the observation of many persons who have no other means of judging of his reputability than the display of goods (and perhaps of breeding) which he is able to make while he is under their direct observation. the modern organization of industry works in the same direction also by another line. the exigencies of the modern industrial system frequently place individuals and households in juxtaposition between whom there is little contact in any other sense than that of juxtaposition. one's neighbors, mechanically speaking, often are socially not one's neighbors, or even acquaintances; and still their transient good opinion has a high degree of utility. the only practicable means of impressing one's pecuniary ability on these unsympathetic observers of one's everyday life is an unremitting demonstration of ability to pay. in the modern community there is also a more frequent attendance at large gatherings of people to whom one's everyday life is unknown; in such places as churches, theaters, ballrooms, hotels, parks, shops, and the like. in order to impress these transient observers, and to retain one's self-complacency under their observation, the signature of one's pecuniary strength should be written in characters which he who runs may read. it is evident, therefore, that the present trend of the development is in the direction of heightening the utility of conspicuous consumption as compared with leisure. it is also noticeable that the serviceability of consumption as a means of repute, as well as the insistence on it as an element of decency, is at its best in those portions of the community where the human contact of the individual is widest and the mobility of the population is greatest. conspicuous consumption claims a relatively larger portion of the income of the urban than of the rural population, and the claim is also more imperative. the result is that, in order to keep up a decent appearance, the former habitually live hand-to-mouth to a greater extent than the latter. so it comes, for instance, that the american farmer and his wife and daughters are notoriously less modish in their dress, as well as less urbane in their manners, than the city artisan's family with an equal income. it is not that the city population is by nature much more eager for the peculiar complacency that comes of a conspicuous consumption, nor has the rural population less regard for pecuniary decency. but the provocation to this line of evidence, as well as its transient effectiveness, is more decided in the city. this method is therefore more readily resorted to, and in the struggle to outdo one another the city population push their normal standard of conspicuous consumption to a higher point, with the result that a relatively greater expenditure in this direction is required to indicate a given degree of pecuniary decency in the city. the requirement of conformity to this higher conventional standard becomes mandatory. the standard of decency is higher, class for class, and this requirement of decent appearance must be lived up to on pain of losing caste. consumption becomes a larger element in the standard of living in the city than in the country. among the country population its place is to some extent taken by savings and home comforts known through the medium of neighborhood gossip sufficiently to serve the like general purpose of pecuniary repute. these home comforts and the leisure indulged in--where the indulgence is found--are of course also in great part to be classed as items of conspicuous consumption; and much the same is to be said of the savings. the smaller amount of the savings laid by by the artisan class is no doubt due, in some measure, to the fact that in the case of the artisan the savings are a less effective means of advertisement, relative to the environment in which he is placed, than are the savings of the people living on farms and in the small villages. among the latter, everybody's affairs, especially everybody's pecuniary status, are known to everybody else. considered by itself simply--taken in the first degree--this added provocation to which the artisan and the urban laboring classes are exposed may not very seriously decrease the amount of savings; but in its cumulative action, through raising the standard of decent expenditure, its deterrent effect on the tendency to save cannot but be very great. a felicitous illustration of the manner in which this canon of reputability works out its results is seen in the practice of dram-drinking, "treating," and smoking in public places, which is customary among the laborers and handicraftsmen of the towns, and among the lower middle class of the urban population generally journeymen printers may be named as a class among whom this form of conspicuous consumption has a great vogue, and among whom it carries with it certain well-marked consequences that are often deprecated. the peculiar habits of the class in this respect are commonly set down to some kind of an ill-defined moral deficiency with which this class is credited, or to a morally deleterious influence which their occupation is supposed to exert, in some unascertainable way, upon the men employed in it. the state of the case for the men who work in the composition and press rooms of the common run of printing-houses may be summed up as follows. skill acquired in any printing-house or any city is easily turned to account in almost any other house or city; that is to say, the inertia due to special training is slight. also, this occupation requires more than the average of intelligence and general information, and the men employed in it are therefore ordinarily more ready than many others to take advantage of any slight variation in the demand for their labor from one place to another. the inertia due to the home feeling is consequently also slight. at the same time the wages in the trade are high enough to make movement from place to place relatively easy. the result is a great mobility of the labor employed in printing; perhaps greater than in any other equally well-defined and considerable body of workmen. these men are constantly thrown in contact with new groups of acquaintances, with whom the relations established are transient or ephemeral, but whose good opinion is valued none the less for the time being. the human proclivity to ostentation, reenforced by sentiments of good-fellowship, leads them to spend freely in those directions which will best serve these needs. here as elsewhere prescription seizes upon the custom as soon as it gains a vogue, and incorporates it in the accredited standard of decency. the next step is to make this standard of decency the point of departure for a new move in advance in the same direction--for there is no merit in simple spiritless conformity to a standard of dissipation that is lived up to as a matter of course by everyone in the trade. the greater prevalence of dissipation among printers than among the average of workmen is accordingly attributable, at least in some measure, to the greater ease of movement and the more transient character of acquaintance and human contact in this trade. but the substantial ground of this high requirement in dissipation is in the last analysis no other than that same propensity for a manifestation of dominance and pecuniary decency which makes the french peasant-proprietor parsimonious and frugal, and induces the american millionaire to found colleges, hospitals and museums. if the canon of conspicuous consumption were not offset to a considerable extent by other features of human nature, alien to it, any saving should logically be impossible for a population situated as the artisan and laboring classes of the cities are at present, however high their wages or their income might be. but there are other standards of repute and other, more or less imperative, canons of conduct, besides wealth and its manifestation, and some of these come in to accentuate or to qualify the broad, fundamental canon of conspicuous waste. under the simple test of effectiveness for advertising, we should expect to find leisure and the conspicuous consumption of goods dividing the field of pecuniary emulation pretty evenly between them at the outset. leisure might then be expected gradually to yield ground and tend to obsolescence as the economic development goes forward, and the community increases in size; while the conspicuous consumption of goods should gradually gain in importance, both absolutely and relatively, until it had absorbed all the available product, leaving nothing over beyond a bare livelihood. but the actual course of development has been somewhat different from this ideal scheme. leisure held the first place at the start, and came to hold a rank very much above wasteful consumption of goods, both as a direct exponent of wealth and as an element in the standard of decency, during the quasi-peaceable culture. from that point onward, consumption has gained ground, until, at present, it unquestionably holds the primacy, though it is still far from absorbing the entire margin of production above the subsistence minimum. the early ascendency of leisure as a means of reputability is traceable to the archaic distinction between noble and ignoble employments. leisure is honorable and becomes imperative partly because it shows exemption from ignoble labor. the archaic differentiation into noble and ignoble classes is based on an invidious distinction between employments as honorific or debasing; and this traditional distinction grows into an imperative canon of decency during the early quasi-peaceable stage. its ascendency is furthered by the fact that leisure is still fully as effective an evidence of wealth as consumption. indeed, so effective is it in the relatively small and stable human environment to which the individual is exposed at that cultural stage, that, with the aid of the archaic tradition which deprecates all productive labor, it gives rise to a large impecunious leisure class, and it even tends to limit the production of the community's industry to the subsistence minimum. this extreme inhibition of industry is avoided because slave labor, working under a compulsion more vigorous than that of reputability, is forced to turn out a product in excess of the subsistence minimum of the working class. the subsequent relative decline in the use of conspicuous leisure as a basis of repute is due partly to an increasing relative effectiveness of consumption as an evidence of wealth; but in part it is traceable to another force, alien, and in some degree antagonistic, to the usage of conspicuous waste. this alien factor is the instinct of workmanship. other circumstances permitting, that instinct disposes men to look with favor upon productive efficiency and on whatever is of human use. it disposes them to deprecate waste of substance or effort. the instinct of workmanship is present in all men, and asserts itself even under very adverse circumstances. so that however wasteful a given expenditure may be in reality, it must at least have some colorable excuse in the way of an ostensible purpose. the manner in which, under special circumstances, the instinct eventuates in a taste for exploit and an invidious discrimination between noble and ignoble classes has been indicated in an earlier chapter. in so far as it comes into conflict with the law of conspicuous waste, the instinct of workmanship expresses itself not so much in insistence on substantial usefulness as in an abiding sense of the odiousness and aesthetic impossibility of what is obviously futile. being of the nature of an instinctive affection, its guidance touches chiefly and immediately the obvious and apparent violations of its requirements. it is only less promptly and with less constraining force that it reaches such substantial violations of its requirements as are appreciated only upon reflection. so long as all labor continues to be performed exclusively or usually by slaves, the baseness of all productive effort is too constantly and deterrently present in the mind of men to allow the instinct of workmanship seriously to take effect in the direction of industrial usefulness; but when the quasi-peaceable stage (with slavery and status) passes into the peaceable stage of industry (with wage labor and cash payment) the instinct comes more effectively into play. it then begins aggressively to shape men's views of what is meritorious, and asserts itself at least as an auxiliary canon of self-complacency. all extraneous considerations apart, those persons (adult) are but a vanishing minority today who harbor no inclination to the accomplishment of some end, or who are not impelled of their own motion to shape some object or fact or relation for human use. the propensity may in large measure be overborne by the more immediately constraining incentive to a reputable leisure and an avoidance of indecorous usefulness, and it may therefore work itself out in make-believe only; as for instance in "social duties," and in quasi-artistic or quasi-scholarly accomplishments, in the care and decoration of the house, in sewing-circle activity or dress reform, in proficiency at dress, cards, yachting, golf, and various sports. but the fact that it may under stress of circumstances eventuate in inanities no more disproves the presence of the instinct than the reality of the brooding instinct is disproved by inducing a hen to sit on a nestful of china eggs. this latter-day uneasy reaching-out for some form of purposeful activity that shall at the same time not be indecorously productive of either individual or collective gain marks a difference of attitude between the modern leisure class and that of the quasi-peaceable stage. at the earlier stage, as was said above, the all-dominating institution of slavery and status acted resistlessly to discountenance exertion directed to other than naively predatory ends. it was still possible to find some habitual employment for the inclination to action in the way of forcible aggression or repression directed against hostile groups or against the subject classes within the group; and this served to relieve the pressure and draw off the energy of the leisure class without a resort to actually useful, or even ostensibly useful employments. the practice of hunting also served the same purpose in some degree. when the community developed into a peaceful industrial organization, and when fuller occupation of the land had reduced the opportunities for the hunt to an inconsiderable residue, the pressure of energy seeking purposeful employment was left to find an outlet in some other direction. the ignominy which attaches to useful effort also entered upon a less acute phase with the disappearance of compulsory labor; and the instinct of workmanship then came to assert itself with more persistence and consistency. the line of least resistance has changed in some measure, and the energy which formerly found a vent in predatory activity, now in part takes the direction of some ostensibly useful end. ostensibly purposeless leisure has come to be deprecated, especially among that large portion of the leisure class whose plebeian origin acts to set them at variance with the tradition of the otium cum dignitate. but that canon of reputability which discountenances all employment that is of the nature of productive effort is still at hand, and will permit nothing beyond the most transient vogue to any employment that is substantially useful or productive. the consequence is that a change has been wrought in the conspicuous leisure practiced by the leisure class; not so much in substance as in form. a reconciliation between the two conflicting requirements is effected by a resort to make-believe. many and intricate polite observances and social duties of a ceremonial nature are developed; many organizations are founded, with some specious object of amelioration embodied in their official style and title; there is much coming and going, and a deal of talk, to the end that the talkers may not have occasion to reflect on what is the effectual economic value of their traffic. and along with the make-believe of purposeful employment, and woven inextricably into its texture, there is commonly, if not invariably, a more or less appreciable element of purposeful effort directed to some serious end. in the narrower sphere of vicarious leisure a similar change has gone forward. instead of simply passing her time in visible idleness, as in the best days of the patriarchal regime, the housewife of the advanced peaceable stage applies herself assiduously to household cares. the salient features of this development of domestic service have already been indicated. throughout the entire evolution of conspicuous expenditure, whether of goods or of services or human life, runs the obvious implication that in order to effectually mend the consumer's good fame it must be an expenditure of superfluities. in order to be reputable it must be wasteful. no merit would accrue from the consumption of the bare necessaries of life, except by comparison with the abjectly poor who fall short even of the subsistence minimum; and no standard of expenditure could result from such a comparison, except the most prosaic and unattractive level of decency. a standard of life would still be possible which should admit of invidious comparison in other respects than that of opulence; as, for instance, a comparison in various directions in the manifestation of moral, physical, intellectual, or aesthetic force. comparison in all these directions is in vogue today; and the comparison made in these respects is commonly so inextricably bound up with the pecuniary comparison as to be scarcely distinguishable from the latter. this is especially true as regards the current rating of expressions of intellectual and aesthetic force or proficiency' so that we frequently interpret as aesthetic or intellectual a difference which in substance is pecuniary only. the use of the term "waste" is in one respect an unfortunate one. as used in the speech of everyday life the word carries an undertone of deprecation. it is here used for want of a better term that will adequately describe the same range of motives and of phenomena, and it is not to be taken in an odious sense, as implying an illegitimate expenditure of human products or of human life. in the view of economic theory the expenditure in question is no more and no less legitimate than any other expenditure. it is here called "waste" because this expenditure does not serve human life or human well-being on the whole, not because it is waste or misdirection of effort or expenditure as viewed from the standpoint of the individual consumer who chooses it. if he chooses it, that disposes of the question of its relative utility to him, as compared with other forms of consumption that would not be deprecated on account of their wastefulness. whatever form of expenditure the consumer chooses, or whatever end he seeks in making his choice, has utility to him by virtue of his preference. as seen from the point of view of the individual consumer, the question of wastefulness does not arise within the scope of economic theory proper. the use of the word "waste" as a technical term, therefore, implies no deprecation of the motives or of the ends sought by the consumer under this canon of conspicuous waste. but it is, on other grounds, worth noting that the term "waste" in the language of everyday life implies deprecation of what is characterized as wasteful. this common-sense implication is itself an outcropping of the instinct of workmanship. the popular reprobation of waste goes to say that in order to be at peace with himself the common man must be able to see in any and all human effort and human enjoyment an enhancement of life and well-being on the whole. in order to meet with unqualified approval, any economic fact must approve itself under the test of impersonal usefulness--usefulness as seen from the point of view of the generically human. relative or competitive advantage of one individual in comparison with another does not satisfy the economic conscience, and therefore competitive expenditure has not the approval of this conscience. in strict accuracy nothing should be included under the head of conspicuous waste but such expenditure as is incurred on the ground of an invidious pecuniary comparison. but in order to bring any given item or element in under this head it is not necessary that it should be recognized as waste in this sense by the person incurring the expenditure. it frequently happens that an element of the standard of living which set out with being primarily wasteful, ends with becoming, in the apprehension of the consumer, a necessary of life; and it may in this way become as indispensable as any other item of the consumer's habitual expenditure. as items which sometimes fall under this head, and are therefore available as illustrations of the manner in which this principle applies, may be cited carpets and tapestries, silver table service, waiter's services, silk hats, starched linen, many articles of jewelry and of dress. the indispensability of these things after the habit and the convention have been formed, however, has little to say in the classification of expenditures as waste or not waste in the technical meaning of the word. the test to which all expenditure must be brought in an attempt to decide that point is the question whether it serves directly to enhance human life on the whole-whether it furthers the life process taken impersonally. for this is the basis of award of the instinct of workmanship, and that instinct is the court of final appeal in any question of economic truth or adequacy. it is a question as to the award rendered by a dispassionate common sense. the question is, therefore, not whether, under the existing circumstances of individual habit and social custom, a given expenditure conduces to the particular consumer's gratification or peace of mind; but whether, aside from acquired tastes and from the canons of usage and conventional decency, its result is a net gain in comfort or in the fullness of life. customary expenditure must be classed under the head of waste in so far as the custom on which it rests is traceable to the habit of making an invidious pecuniary comparison-in so far as it is conceived that it could not have become customary and prescriptive without the backing of this principle of pecuniary reputability or relative economic success. it is obviously not necessary that a given object of expenditure should be exclusively wasteful in order to come in under the category of conspicuous waste. an article may be useful and wasteful both, and its utility to the consumer may be made up of use and waste in the most varying proportions. consumable goods, and even productive goods, generally show the two elements in combination, as constituents of their utility; although, in a general way, the element of waste tends to predominate in articles of consumption, while the contrary is true of articles designed for productive use. even in articles which appear at first glance to serve for pure ostentation only, it is always possible to detect the presence of some, at least ostensible, useful purpose; and on the other hand, even in special machinery and tools contrived for some particular industrial process, as well as in the rudest appliances of human industry, the traces of conspicuous waste, or at least of the habit of ostentation, usually become evident on a close scrutiny. it would be hazardous to assert that a useful purpose is ever absent from the utility of any article or of any service, however obviously its prime purpose and chief element is conspicuous waste; and it would be only less hazardous to assert of any primarily useful product that the element of waste is in no way concerned in its value, immediately or remotely. chapter five ~~ the pecuniary standard of living for the great body of the people in any modern community, the proximate ground of expenditure in excess of what is required for physical comfort is not a conscious effort to excel in the expensiveness of their visible consumption, so much as it is a desire to live up to the conventional standard of decency in the amount and grade of goods consumed. this desire is not guided by a rigidly invariable standard, which must be lived up to, and beyond which there is no incentive to go. the standard is flexible; and especially it is indefinitely extensible, if only time is allowed for habituation to any increase in pecuniary ability and for acquiring facility in the new and larger scale of expenditure that follows such an increase. it is much more difficult to recede from a scale of expenditure once adopted than it is to extend the accustomed scale in response to an accession of wealth. many items of customary expenditure prove on analysis to be almost purely wasteful, and they are therefore honorific only, but after they have once been incorporated into the scale of decent consumption, and so have become an integral part of one's scheme of life, it is quite as hard to give up these as it is to give up many items that conduce directly to one's physical comfort, or even that may be necessary to life and health. that is to say, the conspicuously wasteful honorific expenditure that confers spiritual well-being may become more indispensable than much of that expenditure which ministers to the "lower" wants of physical well-being or sustenance only. it is notoriously just as difficult to recede from a "high" standard of living as it is to lower a standard which is already relatively low; although in the former case the difficulty is a moral one, while in the latter it may involve a material deduction from the physical comforts of life. but while retrogression is difficult, a fresh advance in conspicuous expenditure is relatively easy; indeed, it takes place almost as a matter of course. in the rare cases where it occurs, a failure to increase one's visible consumption when the means for an increase are at hand is felt in popular apprehension to call for explanation, and unworthy motives of miserliness are imputed to those who fall short in this respect. a prompt response to the stimulus, on the other hand, is accepted as the normal effect. this suggests that the standard of expenditure which commonly guides our efforts is not the average, ordinary expenditure already achieved; it is an ideal of consumption that lies just beyond our reach, or to reach which requires some strain. the motive is emulation--the stimulus of an invidious comparison which prompts us to outdo those with whom we are in the habit of classing ourselves. substantially the same proposition is expressed in the commonplace remark that each class envies and emulates the class next above it in the social scale, while it rarely compares itself with those below or with those who are considerably in advance. that is to say, in other words, our standard of decency in expenditure, as in other ends of emulation, is set by the usage of those next above us in reputability; until, in this way, especially in any community where class distinctions are somewhat vague, all canons of reputability and decency, and all standards of consumption, are traced back by insensible gradations to the usages and habits of thought of the highest social and pecuniary class--the wealthy leisure class. it is for this class to determine, in general outline, what scheme of life the community shall accept as decent or honorific; and it is their office by precept and example to set forth this scheme of social salvation in its highest, ideal form. but the higher leisure class can exercise this quasi-sacerdotal office only under certain material limitations. the class cannot at discretion effect a sudden revolution or reversal of the popular habits of thought with respect to any of these ceremonial requirements. it takes time for any change to permeate the mass and change the habitual attitude of the people; and especially it takes time to change the habits of those classes that are socially more remote from the radiant body. the process is slower where the mobility of the population is less or where the intervals between the several classes are wider and more abrupt. but if time be allowed, the scope of the discretion of the leisure class as regards questions of form and detail in the community's scheme of life is large; while as regards the substantial principles of reputability, the changes which it can effect lie within a narrow margin of tolerance. its example and precept carries the force of prescription for all classes below it; but in working out the precepts which are handed down as governing the form and method of reputability--in shaping the usages and the spiritual attitude of the lower classes--this authoritative prescription constantly works under the selective guidance of the canon of conspicuous waste, tempered in varying degree by the instinct of workmanship. to those norms is to be added another broad principle of human nature--the predatory animus--which in point of generality and of psychological content lies between the two just named. the effect of the latter in shaping the accepted scheme of life is yet to be discussed. the canon of reputability, then, must adapt itself to the economic circumstances, the traditions, and the degree of spiritual maturity of the particular class whose scheme of life it is to regulate. it is especially to be noted that however high its authority and however true to the fundamental requirements of reputability it may have been at its inception, a specific formal observance can under no circumstances maintain itself in force if with the lapse of time or on its transmission to a lower pecuniary class it is found to run counter to the ultimate ground of decency among civilized peoples, namely, serviceability for the purpose of an invidious comparison in pecuniary success. it is evident that these canons of expenditure have much to say in determining the standard of living for any community and for any class. it is no less evident that the standard of living which prevails at any time or at any given social altitude will in its turn have much to say as to the forms which honorific expenditure will take, and as to the degree to which this "higher" need will dominate a people's consumption. in this respect the control exerted by the accepted standard of living is chiefly of a negative character; it acts almost solely to prevent recession from a scale of conspicuous expenditure that has once become habitual. a standard of living is of the nature of habit. it is an habitual scale and method of responding to given stimuli. the difficulty in the way of receding from an accustomed standard is the difficulty of breaking a habit that has once been formed. the relative facility with which an advance in the standard is made means that the life process is a process of unfolding activity and that it will readily unfold in a new direction whenever and wherever the resistance to self-expression decreases. but when the habit of expression along such a given line of low resistance has once been formed, the discharge will seek the accustomed outlet even after a change has taken place in the environment whereby the external resistance has appreciably risen. that heightened facility of expression in a given direction which is called habit may offset a considerable increase in the resistance offered by external circumstances to the unfolding of life in the given direction. as between the various habits, or habitual modes and directions of expression, which go to make up an individual's standard of living, there is an appreciable difference in point of persistence under counteracting circumstances and in point of the degree of imperativeness with which the discharge seeks a given direction. that is to say, in the language of current economic theory, while men are reluctant to retrench their expenditures in any direction, they are more reluctant to retrench in some directions than in others; so that while any accustomed consumption is reluctantly given up, there are certain lines of consumption which are given up with relatively extreme reluctance. the articles or forms of consumption to which the consumer clings with the greatest tenacity are commonly the so-called necessaries of life, or the subsistence minimum. the subsistence minimum is of course not a rigidly determined allowance of goods, definite and invariable in kind and quantity; but for the purpose in hand it may be taken to comprise a certain, more or less definite, aggregate of consumption required for the maintenance of life. this minimum, it may be assumed, is ordinarily given up last in case of a progressive retrenchment of expenditure. that is to say, in a general way, the most ancient and ingrained of the habits which govern the individual's life--those habits that touch his existence as an organism--are the most persistent and imperative. beyond these come the higher wants--later-formed habits of the individual or the race--in a somewhat irregular and by no means invariable gradation. some of these higher wants, as for instance the habitual use of certain stimulants, or the need of salvation (in the eschatological sense), or of good repute, may in some cases take precedence of the lower or more elementary wants. in general, the longer the habituation, the more unbroken the habit, and the more nearly it coincides with previous habitual forms of the life process, the more persistently will the given habit assert itself. the habit will be stronger if the particular traits of human nature which its action involves, or the particular aptitudes that find exercise in it, are traits or aptitudes that are already largely and profoundly concerned in the life process or that are intimately bound up with the life history of the particular racial stock. the varying degrees of ease with which different habits are formed by different persons, as well as the varying degrees of reluctance with which different habits are given up, goes to say that the formation of specific habits is not a matter of length of habituation simply. inherited aptitudes and traits of temperament count for quite as much as length of habituation in deciding what range of habits will come to dominate any individual's scheme of life. and the prevalent type of transmitted aptitudes, or in other words the type of temperament belonging to the dominant ethnic element in any community, will go far to decide what will be the scope and form of expression of the community's habitual life process. how greatly the transmitted idiosyncrasies of aptitude may count in the way of a rapid and definitive formation of habit in individuals is illustrated by the extreme facility with which an all-dominating habit of alcoholism is sometimes formed; or in the similar facility and the similarly inevitable formation of a habit of devout observances in the case of persons gifted with a special aptitude in that direction. much the same meaning attaches to that peculiar facility of habituation to a specific human environment that is called romantic love. men differ in respect of transmitted aptitudes, or in respect of the relative facility with which they unfold their life activity in particular directions; and the habits which coincide with or proceed upon a relatively strong specific aptitude or a relatively great specific facility of expression become of great consequence to the man's well-being. the part played by this element of aptitude in determining the relative tenacity of the several habits which constitute the standard of living goes to explain the extreme reluctance with which men give up any habitual expenditure in the way of conspicuous consumption. the aptitudes or propensities to which a habit of this kind is to be referred as its ground are those aptitudes whose exercise is comprised in emulation; and the propensity for emulation--for invidious comparison--is of ancient growth and is a pervading trait of human nature. it is easily called into vigorous activity in any new form, and it asserts itself with great insistence under any form under which it has once found habitual expression. when the individual has once formed the habit of seeking expression in a given line of honorific expenditure--when a given set of stimuli have come to be habitually responded to in activity of a given kind and direction under the guidance of these alert and deep-reaching propensities of emulation--it is with extreme reluctance that such an habitual expenditure is given up. and on the other hand, whenever an accession of pecuniary strength puts the individual in a position to unfold his life process in larger scope and with additional reach, the ancient propensities of the race will assert themselves in determining the direction which the new unfolding of life is to take. and those propensities which are already actively in the field under some related form of expression, which are aided by the pointed suggestions afforded by a current accredited scheme of life, and for the exercise of which the material means and opportunities are readily available--these will especially have much to say in shaping the form and direction in which the new accession to the individual's aggregate force will assert itself. that is to say, in concrete terms, in any community where conspicuous consumption is an element of the scheme of life, an increase in an individual's ability to pay is likely to take the form of an expenditure for some accredited line of conspicuous consumption. with the exception of the instinct of self-preservation, the propensity for emulation is probably the strongest and most alert and persistent of the economic motives proper. in an industrial community this propensity for emulation expresses itself in pecuniary emulation; and this, so far as regards the western civilized communities of the present, is virtually equivalent to saying that it expresses itself in some form of conspicuous waste. the need of conspicuous waste, therefore, stands ready to absorb any increase in the community's industrial efficiency or output of goods, after the most elementary physical wants have been provided for. where this result does not follow, under modern conditions, the reason for the discrepancy is commonly to be sought in a rate of increase in the individual's wealth too rapid for the habit of expenditure to keep abreast of it; or it may be that the individual in question defers the conspicuous consumption of the increment to a later date--ordinarily with a view to heightening the spectacular effect of the aggregate expenditure contemplated. as increased industrial efficiency makes it possible to procure the means of livelihood with less labor, the energies of the industrious members of the community are bent to the compassing of a higher result in conspicuous expenditure, rather than slackened to a more comfortable pace. the strain is not lightened as industrial efficiency increases and makes a lighter strain possible, but the increment of output is turned to use to meet this want, which is indefinitely expansible, after the manner commonly imputed in economic theory to higher or spiritual wants. it is owing chiefly to the presence of this element in the standard of living that j. s. mill was able to say that "hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being." the accepted standard of expenditure in the community or in the class to which a person belongs largely determines what his standard of living will be. it does this directly by commending itself to his common sense as right and good, through his habitually contemplating it and assimilating the scheme of life in which it belongs; but it does so also indirectly through popular insistence on conformity to the accepted scale of expenditure as a matter of propriety, under pain of disesteem and ostracism. to accept and practice the standard of living which is in vogue is both agreeable and expedient, commonly to the point of being indispensable to personal comfort and to success in life. the standard of living of any class, so far as concerns the element of conspicuous waste, is commonly as high as the earning capacity of the class will permit--with a constant tendency to go higher. the effect upon the serious activities of men is therefore to direct them with great singleness of purpose to the largest possible acquisition of wealth, and to discountenance work that brings no pecuniary gain. at the same time the effect on consumption is to concentrate it upon the lines which are most patent to the observers whose good opinion is sought; while the inclinations and aptitudes whose exercise does not involve a honorific expenditure of time or substance tend to fall into abeyance through disuse. through this discrimination in favor of visible consumption it has come about that the domestic life of most classes is relatively shabby, as compared with the ã©clat of that overt portion of their life that is carried on before the eyes of observers. as a secondary consequence of the same discrimination, people habitually screen their private life from observation. so far as concerns that portion of their consumption that may without blame be carried on in secret, they withdraw from all contact with their neighbors, hence the exclusiveness of people, as regards their domestic life, in most of the industrially developed communities; and hence, by remoter derivation, the habit of privacy and reserve that is so large a feature in the code of proprieties of the better class in all communities. the low birthrate of the classes upon whom the requirements of reputable expenditure fall with great urgency is likewise traceable to the exigencies of a standard of living based on conspicuous waste. the conspicuous consumption, and the consequent increased expense, required in the reputable maintenance of a child is very considerable and acts as a powerful deterrent. it is probably the most effectual of the malthusian prudential checks. the effect of this factor of the standard of living, both in the way of retrenchment in the obscurer elements of consumption that go to physical comfort and maintenance, and also in the paucity or absence of children, is perhaps seen at its best among the classes given to scholarly pursuits. because of a presumed superiority and scarcity of the gifts and attainments that characterize their life, these classes are by convention subsumed under a higher social grade than their pecuniary grade should warrant. the scale of decent expenditure in their case is pitched correspondingly high, and it consequently leaves an exceptionally narrow margin disposable for the other ends of life. by force of circumstances, their habitual sense of what is good and right in these matters, as well as the expectations of the community in the way of pecuniary decency among the learned, are excessively high--as measured by the prevalent degree of opulence and earning capacity of the class, relatively to the non-scholarly classes whose social equals they nominally are. in any modern community where there is no priestly monopoly of these occupations, the people of scholarly pursuits are unavoidably thrown into contact with classes that are pecuniarily their superiors. the high standard of pecuniary decency in force among these superior classes is transfused among the scholarly classes with but little mitigation of its rigor; and as a consequence there is no class of the community that spends a larger proportion of its substance in conspicuous waste than these. chapter six ~~ pecuniary canons of taste the caution has already been repeated more than once, that while the regulating norm of consumption is in large part the requirement of conspicuous waste, it must not be understood that the motive on which the consumer acts in any given case is this principle in its bald, unsophisticated form. ordinarily his motive is a wish to conform to established usage, to avoid unfavorable notice and comment, to live up to the accepted canons of decency in the kind, amount, and grade of goods consumed, as well as in the decorous employment of his time and effort. in the common run of cases this sense of prescriptive usage is present in the motives of the consumer and exerts a direct constraining force, especially as regards consumption carried on under the eyes of observers. but a considerable element of prescriptive expensiveness is observable also in consumption that does not in any appreciable degree become known to outsiders--as, for instance, articles of underclothing, some articles of food, kitchen utensils, and other household apparatus designed for service rather than for evidence. in all such useful articles a close scrutiny will discover certain features which add to the cost and enhance the commercial value of the goods in question, but do not proportionately increase the serviceability of these articles for the material purposes which alone they ostensibly are designed to serve. under the selective surveillance of the law of conspicuous waste there grows up a code of accredited canons of consumption, the effect of which is to hold the consumer up to a standard of expensiveness and wastefulness in his consumption of goods and in his employment of time and effort. this growth of prescriptive usage has an immediate effect upon economic life, but it has also an indirect and remoter effect upon conduct in other respects as well. habits of thought with respect to the expression of life in any given direction unavoidably affect the habitual view of what is good and right in life in other directions also. in the organic complex of habits of thought which make up the substance of an individual's conscious life the economic interest does not lie isolated and distinct from all other interests. something, for instance, has already been said of its relation to the canons of reputability. the principle of conspicuous waste guides the formation of habits of thought as to what is honest and reputable in life and in commodities. in so doing, this principle will traverse other norms of conduct which do not primarily have to do with the code of pecuniary honor, but which have, directly or incidentally, an economic significance of some magnitude. so the canon of honorific waste may, immediately or remotely, influence the sense of duty, the sense of beauty, the sense of utility, the sense of devotional or ritualistic fitness, and the scientific sense of truth. it is scarcely necessary to go into a discussion here of the particular points at which, or the particular manner in which, the canon of honorific expenditure habitually traverses the canons of moral conduct. the matter is one which has received large attention and illustration at the hands of those whose office it is to watch and admonish with respect to any departures from the accepted code of morals. in modern communities, where the dominant economic and legal feature of the community's life is the institution of private property, one of the salient features of the code of morals is the sacredness of property. there needs no insistence or illustration to gain assent to the proposition that the habit of holding private property inviolate is traversed by the other habit of seeking wealth for the sake of the good repute to be gained through its conspicuous consumption. most offenses against property, especially offenses of an appreciable magnitude, come under this head. it is also a matter of common notoriety and byword that in offenses which result in a large accession of property to the offender he does not ordinarily incur the extreme penalty or the extreme obloquy with which his offenses would be visited on the ground of the naive moral code alone. the thief or swindler who has gained great wealth by his delinquency has a better chance than the small thief of escaping the rigorous penalty of the law and some good repute accrues to him from his increased wealth and from his spending the irregularly acquired possessions in a seemly manner. a well-bred expenditure of his booty especially appeals with great effect to persons of a cultivated sense of the proprieties, and goes far to mitigate the sense of moral turpitude with which his dereliction is viewed by them. it may be noted also--and it is more immediately to the point--that we are all inclined to condone an offense against property in the case of a man whose motive is the worthy one of providing the means of a "decent" manner of life for his wife and children. if it is added that the wife has been "nurtured in the lap of luxury," that is accepted as an additional extenuating circumstance. that is to say, we are prone to condone such an offense where its aim is the honorific one of enabling the offender's wife to perform for him such an amount of vicarious consumption of time and substance as is demanded by the standard of pecuniary decency. in such a case the habit of approving the accustomed degree of conspicuous waste traverses the habit of deprecating violations of ownership, to the extent even of sometimes leaving the award of praise or blame uncertain. this is peculiarly true where the dereliction involves an appreciable predatory or piratical element. this topic need scarcely be pursued further here; but the remark may not be out of place that all that considerable body of morals that clusters about the concept of an inviolable ownership is itself a psychological precipitate of the traditional meritoriousness of wealth. and it should be added that this wealth which is held sacred is valued primarily for the sake of the good repute to be got through its conspicuous consumption. the bearing of pecuniary decency upon the scientific spirit or the quest of knowledge will be taken up in some detail in a separate chapter. also as regards the sense of devout or ritual merit and adequacy in this connection, little need be said in this place. that topic will also come up incidentally in a later chapter. still, this usage of honorific expenditure has much to say in shaping popular tastes as to what is right and meritorious in sacred matters, and the bearing of the principle of conspicuous waste upon some of the commonplace devout observances and conceits may therefore be pointed out. obviously, the canon of conspicuous waste is accountable for a great portion of what may be called devout consumption; as, e.g., the consumption of sacred edifices, vestments, and other goods of the same class. even in those modern cults to whose divinities is imputed a predilection for temples not built with hands, the sacred buildings and the other properties of the cult are constructed and decorated with some view to a reputable degree of wasteful expenditure. and it needs but little either of observation or introspection--and either will serve the turn--to assure us that the expensive splendor of the house of worship has an appreciable uplifting and mellowing effect upon the worshipper's frame of mind. it will serve to enforce the same fact if we reflect upon the sense of abject shamefulness with which any evidence of indigence or squalor about the sacred place affects all beholders. the accessories of any devout observance should be pecuniarily above reproach. this requirement is imperative, whatever latitude may be allowed with regard to these accessories in point of aesthetic or other serviceability. it may also be in place to notice that in all communities, especially in neighborhoods where the standard of pecuniary decency for dwellings is not high, the local sanctuary is more ornate, more conspicuously wasteful in its architecture and decoration, than the dwelling houses of the congregation. this is true of nearly all denominations and cults, whether christian or pagan, but it is true in a peculiar degree of the older and maturer cults. at the same time the sanctuary commonly contributes little if anything to the physical comfort of the members. indeed, the sacred structure not only serves the physical well-being of the members to but a slight extent, as compared with their humbler dwelling-houses; but it is felt by all men that a right and enlightened sense of the true, the beautiful, and the good demands that in all expenditure on the sanctuary anything that might serve the comfort of the worshipper should be conspicuously absent. if any element of comfort is admitted in the fittings of the sanctuary, it should be at least scrupulously screened and masked under an ostensible austerity. in the most reputable latter-day houses of worship, where no expense is spared, the principle of austerity is carried to the length of making the fittings of the place a means of mortifying the flesh, especially in appearance. there are few persons of delicate tastes, in the matter of devout consumption to whom this austerely wasteful discomfort does not appeal as intrinsically right and good. devout consumption is of the nature of vicarious consumption. this canon of devout austerity is based on the pecuniary reputability of conspicuously wasteful consumption, backed by the principle that vicarious consumption should conspicuously not conduce to the comfort of the vicarious consumer. the sanctuary and its fittings have something of this austerity in all the cults in which the saint or divinity to whom the sanctuary pertains is not conceived to be present and make personal use of the property for the gratification of luxurious tastes imputed to him. the character of the sacred paraphernalia is somewhat different in this respect in those cults where the habits of life imputed to the divinity more nearly approach those of an earthly patriarchal potentate--where he is conceived to make use of these consumable goods in person. in the latter case the sanctuary and its fittings take on more of the fashion given to goods destined for the conspicuous consumption of a temporal master or owner. on the other hand, where the sacred apparatus is simply employed in the divinity's service, that is to say, where it is consumed vicariously on his account by his servants, there the sacred properties take the character suited to goods that are destined for vicarious consumption only. in the latter case the sanctuary and the sacred apparatus are so contrived as not to enhance the comfort or fullness of life of the vicarious consumer, or at any rate not to convey the impression that the end of their consumption is the consumer's comfort. for the end of vicarious consumption is to enhance, not the fullness of life of the consumer, but the pecuniary repute of the master for whose behoof the consumption takes place. therefore priestly vestments are notoriously expensive, ornate, and inconvenient; and in the cults where the priestly servitor of the divinity is not conceived to serve him in the capacity of consort, they are of an austere, comfortless fashion. and such it is felt that they should be. it is not only in establishing a devout standard of decent expensiveness that the principle of waste invades the domain of the canons of ritual serviceability. it touches the ways as well as the means, and draws on vicarious leisure as well as on vicarious consumption. priestly demeanor at its best is aloof, leisurely, perfunctory, and uncontaminated with suggestions of sensuous pleasure. this holds true, in different degrees of course, for the different cults and denominations; but in the priestly life of all anthropomorphic cults the marks of a vicarious consumption of time are visible. the same pervading canon of vicarious leisure is also visibly present in the exterior details of devout observances and need only be pointed out in order to become obvious to all beholders. all ritual has a notable tendency to reduce itself to a rehearsal of formulas. this development of formula is most noticeable in the maturer cults, which have at the same time a more austere, ornate, and severe priestly life and garb; but it is perceptible also in the forms and methods of worship of the newer and fresher sects, whose tastes in respect of priests, vestments, and sanctuaries are less exacting. the rehearsal of the service (the term "service" carries a suggestion significant for the point in question) grows more perfunctory as the cult gains in age and consistency, and this perfunctoriness of the rehearsal is very pleasing to the correct devout taste. and with a good reason, for the fact of its being perfunctory goes to say pointedly that the master for whom it is performed is exalted above the vulgar need of actually proficuous service on the part of his servants. they are unprofitable servants, and there is an honorific implication for their master in their remaining unprofitable. it is needless to point out the close analogy at this point between the priestly office and the office of the footman. it is pleasing to our sense of what is fitting in these matters, in either case, to recognize in the obvious perfunctoriness of the service that it is a pro forma execution only. there should be no show of agility or of dexterous manipulation in the execution of the priestly office, such as might suggest a capacity for turning off the work. in all this there is of course an obvious implication as to the temperament, tastes, propensities, and habits of life imputed to the divinity by worshippers who live under the tradition of these pecuniary canons of reputability. through its pervading men's habits of thought, the principle of conspicuous waste has colored the worshippers' notions of the divinity and of the relation in which the human subject stands to him. it is of course in the more naive cults that this suffusion of pecuniary beauty is most patent, but it is visible throughout. all peoples, at whatever stage of culture or degree of enlightenment, are fain to eke out a sensibly scant degree of authentic formation regarding the personality and habitual surroundings of their divinities. in so calling in the aid of fancy to enrich and fill in their picture of the divinity's presence and manner of life they habitually impute to him such traits as go to make up their ideal of a worthy man. and in seeking communion with the divinity the ways and means of approach are assimilated as nearly as may be to the divine ideal that is in men's minds at the time. it is felt that the divine presence is entered with the best grace, and with the best effect, according to certain accepted methods and with the accompaniment of certain material circumstances which in popular apprehension are peculiarly consonant with the divine nature. this popularly accepted ideal of the bearing and paraphernalia adequate to such occasions of communion is, of course, to a good extent shaped by the popular apprehension of what is intrinsically worthy and beautiful in human carriage and surroundings on all occasions of dignified intercourse. it would on this account be misleading to attempt an analysis of devout demeanor by referring all evidences of the presence of a pecuniary standard of reputability back directly and baldly to the underlying norm of pecuniary emulation. so it would also be misleading to ascribe to the divinity, as popularly conceived, a jealous regard for his pecuniary standing and a habit of avoiding and condemning squalid situations and surroundings simply because they are under grade in the pecuniary respect. and still, after all allowance has been made, it appears that the canons of pecuniary reputability do, directly or indirectly, materially affect our notions of the attributes of divinity, as well as our notions of what are the fit and adequate manner and circumstances of divine communion. it is felt that the divinity must be of a peculiarly serene and leisurely habit of life. and whenever his local habitation is pictured in poetic imagery, for edification or in appeal to the devout fancy, the devout word-painter, as a matter of course, brings out before his auditors' imagination a throne with a profusion of the insignia of opulence and power, and surrounded by a great number of servitors. in the common run of such presentations of the celestial abodes, the office of this corps of servants is a vicarious leisure, their time and efforts being in great measure taken up with an industrially unproductive rehearsal of the meritorious characteristics and exploits of the divinity; while the background of the presentation is filled with the shimmer of the precious metals and of the more expensive varieties of precious stones. it is only in the crasser expressions of devout fancy that this intrusion of pecuniary canons into the devout ideals reaches such an extreme. an extreme case occurs in the devout imagery of the negro population of the south. their word-painters are unable to descend to anything cheaper than gold; so that in this case the insistence on pecuniary beauty gives a startling effect in yellow--such as would be unbearable to a soberer taste. still, there is probably no cult in which ideals of pecuniary merit have not been called in to supplement the ideals of ceremonial adequacy that guide men's conception of what is right in the matter of sacred apparatus. similarly it is felt--and the sentiment is acted upon--that the priestly servitors of the divinity should not engage in industrially productive work; that work of any kind--any employment which is of tangible human use--must not be carried on in the divine presence, or within the precincts of the sanctuary; that whoever comes into the presence should come cleansed of all profane industrial features in his apparel or person, and should come clad in garments of more than everyday expensiveness; that on holidays set apart in honor of or for communion with the divinity no work that is of human use should be performed by any one. even the remoter, lay dependents should render a vicarious leisure to the extent of one day in seven. in all these deliverances of men's uninstructed sense of what is fit and proper in devout observance and in the relations of the divinity, the effectual presence of the canons of pecuniary reputability is obvious enough, whether these canons have had their effect on the devout judgment in this respect immediately or at the second remove. these canons of reputability have had a similar, but more far-reaching and more specifically determinable, effect upon the popular sense of beauty or serviceability in consumable goods. the requirements of pecuniary decency have, to a very appreciable extent, influenced the sense of beauty and of utility in articles of use or beauty. articles are to an extent preferred for use on account of their being conspicuously wasteful; they are felt to be serviceable somewhat in proportion as they are wasteful and ill adapted to their ostensible use. the utility of articles valued for their beauty depends closely upon the expensiveness of the articles. a homely illustration will bring out this dependence. a hand-wrought silver spoon, of a commercial value of some ten to twenty dollars, is not ordinarily more serviceable--in the first sense of the word--than a machine-made spoon of the same material. it may not even be more serviceable than a machine-made spoon of some "base" metal, such as aluminum, the value of which may be no more than some ten to twenty cents. the former of the two utensils is, in fact, commonly a less effective contrivance for its ostensible purpose than the latter. the objection is of course ready to hand that, in taking this view of the matter, one of the chief uses, if not the chief use, of the costlier spoon is ignored; the hand-wrought spoon gratifies our taste, our sense of the beautiful, while that made by machinery out of the base metal has no useful office beyond a brute efficiency. the facts are no doubt as the objection states them, but it will be evident on rejection that the objection is after all more plausible than conclusive. it appears (1) that while the different materials of which the two spoons are made each possesses beauty and serviceability for the purpose for which it is used, the material of the hand-wrought spoon is some one hundred times more valuable than the baser metal, without very greatly excelling the latter in intrinsic beauty of grain or color, and without being in any appreciable degree superior in point of mechanical serviceability; (2) if a close inspection should show that the supposed hand-wrought spoon were in reality only a very clever citation of hand-wrought goods, but an imitation so cleverly wrought as to give the same impression of line and surface to any but a minute examination by a trained eye, the utility of the article, including the gratification which the user derives from its contemplation as an object of beauty, would immediately decline by some eighty or ninety per cent, or even more; (3) if the two spoons are, to a fairly close observer, so nearly identical in appearance that the lighter weight of the spurious article alone betrays it, this identity of form and color will scarcely add to the value of the machine-made spoon, nor appreciably enhance the gratification of the user's "sense of beauty" in contemplating it, so long as the cheaper spoon is not a novelty, ad so long as it can be procured at a nominal cost. the case of the spoons is typical. the superior gratification derived from the use and contemplation of costly and supposedly beautiful products is, commonly, in great measure a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty. our higher appreciation of the superior article is an appreciation of its superior honorific character, much more frequently than it is an unsophisticated appreciation of its beauty. the requirement of conspicuous wastefulness is not commonly present, consciously, in our canons of taste, but it is none the less present as a constraining norm selectively shaping and sustaining our sense of what is beautiful, and guiding our discrimination with respect to what may legitimately be approved as beautiful and what may not. it is at this point, where the beautiful and the honorific meet and blend, that a discrimination between serviceability and wastefulness is most difficult in any concrete case. it frequently happens that an article which serves the honorific purpose of conspicuous waste is at the same time a beautiful object; and the same application of labor to which it owes its utility for the former purpose may, and often does, give beauty of form and color to the article. the question is further complicated by the fact that many objects, as, for instance, the precious stones and the metals and some other materials used for adornment and decoration, owe their utility as items of conspicuous waste to an antecedent utility as objects of beauty. gold, for instance, has a high degree of sensuous beauty very many if not most of the highly prized works of art are intrinsically beautiful, though often with material qualification; the like is true of some stuffs used for clothing, of some landscapes, and of many other things in less degree. except for this intrinsic beauty which they possess, these objects would scarcely have been coveted as they are, or have become monopolized objects of pride to their possessors and users. but the utility of these things to the possessor is commonly due less to their intrinsic beauty than to the honor which their possession and consumption confers, or to the obloquy which it wards off. apart from their serviceability in other respects, these objects are beautiful and have a utility as such; they are valuable on this account if they can be appropriated or monopolized; they are, therefore, coveted as valuable possessions, and their exclusive enjoyment gratifies the possessor's sense of pecuniary superiority at the same time that their contemplation gratifies his sense of beauty. but their beauty, in the naive sense of the word, is the occasion rather than the ground of their monopolization or of their commercial value. "great as is the sensuous beauty of gems, their rarity and price adds an expression of distinction to them, which they would never have if they were cheap." there is, indeed, in the common run of cases under this head, relatively little incentive to the exclusive possession and use of these beautiful things, except on the ground of their honorific character as items of conspicuous waste. most objects of this general class, with the partial exception of articles of personal adornment, would serve all other purposes than the honorific one equally well, whether owned by the person viewing them or not; and even as regards personal ornaments it is to be added that their chief purpose is to lend ã©clat to the person of their wearer (or owner) by comparison with other persons who are compelled to do without. the aesthetic serviceability of objects of beauty is not greatly nor universally heightened by possession. the generalization for which the discussion so far affords ground is that any valuable object in order to appeal to our sense of beauty must conform to the requirements of beauty and of expensiveness both. but this is not all. beyond this the canon of expensiveness also affects our tastes in such a way as to inextricably blend the marks of expensiveness, in our appreciation, with the beautiful features of the object, and to subsume the resultant effect under the head of an appreciation of beauty simply. the marks of expensiveness come to be accepted as beautiful features of the expensive articles. they are pleasing as being marks of honorific costliness, and the pleasure which they afford on this score blends with that afforded by the beautiful form and color of the object; so that we often declare that an article of apparel, for instance, is "perfectly lovely," when pretty much all that an analysis of the aesthetic value of the article would leave ground for is the declaration that it is pecuniarily honorific. this blending and confusion of the elements of expensiveness and of beauty is, perhaps, best exemplified in articles of dress and of household furniture. the code of reputability in matters of dress decides what shapes, colors, materials, and general effects in human apparel are for the time to be accepted as suitable; and departures from the code are offensive to our taste, supposedly as being departures from aesthetic truth. the approval with which we look upon fashionable attire is by no means to be accounted pure make-believe. we readily, and for the most part with utter sincerity, find those things pleasing that are in vogue. shaggy dress-stuffs and pronounced color effects, for instance, offend us at times when the vogue is goods of a high, glossy finish and neutral colors. a fancy bonnet of this year's model unquestionably appeals to our sensibilities today much more forcibly than an equally fancy bonnet of the model of last year; although when viewed in the perspective of a quarter of a century, it would, i apprehend, be a matter of the utmost difficulty to award the palm for intrinsic beauty to the one rather than to the other of these structures. so, again, it may be remarked that, considered simply in their physical juxtaposition with the human form, the high gloss of a gentleman's hat or of a patent-leather shoe has no more of intrinsic beauty than a similarly high gloss on a threadbare sleeve; and yet there is no question but that all well-bred people (in the occidental civilized communities) instinctively and unaffectedly cleave to the one as a phenomenon of great beauty, and eschew the other as offensive to every sense to which it can appeal. it is extremely doubtful if any one could be induced to wear such a contrivance as the high hat of civilized society, except for some urgent reason based on other than aesthetic grounds. by further habituation to an appreciative perception of the marks of expensiveness in goods, and by habitually identifying beauty with reputability, it comes about that a beautiful article which is not expensive is accounted not beautiful. in this way it has happened, for instance, that some beautiful flowers pass conventionally for offensive weeds; others that can be cultivated with relative ease are accepted and admired by the lower middle class, who can afford no more expensive luxuries of this kind; but these varieties are rejected as vulgar by those people who are better able to pay for expensive flowers and who are educated to a higher schedule of pecuniary beauty in the florist's products; while still other flowers, of no greater intrinsic beauty than these, are cultivated at great cost and call out much admiration from flower-lovers whose tastes have been matured under the critical guidance of a polite environment. the same variation in matters of taste, from one class of society to another, is visible also as regards many other kinds of consumable goods, as, for example, is the case with furniture, houses, parks, and gardens. this diversity of views as to what is beautiful in these various classes of goods is not a diversity of the norm according to which the unsophisticated sense of the beautiful works. it is not a constitutional difference of endowments in the aesthetic respect, but rather a difference in the code of reputability which specifies what objects properly lie within the scope of honorific consumption for the class to which the critic belongs. it is a difference in the traditions of propriety with respect to the kinds of things which may, without derogation to the consumer, be consumed under the head of objects of taste and art. with a certain allowance for variations to be accounted for on other grounds, these traditions are determined, more or less rigidly, by the pecuniary plane of life of the class. everyday life affords many curious illustrations of the way in which the code of pecuniary beauty in articles of use varies from class to class, as well as of the way in which the conventional sense of beauty departs in its deliverances from the sense untutored by the requirements of pecuniary repute. such a fact is the lawn, or the close-cropped yard or park, which appeals so unaffectedly to the taste of the western peoples. it appears especially to appeal to the tastes of the well-to-do classes in those communities in which the dolicho-blond element predominates in an appreciable degree. the lawn unquestionably has an element of sensuous beauty, simply as an object of apperception, and as such no doubt it appeals pretty directly to the eye of nearly all races and all classes; but it is, perhaps, more unquestionably beautiful to the eye of the dolicho-blond than to most other varieties of men. this higher appreciation of a stretch of greensward in this ethnic element than in the other elements of the population, goes along with certain other features of the dolicho-blond temperament that indicate that this racial element had once been for a long time a pastoral people inhabiting a region with a humid climate. the close-cropped lawn is beautiful in the eyes of a people whose inherited bent it is to readily find pleasure in contemplating a well-preserved pasture or grazing land. for the aesthetic purpose the lawn is a cow pasture; and in some cases today--where the expensiveness of the attendant circumstances bars out any imputation of thrift--the idyl of the dolicho-blond is rehabilitated in the introduction of a cow into a lawn or private ground. in such cases the cow made use of is commonly of an expensive breed. the vulgar suggestion of thrift, which is nearly inseparable from the cow, is a standing objection to the decorative use of this animal. so that in all cases, except where luxurious surroundings negate this suggestion, the use of the cow as an object of taste must be avoided. where the predilection for some grazing animal to fill out the suggestion of the pasture is too strong to be suppressed, the cow's place is often given to some more or less inadequate substitute, such as deer, antelopes, or some such exotic beast. these substitutes, although less beautiful to the pastoral eye of western man than the cow, are in such cases preferred because of their superior expensiveness or futility, and their consequent repute. they are not vulgarly lucrative either in fact or in suggestion. public parks of course fall in the same category with the lawn; they too, at their best, are imitations of the pasture. such a park is of course best kept by grazing, and the cattle on the grass are themselves no mean addition to the beauty of the thing, as need scarcely be insisted on with anyone who has once seen a well-kept pasture. but it is worth noting, as an expression of the pecuniary element in popular taste, that such a method of keeping public grounds is seldom resorted to. the best that is done by skilled workmen under the supervision of a trained keeper is a more or less close imitation of a pasture, but the result invariably falls somewhat short of the artistic effect of grazing. but to the average popular apprehension a herd of cattle so pointedly suggests thrift and usefulness that their presence in the public pleasure ground would be intolerably cheap. this method of keeping grounds is comparatively inexpensive, therefore it is indecorous. of the same general bearing is another feature of public grounds. there is a studious exhibition of expensiveness coupled with a make-believe of simplicity and crude serviceability. private grounds also show the same physiognomy wherever they are in the management or ownership of persons whose tastes have been formed under middle-class habits of life or under the upper-class traditions of no later a date than the childhood of the generation that is now passing. grounds which conform to the instructed tastes of the latter-day upper class do not show these features in so marked a degree. the reason for this difference in tastes between the past and the incoming generation of the well-bred lies in the changing economic situation. a similar difference is perceptible in other respects, as well as in the accepted ideals of pleasure grounds. in this country as in most others, until the last half century but a very small proportion of the population were possessed of such wealth as would exempt them from thrift. owing to imperfect means of communication, this small fraction were scattered and out of effective touch with one another. there was therefore no basis for a growth of taste in disregard of expensiveness. the revolt of the well-bred taste against vulgar thrift was unchecked. wherever the unsophisticated sense of beauty might show itself sporadically in an approval of inexpensive or thrifty surroundings, it would lack the "social confirmation" which nothing but a considerable body of like-minded people can give. there was, therefore, no effective upper-class opinion that would overlook evidences of possible inexpensiveness in the management of grounds; and there was consequently no appreciable divergence between the leisure-class and the lower middle-class ideal in the physiognomy of pleasure grounds. both classes equally constructed their ideals with the fear of pecuniary disrepute before their eyes. today a divergence in ideals is beginning to be apparent. the portion of the leisure class that has been consistently exempt from work and from pecuniary cares for a generation or more is now large enough to form and sustain opinion in matters of taste. increased mobility of the members has also added to the facility with which a "social confirmation" can be attained within the class. within this select class the exemption from thrift is a matter so commonplace as to have lost much of its utility as a basis of pecuniary decency. therefore the latter-day upper-class canons of taste do not so consistently insist on an unremitting demonstration of expensiveness and a strict exclusion of the appearance of thrift. so, a predilection for the rustic and the "natural" in parks and grounds makes its appearance on these higher social and intellectual levels. this predilection is in large part an outcropping of the instinct of workmanship; and it works out its results with varying degrees of consistency. it is seldom altogether unaffected, and at times it shades off into something not widely different from that make-believe of rusticity which has been referred to above. a weakness for crudely serviceable contrivances that pointedly suggest immediate and wasteless use is present even in the middle-class tastes; but it is there kept well in hand under the unbroken dominance of the canon of reputable futility. consequently it works out in a variety of ways and means for shamming serviceability--in such contrivances as rustic fences, bridges, bowers, pavilions, and the like decorative features. an expression of this affectation of serviceability, at what is perhaps its widest divergence from the first promptings of the sense of economic beauty, is afforded by the cast-iron rustic fence and trellis or by a circuitous drive laid across level ground. the select leisure class has outgrown the use of these pseudo-serviceable variants of pecuniary beauty, at least at some points. but the taste of the more recent accessions to the leisure class proper and of the middle and lower classes still requires a pecuniary beauty to supplement the aesthetic beauty, even in those objects which are primarily admired for the beauty that belongs to them as natural growths. the popular taste in these matters is to be seen in the prevalent high appreciation of topiary work and of the conventional flower-beds of public grounds. perhaps as happy an illustration as may be had of this dominance of pecuniary beauty over aesthetic beauty in middle-class tastes is seen in the reconstruction of the grounds lately occupied by the columbian exposition. the evidence goes to show that the requirement of reputable expensiveness is still present in good vigor even where all ostensibly lavish display is avoided. the artistic effects actually wrought in this work of reconstruction diverge somewhat widely from the effect to which the same ground would have lent itself in hands not guided by pecuniary canons of taste. and even the better class of the city's population view the progress of the work with an unreserved approval which suggests that there is in this case little if any discrepancy between the tastes of the upper and the lower or middle classes of the city. the sense of beauty in the population of this representative city of the advanced pecuniary culture is very chary of any departure from its great cultural principle of conspicuous waste. the love of nature, perhaps itself borrowed from a higher-class code of taste, sometimes expresses itself in unexpected ways under the guidance of this canon of pecuniary beauty, and leads to results that may seem incongruous to an unreflecting beholder. the well-accepted practice of planting trees in the treeless areas of this country, for instance, has been carried over as an item of honorific expenditure into the heavily wooded areas; so that it is by no means unusual for a village or a farmer in the wooded country to clear the land of its native trees and immediately replant saplings of certain introduced varieties about the farmyard or along the streets. in this way a forest growth of oak, elm, beech, butternut, hemlock, basswood, and birch is cleared off to give room for saplings of soft maple, cottonwood, and brittle willow. it is felt that the inexpensiveness of leaving the forest trees standing would derogate from the dignity that should invest an article which is intended to serve a decorative and honorific end. the like pervading guidance of taste by pecuniary repute is traceable in the prevalent standards of beauty in animals. the part played by this canon of taste in assigning her place in the popular aesthetic scale to the cow has already been spokes of. something to the same effect is true of the other domestic animals, so far as they are in an appreciable degree industrially useful to the community--as, for instance, barnyard fowl, hogs, cattle, sheep, goats, draught-horses. they are of the nature of productive goods, and serve a useful, often a lucrative end; therefore beauty is not readily imputed to them. the case is different with those domestic animals which ordinarily serve no industrial end; such as pigeons, parrots and other cage-birds, cats, dogs, and fast horses. these commonly are items of conspicuous consumption, and are therefore honorific in their nature and may legitimately be accounted beautiful. this class of animals are conventionally admired by the body of the upper classes, while the pecuniarily lower classes--and that select minority of the leisure class among whom the rigorous canon that abjures thrift is in a measure obsolescent--find beauty in one class of animals as in another, without drawing a hard and fast line of pecuniary demarcation between the beautiful and the ugly. in the case of those domestic animals which are honorific and are reputed beautiful, there is a subsidiary basis of merit that should be spokes of. apart from the birds which belong in the honorific class of domestic animals, and which owe their place in this class to their non-lucrative character alone, the animals which merit particular attention are cats, dogs, and fast horses. the cat is less reputable than the other two just named, because she is less wasteful; she may even serve a useful end. at the same time the cat's temperament does not fit her for the honorific purpose. she lives with man on terms of equality, knows nothing of that relation of status which is the ancient basis of all distinctions of worth, honor, and repute, and she does not lend herself with facility to an invidious comparison between her owner and his neighbors. the exception to this last rule occurs in the case of such scarce and fanciful products as the angora cat, which have some slight honorific value on the ground of expensiveness, and have, therefore, some special claim to beauty on pecuniary grounds. the dog has advantages in the way of uselessness as well as in special gifts of temperament. he is often spoken of, in an eminent sense, as the friend of man, and his intelligence and fidelity are praised. the meaning of this is that the dog is man's servant and that he has the gift of an unquestioning subservience and a slave's quickness in guessing his master's mood. coupled with these traits, which fit him well for the relation of status--and which must for the present purpose be set down as serviceable traits--the dog has some characteristics which are of a more equivocal aesthetic value. he is the filthiest of the domestic animals in his person and the nastiest in his habits. for this he makes up is a servile, fawning attitude towards his master, and a readiness to inflict damage and discomfort on all else. the dog, then, commends himself to our favor by affording play to our propensity for mastery, and as he is also an item of expense, and commonly serves no industrial purpose, he holds a well-assured place in men's regard as a thing of good repute. the dog is at the same time associated in our imagination with the chase--a meritorious employment and an expression of the honorable predatory impulse. standing on this vantage ground, whatever beauty of form and motion and whatever commendable mental traits he may possess are conventionally acknowledged and magnified. and even those varieties of the dog which have been bred into grotesque deformity by the dog-fancier are in good faith accounted beautiful by many. these varieties of dogs--and the like is true of other fancy-bred animals--are rated and graded in aesthetic value somewhat in proportion to the degree of grotesqueness and instability of the particular fashion which the deformity takes in the given case. for the purpose in hand, this differential utility on the ground of grotesqueness and instability of structure is reducible to terms of a greater scarcity and consequent expense. the commercial value of canine monstrosities, such as the prevailing styles of pet dogs both for men's and women's use, rests on their high cost of production, and their value to their owners lies chiefly in their utility as items of conspicuous consumption. indirectly, through reflection upon their honorific expensiveness, a social worth is imputed to them; and so, by an easy substitution of words and ideas, they come to be admired and reputed beautiful. since any attention bestowed upon these animals is in no sense gainful or useful, it is also reputable; and since the habit of giving them attention is consequently not deprecated, it may grow into an habitual attachment of great tenacity and of a most benevolent character. so that in the affection bestowed on pet animals the canon of expensiveness is present more or less remotely as a norm which guides and shapes the sentiment and the selection of its object. the like is true, as will be noticed presently, with respect to affection for persons also; although the manner in which the norm acts in that case is somewhat different. the case of the fast horse is much like that of the dog. he is on the whole expensive, or wasteful and useless--for the industrial purpose. what productive use he may possess, in the way of enhancing the well-being of the community or making the way of life easier for men, takes the form of exhibitions of force and facility of motion that gratify the popular aesthetic sense. this is of course a substantial serviceability. the horse is not endowed with the spiritual aptitude for servile dependence in the same measure as the dog; but he ministers effectually to his master's impulse to convert the "animate" forces of the environment to his own use and discretion and so express his own dominating individuality through them. the fast horse is at least potentially a race-horse, of high or low degree; and it is as such that he is peculiarly serviceable to his owner. the utility of the fast horse lies largely in his efficiency as a means of emulation; it gratifies the owner's sense of aggression and dominance to have his own horse outstrip his neighbor's. this use being not lucrative, but on the whole pretty consistently wasteful, and quite conspicuously so, it is honorific, and therefore gives the fast horse a strong presumptive position of reputability. beyond this, the race-horse proper has also a similarly non-industrial but honorific use as a gambling instrument. the fast horse, then, is aesthetically fortunate, in that the canon of pecuniary good repute legitimates a free appreciation of whatever beauty or serviceability he may possess. his pretensions have the countenance of the principle of conspicuous waste and the backing of the predatory aptitude for dominance and emulation. the horse is, moreover, a beautiful animal, although the race-horse is so in no peculiar degree to the uninstructed taste of those persons who belong neither in the class of race-horse fanciers nor in the class whose sense of beauty is held in abeyance by the moral constraint of the horse fancier's award. to this untutored taste the most beautiful horse seems to be a form which has suffered less radical alteration than the race-horse under the breeder's selective development of the animal. still, when a writer or speaker--especially of those whose eloquence is most consistently commonplace wants an illustration of animal grace and serviceability, for rhetorical use, he habitually turns to the horse; and he commonly makes it plain before he is done that what he has in mind is the race-horse. it should be noted that in the graduated appreciation of varieties of horses and of dogs, such as one meets with among people of even moderately cultivated tastes in these matters, there is also discernible another and more direct line of influence of the leisure-class canons of reputability. in this country, for instance, leisure-class tastes are to some extent shaped on usages and habits which prevail, or which are apprehended to prevail, among the leisure class of great britain. in dogs this is true to a less extent than in horses. in horses, more particularly in saddle horses--which at their best serve the purpose of wasteful display simply--it will hold true in a general way that a horse is more beautiful in proportion as he is more english; the english leisure class being, for purposes of reputable usage, the upper leisure class of this country, and so the exemplar for the lower grades. this mimicry in the methods of the apperception of beauty and in the forming of judgments of taste need not result in a spurious, or at any rate not a hypocritical or affected, predilection. the predilection is as serious and as substantial an award of taste when it rests on this basis as when it rests on any other, the difference is that this taste is and as substantial an award of taste when it rests on this basis as when it rests on any other; the difference is that this taste is a taste for the reputably correct, not for the aesthetically true. the mimicry, it should be said, extends further than to the sense of beauty in horseflesh simply. it includes trappings and horsemanship as well, so that the correct or reputably beautiful seat or posture is also decided by english usage, as well as the equestrian gait. to show how fortuitous may sometimes be the circumstances which decide what shall be becoming and what not under the pecuniary canon of beauty, it may be noted that this english seat, and the peculiarly distressing gait which has made an awkward seat necessary, are a survival from the time when the english roads were so bad with mire and mud as to be virtually impassable for a horse travelling at a more comfortable gait; so that a person of decorous tastes in horsemanship today rides a punch with docked tail, in an uncomfortable posture and at a distressing gait, because the english roads during a great part of the last century were impassable for a horse travelling at a more horse-like gait, or for an animal built for moving with ease over the firm and open country to which the horse is indigenous. it is not only with respect to consumable goods--including domestic animals--that the canons of taste have been colored by the canons of pecuniary reputability. something to the like effect is to be said for beauty in persons. in order to avoid whatever may be matter of controversy, no weight will be given in this connection to such popular predilection as there may be for the dignified (leisurely) bearing and poly presence that are by vulgar tradition associated with opulence in mature men. these traits are in some measure accepted as elements of personal beauty. but there are certain elements of feminine beauty, on the other hand, which come in under this head, and which are of so concrete and specific a character as to admit of itemized appreciation. it is more or less a rule that in communities which are at the stage of economic development at which women are valued by the upper class for their service, the ideal of female beauty is a robust, large-limbed woman. the ground of appreciation is the physique, while the conformation of the face is of secondary weight only. a well-known instance of this ideal of the early predatory culture is that of the maidens of the homeric poems. this ideal suffers a change in the succeeding development, when, in the conventional scheme, the office of the high-class wife comes to be a vicarious leisure simply. the ideal then includes the characteristics which are supposed to result from or to go with a life of leisure consistently enforced. the ideal accepted under these circumstances may be gathered from descriptions of beautiful women by poets and writers of the chivalric times. in the conventional scheme of those days ladies of high degree were conceived to be in perpetual tutelage, and to be scrupulously exempt from all useful work. the resulting chivalric or romantic ideal of beauty takes cognizance chiefly of the face, and dwells on its delicacy, and on the delicacy of the hands and feet, the slender figure, and especially the slender waist. in the pictured representations of the women of that time, and in modern romantic imitators of the chivalric thought and feeling, the waist is attenuated to a degree that implies extreme debility. the same ideal is still extant among a considerable portion of the population of modern industrial communities; but it is to be said that it has retained its hold most tenaciously in those modern communities which are least advanced in point of economic and civil development, and which show the most considerable survivals of status and of predatory institutions. that is to say, the chivalric ideal is best preserved in those existing communities which are substantially least modern. survivals of this lackadaisical or romantic ideal occur freely in the tastes of the well-to-do classes of continental countries. in modern communities which have reached the higher levels of industrial development, the upper leisure class has accumulated so great a mass of wealth as to place its women above all imputation of vulgarly productive labor. here the status of women as vicarious consumers is beginning to lose its place in the sections of the body of the people; and as a consequence the ideal of feminine beauty is beginning to change back again from the infirmly delicate, translucent, and hazardously slender, to a woman of the archaic type that does not disown her hands and feet, nor, indeed, the other gross material facts of her person. in the course of economic development the ideal of beauty among the peoples of the western culture has shifted from the woman of physical presence to the lady, and it is beginning to shift back again to the woman; and all in obedience to the changing conditions of pecuniary emulation. the exigencies of emulation at one time required lusty slaves; at another time they required a conspicuous performance of vicarious leisure and consequently an obvious disability; but the situation is now beginning to outgrow this last requirement, since, under the higher efficiency of modern industry, leisure in women is possible so far down the scale of reputability that it will no longer serve as a definitive mark of the highest pecuniary grade. apart from this general control exercised by the norm of conspicuous waste over the ideal of feminine beauty, there are one or two details which merit specific mention as showing how it may exercise an extreme constraint in detail over men's sense of beauty in women. it has already been noticed that at the stages of economic evolution at which conspicuous leisure is much regarded as a means of good repute, the ideal requires delicate and diminutive hands and feet and a slender waist. these features, together with the other, related faults of structure that commonly go with them, go to show that the person so affected is incapable of useful effort and must therefore be supported in idleness by her owner. she is useless and expensive, and she is consequently valuable as evidence of pecuniary strength. it results that at this cultural stage women take thought to alter their persons, so as to conform more nearly to the requirements of the instructed taste of the time; and under the guidance of the canon of pecuniary decency, the men find the resulting artificially induced pathological features attractive. so, for instance, the constricted waist which has had so wide and persistent a vogue in the communities of the western culture, and so also the deformed foot of the chinese. both of these are mutilations of unquestioned repulsiveness to the untrained sense. it requires habituation to become reconciled to them. yet there is no room to question their attractiveness to men into whose scheme of life they fit as honorific items sanctioned by the requirements of pecuniary reputability. they are items of pecuniary and cultural beauty which have come to do duty as elements of the ideal of womanliness. the connection here indicated between the aesthetic value and the invidious pecuniary value of things is of course not present in the consciousness of the valuer. so far as a person, in forming a judgment of taste, takes thought and reflects that the object of beauty under consideration is wasteful and reputable, and therefore may legitimately be accounted beautiful; so far the judgment is not a bona fide judgment of taste and does not come up for consideration in this connection. the connection which is here insisted on between the reputability and the apprehended beauty of objects lies through the effect which the fact of reputability has upon the valuer's habits of thought. he is in the habit of forming judgments of value of various kinds-economic, moral, aesthetic, or reputable concerning the objects with which he has to do, and his attitude of commendation towards a given object on any other ground will affect the degree of his appreciation of the object when he comes to value it for the aesthetic purpose. this is more particularly true as regards valuation on grounds so closely related to the aesthetic ground as that of reputability. the valuation for the aesthetic purpose and for the purpose of repute are not held apart as distinctly as might be. confusion is especially apt to arise between these two kinds of valuation, because the value of objects for repute is not habitually distinguished in speech by the use of a special descriptive term. the result is that the terms in familiar use to designate categories or elements of beauty are applied to cover this unnamed element of pecuniary merit, and the corresponding confusion of ideas follows by easy consequence. the demands of reputability in this way coalesce in the popular apprehension with the demands of the sense of beauty, and beauty which is not accompanied by the accredited marks of good repute is not accepted. but the requirements of pecuniary reputability and those of beauty in the naive sense do not in any appreciable degree coincide. the elimination from our surroundings of the pecuniarily unfit, therefore, results in a more or less thorough elimination of that considerable range of elements of beauty which do not happen to conform to the pecuniary requirement. the underlying norms of taste are of very ancient growth, probably far antedating the advent of the pecuniary institutions that are here under discussion. consequently, by force of the past selective adaptation of men's habits of thought, it happens that the requirements of beauty, simply, are for the most part best satisfied by inexpensive contrivances and structures which in a straightforward manner suggest both the office which they are to perform and the method of serving their end. it may be in place to recall the modern psychological position. beauty of form seems to be a question of facility of apperception. the proposition could perhaps safely be made broader than this. if abstraction is made from association, suggestion, and "expression," classed as elements of beauty, then beauty in any perceived object means that the mind readily unfolds its apperceptive activity in the directions which the object in question affords. but the directions in which activity readily unfolds or expresses itself are the directions to which long and close habituation has made the mind prone. so far as concerns the essential elements of beauty, this habituation is an habituation so close and long as to have induced not only a proclivity to the apperceptive form in question, but an adaptation of physiological structure and function as well. so far as the economic interest enters into the constitution of beauty, it enters as a suggestion or expression of adequacy to a purpose, a manifest and readily inferable subservience to the life process. this expression of economic facility or economic serviceability in any object--what may be called the economic beauty of the object-is best served by neat and unambiguous suggestion of its office and its efficiency for the material ends of life. on this ground, among objects of use the simple and unadorned article is aesthetically the best. but since the pecuniary canon of reputability rejects the inexpensive in articles appropriated to individual consumption, the satisfaction of our craving for beautiful things must be sought by way of compromise. the canons of beauty must be circumvented by some contrivance which will give evidence of a reputably wasteful expenditure, at the same time that it meets the demands of our critical sense of the useful and the beautiful, or at least meets the demand of some habit which has come to do duty in place of that sense. such an auxiliary sense of taste is the sense of novelty; and this latter is helped out in its surrogateship by the curiosity with which men view ingenious and puzzling contrivances. hence it comes that most objects alleged to be beautiful, and doing duty as such, show considerable ingenuity of design and are calculated to puzzle the beholder--to bewilder him with irrelevant suggestions and hints of the improbable--at the same time that they give evidence of an expenditure of labor in excess of what would give them their fullest efficency for their ostensible economic end. this may be shown by an illustration taken from outside the range of our everyday habits and everyday contact, and so outside the range of our bias. such are the remarkable feather mantles of hawaii, or the well-known cawed handles of the ceremonial adzes of several polynesian islands. these are undeniably beautiful, both in the sense that they offer a pleasing composition of form, lines, and color, and in the sense that they evince great skill and ingenuity in design and construction. at the same time the articles are manifestly ill fitted to serve any other economic purpose. but it is not always that the evolution of ingenious and puzzling contrivances under the guidance of the canon of wasted effort works out so happy a result. the result is quite as often a virtually complete suppression of all elements that would bear scrutiny as expressions of beauty, or of serviceability, and the substitution of evidences of misspent ingenuity and labor, backed by a conspicuous ineptitude; until many of the objects with which we surround ourselves in everyday life, and even many articles of everyday dress and ornament, are such as would not be tolerated except under the stress of prescriptive tradition. illustrations of this substitution of ingenuity and expense in place of beauty and serviceability are to be seen, for instance, in domestic architecture, in domestic art or fancy work, in various articles of apparel, especially of feminine and priestly apparel. the canon of beauty requires expression of the generic. the "novelty" due to the demands of conspicuous waste traverses this canon of beauty, in that it results in making the physiognomy of our objects of taste a congeries of idiosyncrasies; and the idiosyncrasies are, moreover, under the selective surveillance of the canon of expensiveness. this process of selective adaptation of designs to the end of conspicuous waste, and the substitution of pecuniary beauty for aesthetic beauty, has been especially effective in the development of architecture. it would be extremely difficult to find a modern civilized residence or public building which can claim anything better than relative inoffensiveness in the eyes of anyone who will dissociate the elements of beauty from those of honorific waste. the endless variety of fronts presented by the better class of tenements and apartment houses in our cities is an endless variety of architectural distress and of suggestions of expensive discomfort. considered as objects of beauty, the dead walls of the sides and back of these structures, left untouched by the hands of the artist, are commonly the best feature of the building. what has been said of the influence of the law of conspicuous waste upon the canons of taste will hold true, with but a slight change of terms, of its influence upon our notions of the serviceability of goods for other ends than the aesthetic one. goods are produced and consumed as a means to the fuller unfolding of human life; and their utility consists, in the first instance, in their efficiency as means to this end. the end is, in the first instance, the fullness of life of the individual, taken in absolute terms. but the human proclivity to emulation has seized upon the consumption of goods as a means to an invidious comparison, and has thereby invested consumable goods with a secondary utility as evidence of relative ability to pay. this indirect or secondary use of consumable goods lends an honorific character to consumption and presently also to the goods which best serve the emulative end of consumption. the consumption of expensive goods is meritorious, and the goods which contain an appreciable element of cost in excess of what goes to give them serviceability for their ostensible mechanical purpose are honorific. the marks of superfluous costliness in the goods are therefore marks of worth--of high efficency for the indirect, invidious end to be served by their consumption; and conversely, goods are humilific, and therefore unattractive, if they show too thrifty an adaptation to the mechanical end sought and do not include a margin of expensiveness on which to rest a complacent invidious comparison. this indirect utility gives much of their value to the "better" grades of goods. in order to appeal to the cultivated sense of utility, an article must contain a modicum of this indirect utility. while men may have set out with disapproving an inexpensive manner of living because it indicated inability to spend much, and so indicated a lack of pecuniary success, they end by falling into the habit of disapproving cheap things as being intrinsically dishonorable or unworthy because they are cheap. as time has gone on, each succeeding generation has received this tradition of meritorious expenditure from the generation before it, and has in its turn further elaborated and fortified the traditional canon of pecuniary reputability in goods consumed; until we have finally reached such a degree of conviction as to the unworthiness of all inexpensive things, that we have no longer any misgivings in formulating the maxim, "cheap and nasty." so thoroughly has the habit of approving the expensive and disapproving the inexpensive been ingrained into our thinking that we instinctively insist upon at least some measure of wasteful expensiveness in all our consumption, even in the case of goods which are consumed in strict privacy and without the slightest thought of display. we all feel, sincerely and without misgiving, that we are the more lifted up in spirit for having, even in the privacy of our own household, eaten our daily meal by the help of hand-wrought silver utensils, from hand-painted china (often of dubious artistic value) laid on high-priced table linen. any retrogression from the standard of living which we are accustomed to regard as worthy in this respect is felt to be a grievous violation of our human dignity. so, also, for the last dozen years candles have been a more pleasing source of light at dinner than any other. candlelight is now softer, less distressing to well-bred eyes, than oil, gas, or electric light. the same could not have been said thirty years ago, when candles were, or recently had been, the cheapest available light for domestic use. nor are candles even now found to give an acceptable or effective light for any other than a ceremonial illumination. a political sage still living has summed up the conclusion of this whole matter in the dictum: "a cheap coat makes a cheap man," and there is probably no one who does not feel the convincing force of the maxim. the habit of looking for the marks of superfluous expensiveness in goods, and of requiring that all goods should afford some utility of the indirect or invidious sort, leads to a change in the standards by which the utility of goods is gauged. the honorific element and the element of brute efficiency are not held apart in the consumer's appreciation of commodities, and the two together go to make up the unanalyzed aggregate serviceability of the goods. under the resulting standard of serviceability, no article will pass muster on the strength of material sufficiency alone. in order to completeness and full acceptability to the consumer it must also show the honorific element. it results that the producers of articles of consumption direct their efforts to the production of goods that shall meet this demand for the honorific element. they will do this with all the more alacrity and effect, since they are themselves under the dominance of the same standard of worth in goods, and would be sincerely grieved at the sight of goods which lack the proper honorific finish. hence it has come about that there are today no goods supplied in any trade which do not contain the honorific element in greater or less degree. any consumer who might, diogenes-like, insist on the elimination of all honorific or wasteful elements from his consumption, would be unable to supply his most trivial wants in the modern market. indeed, even if he resorted to supplying his wants directly by his own efforts, he would find it difficult if not impossible to divest himself of the current habits of thought on this head; so that he could scarcely compass a supply of the necessaries of life for a day's consumption without instinctively and by oversight incorporating in his home-made product something of this honorific, quasi-decorative element of wasted labor. it is notorious that in their selection of serviceable goods in the retail market purchasers are guided more by the finish and workmanship of the goods than by any marks of substantial serviceability. goods, in order to sell, must have some appreciable amount of labor spent in giving them the marks of decent expensiveness, in addition to what goes to give them efficiency for the material use which they are to serve. this habit of making obvious costliness a canon of serviceability of course acts to enhance the aggregate cost of articles of consumption. it puts us on our guard against cheapness by identifying merit in some degree with cost. there is ordinarily a consistent effort on the part of the consumer to obtain goods of the required serviceability at as advantageous a bargain as may be; but the conventional requirement of obvious costliness, as a voucher and a constituent of the serviceability of the goods, leads him to reject as under grade such goods as do not contain a large element of conspicuous waste. it is to be added that a large share of those features of consumable goods which figure in popular apprehension as marks of serviceability, and to which reference is here had as elements of conspicuous waste, commend themselves to the consumer also on other grounds than that of expensiveness alone. they usually give evidence of skill and effective workmanship, even if they do not contribute to the substantial serviceability of the goods; and it is no doubt largely on some such ground that any particular mark of honorific serviceability first comes into vogue and afterward maintains its footing as a normal constituent element of the worth of an article. a display of efficient workmanship is pleasing simply as such, even where its remoter, for the time unconsidered, outcome is futile. there is a gratification of the artistic sense in the contemplation of skillful work. but it is also to be added that no such evidence of skillful workmanship, or of ingenious and effective adaptation of means to an end, will, in the long run, enjoy the approbation of the modern civilized consumer unless it has the sanction of the canon of conspicuous waste. the position here taken is enforced in a felicitous manner by the place assigned in the economy of consumption to machine products. the point of material difference between machine-made goods and the hand-wrought goods which serve the same purposes is, ordinarily, that the former serve their primary purpose more adequately. they are a more perfect product--show a more perfect adaptation of means to end. this does not save them from disesteem and deprecation, for they fall short under the test of honorific waste. hand labor is a more wasteful method of production; hence the goods turned out by this method are more serviceable for the purpose of pecuniary reputability; hence the marks of hand labor come to be honorific, and the goods which exhibit these marks take rank as of higher grade than the corresponding machine product. commonly, if not invariably, the honorific marks of hand labor are certain imperfections and irregularities in the lines of the hand-wrought article, showing where the workman has fallen short in the execution of the design. the ground of the superiority of hand-wrought goods, therefore, is a certain margin of crudeness. this margin must never be so wide as to show bungling workmanship, since that would be evidence of low cost, nor so narrow as to suggest the ideal precision attained only by the machine, for that would be evidence of low cost. the appreciation of those evidences of honorific crudeness to which hand-wrought goods owe their superior worth and charm in the eyes of well-bred people is a matter of nice discrimination. it requires training and the formation of right habits of thought with respect to what may be called the physiognomy of goods. machine-made goods of daily use are often admired and preferred precisely on account of their excessive perfection by the vulgar and the underbred who have not given due thought to the punctilios of elegant consumption. the ceremonial inferiority of machine products goes to show that the perfection of skill and workmanship embodied in any costly innovations in the finish of goods is not sufficient of itself to secure them acceptance and permanent favor. the innovation must have the support of the canon of conspicuous waste. any feature in the physiognomy of goods, however pleasing in itself, and however well it may approve itself to the taste for effective work, will not be tolerated if it proves obnoxious to this norm of pecuniary reputability. the ceremonial inferiority or uncleanness in consumable goods due to "commonness," or in other words to their slight cost of production, has been taken very seriously by many persons. the objection to machine products is often formulated as an objection to the commonness of such goods. what is common is within the (pecuniary) reach of many people. its consumption is therefore not honorific, since it does not serve the purpose of a favorable invidious comparison with other consumers. hence the consumption, or even the sight of such goods, is inseparable from an odious suggestion of the lower levels of human life, and one comes away from their contemplation with a pervading sense of meanness that is extremely distasteful and depressing to a person of sensibility. in persons whose tastes assert themselves imperiously, and who have not the gift, habit, or incentive to discriminate between the grounds of their various judgments of taste, the deliverances of the sense of the honorific coalesce with those of the sense of beauty and of the sense of serviceability--in the manner already spoken of; the resulting composite valuation serves as a judgment of the object's beauty or its serviceability, according as the valuer's bias or interest inclines him to apprehend the object in the one or the other of these aspects. it follows not infrequently that the marks of cheapness or commonness are accepted as definitive marks of artistic unfitness, and a code or schedule of aesthetic proprieties on the one hand, and of aesthetic abominations on the other, is constructed on this basis for guidance in questions of taste. as has already been pointed out, the cheap, and therefore indecorous, articles of daily consumption in modern industrial communities are commonly machine products; and the generic feature of the physiognomy of machine-made goods as compared with the hand-wrought article is their greater perfection in workmanship and greater accuracy in the detail execution of the design. hence it comes about that the visible imperfections of the hand-wrought goods, being honorific, are accounted marks of superiority in point of beauty, or serviceability, or both. hence has arisen that exaltation of the defective, of which john ruskin and william morris were such eager spokesmen in their time; and on this ground their propaganda of crudity and wasted effort has been taken up and carried forward since their time. and hence also the propaganda for a return to handicraft and household industry. so much of the work and speculations of this group of men as fairly comes under the characterization here given would have been impossible at a time when the visibly more perfect goods were not the cheaper. it is of course only as to the economic value of this school of aesthetic teaching that anything is intended to be said or can be said here. what is said is not to be taken in the sense of depreciation, but chiefly as a characterization of the tendency of this teaching in its effect on consumption and on the production of consumable goods. the manner in which the bias of this growth of taste has worked itself out in production is perhaps most cogently exemplified in the book manufacture with which morris busied himself during the later years of his life; but what holds true of the work of the kelmscott press in an eminent degree, holds true with but slightly abated force when applied to latter-day artistic book-making generally--as to type, paper, illustration, binding materials, and binder's work. the claims to excellence put forward by the later products of the bookmaker's industry rest in some measure on the degree of its approximation to the crudities of the time when the work of book-making was a doubtful struggle with refractory materials carried on by means of insufficient appliances. these products, since they require hand labor, are more expensive; they are also less convenient for use than the books turned out with a view to serviceability alone; they therefore argue ability on the part of the purchaser to consume freely, as well as ability to waste time and effort. it is on this basis that the printers of today are returning to "old-style," and other more or less obsolete styles of type which are less legible and give a cruder appearance to the page than the "modern." even a scientific periodical, with ostensibly no purpose but the most effective presentation of matter with which its science is concerned, will concede so much to the demands of this pecuniary beauty as to publish its scientific discussions in oldstyle type, on laid paper, and with uncut edges. but books which are not ostensibly concerned with the effective presentation of their contents alone, of course go farther in this direction. here we have a somewhat cruder type, printed on hand-laid, deckel-edged paper, with excessive margins and uncut leaves, with bindings of a painstaking crudeness and elaborate ineptitude. the kelmscott press reduced the matter to an absurdity--as seen from the point of view of brute serviceability alone--by issuing books for modern use, edited with the obsolete spelling, printed in black-letter, and bound in limp vellum fitted with thongs. as a further characteristic feature which fixes the economic place of artistic book-making, there is the fact that these more elegant books are, at their best, printed in limited editions. a limited edition is in effect a guarantee--somewhat crude, it is true--that this book is scarce and that it therefore is costly and lends pecuniary distinction to its consumer. the special attractiveness of these book-products to the book-buyer of cultivated taste lies, of course, not in a conscious, naive recognition of their costliness and superior clumsiness. here, as in the parallel case of the superiority of hand-wrought articles over machine products, the conscious ground of preference is an intrinsic excellence imputed to the costlier and more awkward article. the superior excellence imputed to the book which imitates the products of antique and obsolete processes is conceived to be chiefly a superior utility in the aesthetic respect; but it is not unusual to find a well-bred book-lover insisting that the clumsier product is also more serviceable as a vehicle of printed speech. so far as regards the superior aesthetic value of the decadent book, the chances are that the book-lover's contention has some ground. the book is designed with an eye single to its beauty, and the result is commonly some measure of success on the part of the designer. what is insisted on here, however, is that the canon of taste under which the designer works is a canon formed under the surveillance of the law of conspicuous waste, and that this law acts selectively to eliminate any canon of taste that does not conform to its demands. that is to say, while the decadent book may be beautiful, the limits within which the designer may work are fixed by requirements of a non-aesthetic kind. the product, if it is beautiful, must also at the same time be costly and ill adapted to its ostensible use. this mandatory canon of taste in the case of the book-designer, however, is not shaped entirely by the law of waste in its first form; the canon is to some extent shaped in conformity to that secondary expression of the predatory temperament, veneration for the archaic or obsolete, which in one of its special developments is called classicism. in aesthetic theory it might be extremely difficult, if not quite impracticable, to draw a line between the canon of classicism, or regard for the archaic, and the canon of beauty. for the aesthetic purpose such a distinction need scarcely be drawn, and indeed it need not exist. for a theory of taste the expression of an accepted ideal of archaism, on whatever basis it may have been accepted, is perhaps best rated as an element of beauty; there need be no question of its legitimation. but for the present purpose--for the purpose of determining what economic grounds are present in the accepted canons of taste and what is their significance for the distribution and consumption of goods--the distinction is not similarly beside the point. the position of machine products in the civilized scheme of consumption serves to point out the nature of the relation which subsists between the canon of conspicuous waste and the code of proprieties in consumption. neither in matters of art and taste proper, nor as regards the current sense of the serviceability of goods, does this canon act as a principle of innovation or initiative. it does not go into the future as a creative principle which makes innovations and adds new items of consumption and new elements of cost. the principle in question is, in a certain sense, a negative rather than a positive law. it is a regulative rather than a creative principle. it very rarely initiates or originates any usage or custom directly. its action is selective only. conspicuous wastefulness does not directly afford ground for variation and growth, but conformity to its requirements is a condition to the survival of such innovations as may be made on other grounds. in whatever way usages and customs and methods of expenditure arise, they are all subject to the selective action of this norm of reputability; and the degree in which they conform to its requirements is a test of their fitness to survive in the competition with other similar usages and customs. other thing being equal, the more obviously wasteful usage or method stands the better chance of survival under this law. the law of conspicuous waste does not account for the origin of variations, but only for the persistence of such forms as are fit to survive under its dominance. it acts to conserve the fit, not to originate the acceptable. its office is to prove all things and to hold fast that which is good for its purpose. chapter seven ~~ dress as an expression of the pecuniary culture it will in place, by way of illustration, to show in some detail how the economic principles so far set forth apply to everyday facts in some one direction of the life process. for this purpose no line of consumption affords a more apt illustration than expenditure on dress. it is especially the rule of the conspicuous waste of goods that finds expression in dress, although the other, related principles of pecuniary repute are also exemplified in the same contrivances. other methods of putting one's pecuniary standing in evidence serve their end effectually, and other methods are in vogue always and everywhere; but expenditure on dress has this advantage over most other methods, that our apparel is always in evidence and affords an indication of our pecuniary standing to all observers at the first glance. it is also true that admitted expenditure for display is more obviously present, and is, perhaps, more universally practiced in the matter of dress than in any other line of consumption. no one finds difficulty in assenting to the commonplace that the greater part of the expenditure incurred by all classes for apparel is incurred for the sake of a respectable appearance rather than for the protection of the person. and probably at no other point is the sense of shabbiness so keenly felt as it is if we fall short of the standard set by social usage in this matter of dress. it is true of dress in even a higher degree than of most other items of consumption, that people will undergo a very considerable degree of privation in the comforts or the necessaries of life in order to afford what is considered a decent amount of wasteful consumption; so that it is by no means an uncommon occurrence, in an inclement climate, for people to go ill clad in order to appear well dressed. and the commercial value of the goods used for clotting in any modern community is made up to a much larger extent of the fashionableness, the reputability of the goods than of the mechanical service which they render in clothing the person of the wearer. the need of dress is eminently a "higher" or spiritual need. this spiritual need of dress is not wholly, nor even chiefly, a naive propensity for display of expenditure. the law of conspicuous waste guides consumption in apparel, as in other things, chiefly at the second remove, by shaping the canons of taste and decency. in the common run of cases the conscious motive of the wearer or purchaser of conspicuously wasteful apparel is the need of conforming to established usage, and of living up to the accredited standard of taste and reputability. it is not only that one must be guided by the code of proprieties in dress in order to avoid the mortification that comes of unfavorable notice and comment, though that motive in itself counts for a great deal; but besides that, the requirement of expensiveness is so ingrained into our habits of thought in matters of dress that any other than expensive apparel is instinctively odious to us. without reflection or analysis, we feel that what is inexpensive is unworthy. "a cheap coat makes a cheap man." "cheap and nasty" is recognized to hold true in dress with even less mitigation than in other lines of consumption. on the ground both of taste and of serviceability, an inexpensive article of apparel is held to be inferior, under the maxim "cheap and nasty." we find things beautiful, as well as serviceable, somewhat in proportion as they are costly. with few and inconsequential exceptions, we all find a costly hand-wrought article of apparel much preferable, in point of beauty and of serviceability, to a less expensive imitation of it, however cleverly the spurious article may imitate the costly original; and what offends our sensibilities in the spurious article is not that it falls short in form or color, or, indeed, in visual effect in any way. the offensive object may be so close an imitation as to defy any but the closest scrutiny; and yet so soon as the counterfeit is detected, its aesthetic value, and its commercial value as well, declines precipitately. not only that, but it may be asserted with but small risk of contradiction that the aesthetic value of a detected counterfeit in dress declines somewhat in the same proportion as the counterfeit is cheaper than its original. it loses caste aesthetically because it falls to a lower pecuniary grade. but the function of dress as an evidence of ability to pay does not end with simply showing that the wearer consumes valuable goods in excess of what is required for physical comfort. simple conspicuous waste of goods is effective and gratifying as far as it goes; it is good prima facie evidence of pecuniary success, and consequently prima facie evidence of social worth. but dress has subtler and more far-reaching possibilities than this crude, first-hand evidence of wasteful consumption only. if, in addition to showing that the wearer can afford to consume freely and uneconomically, it can also be shown in the same stroke that he or she is not under the necessity of earning a livelihood, the evidence of social worth is enhanced in a very considerable degree. our dress, therefore, in order to serve its purpose effectually, should not only he expensive, but it should also make plain to all observers that the wearer is not engaged in any kind of productive labor. in the evolutionary process by which our system of dress has been elaborated into its present admirably perfect adaptation to its purpose, this subsidiary line of evidence has received due attention. a detailed examination of what passes in popular apprehension for elegant apparel will show that it is contrived at every point to convey the impression that the wearer does not habitually put forth any useful effort. it goes without saying that no apparel can be considered elegant, or even decent, if it shows the effect of manual labor on the part of the wearer, in the way of soil or wear. the pleasing effect of neat and spotless garments is chiefly, if not altogether, due to their carrying the suggestion of leisure-exemption from personal contact with industrial processes of any kind. much of the charm that invests the patent-leather shoe, the stainless linen, the lustrous cylindrical hat, and the walking-stick, which so greatly enhance the native dignity of a gentleman, comes of their pointedly suggesting that the wearer cannot when so attired bear a hand in any employment that is directly and immediately of any human use. elegant dress serves its purpose of elegance not only in that it is expensive, but also because it is the insignia of leisure. it not only shows that the wearer is able to consume a relatively large value, but it argues at the same time that he consumes without producing. the dress of women goes even farther than that of men in the way of demonstrating the wearer's abstinence from productive employment. it needs no argument to enforce the generalization that the more elegant styles of feminine bonnets go even farther towards making work impossible than does the man's high hat. the woman's shoe adds the so-called french heel to the evidence of enforced leisure afforded by its polish; because this high heel obviously makes any, even the simplest and most necessary manual work extremely difficult. the like is true even in a higher degree of the skirt and the rest of the drapery which characterizes woman's dress. the substantial reason for our tenacious attachment to the skirt is just this; it is expensive and it hampers the wearer at every turn and incapacitates her for all useful exertion. the like is true of the feminine custom of wearing the hair excessively long. but the woman's apparel not only goes beyond that of the modern man in the degree in which it argues exemption from labor; it also adds a peculiar and highly characteristic feature which differs in kind from anything habitually practiced by the men. this feature is the class of contrivances of which the corset is the typical example. the corset is, in economic theory, substantially a mutilation, undergone for the purpose of lowering the subject's vitality and rendering her permanently and obviously unfit for work. it is true, the corset impairs the personal attractions of the wearer, but the loss suffered on that score is offset by the gain in reputability which comes of her visibly increased expensiveness and infirmity. it may broadly be set down that the womanliness of woman's apparel resolves itself, in point of substantial fact, into the more effective hindrance to useful exertion offered by the garments peculiar to women. this difference between masculine and feminine apparel is here simply pointed out as a characteristic feature. the ground of its occurrence will be discussed presently. so far, then, we have, as the great and dominant norm of dress, the broad principle of conspicuous waste. subsidiary to this principle, and as a corollary under it, we get as a second norm the principle of conspicuous leisure. in dress construction this norm works out in the shape of divers contrivances going to show that the wearer does not and, as far as it may conveniently be shown, can not engage in productive labor. beyond these two principles there is a third of scarcely less constraining force, which will occur to any one who reflects at all on the subject. dress must not only be conspicuously expensive and inconvenient, it must at the same time be up to date. no explanation at all satisfactory has hitherto been offered of the phenomenon of changing fashions. the imperative requirement of dressing in the latest accredited manner, as well as the fact that this accredited fashion constantly changes from season to season, is sufficiently familiar to every one, but the theory of this flux and change has not been worked out. we may of course say, with perfect consistency and truthfulness, that this principle of novelty is another corollary under the law of conspicuous waste. obviously, if each garment is permitted to serve for but a brief term, and if none of last season's apparel is carried over and made further use of during the present season, the wasteful expenditure on dress is greatly increased. this is good as far as it goes, but it is negative only. pretty much all that this consideration warrants us in saying is that the norm of conspicuous waste exercises a controlling surveillance in all matters of dress, so that any change in the fashions must conspicuous waste exercises a controlling surveillance in all matters of dress, so that any change in the fashions must conform to the requirement of wastefulness; it leaves unanswered the question as to the motive for making and accepting a change in the prevailing styles, and it also fails to explain why conformity to a given style at a given time is so imperatively necessary as we know it to be. for a creative principle, capable of serving as motive to invention and innovation in fashions, we shall have to go back to the primitive, non-economic motive with which apparel originated--the motive of adornment. without going into an extended discussion of how and why this motive asserts itself under the guidance of the law of expensiveness, it may be stated broadly that each successive innovation in the fashions is an effort to reach some form of display which shall be more acceptable to our sense of form and color or of effectiveness, than that which it displaces. the changing styles are the expression of a restless search for something which shall commend itself to our aesthetic sense; but as each innovation is subject to the selective action of the norm of conspicuous waste, the range within which innovation can take place is somewhat restricted. the innovation must not only be more beautiful, or perhaps oftener less offensive, than that which it displaces, but it must also come up to the accepted standard of expensiveness. it would seem at first sight that the result of such an unremitting struggle to attain the beautiful in dress should be a gradual approach to artistic perfection. we might naturally expect that the fashions should show a well-marked trend in the direction of some one or more types of apparel eminently becoming to the human form; and we might even feel that we have substantial ground for the hope that today, after all the ingenuity and effort which have been spent on dress these many years, the fashions should have achieved a relative perfection and a relative stability, closely approximating to a permanently tenable artistic ideal. but such is not the case. it would be very hazardous indeed to assert that the styles of today are intrinsically more becoming than those of ten years ago, or than those of twenty, or fifty, or one hundred years ago. on the other hand, the assertion freely goes uncontradicted that styles in vogue two thousand years ago are more becoming than the most elaborate and painstaking constructions of today. the explanation of the fashions just offered, then, does not fully explain, and we shall have to look farther. it is well known that certain relatively stable styles and types of costume have been worked out in various parts of the world; as, for instance, among the japanese, chinese, and other oriental nations; likewise among the greeks, romans, and other eastern peoples of antiquity so also, in later times, among the peasants of nearly every country of europe. these national or popular costumes are in most cases adjudged by competent critics to be more becoming, more artistic, than the fluctuating styles of modern civilized apparel. at the same time they are also, at least usually, less obviously wasteful; that is to say, other elements than that of a display of expense are more readily detected in their structure. these relatively stable costumes are, commonly, pretty strictly and narrowly localized, and they vary by slight and systematic gradations from place to place. they have in every case been worked out by peoples or classes which are poorer than we, and especially they belong in countries and localities and times where the population, or at least the class to which the costume in question belongs, is relatively homogeneous, stable, and immobile. that is to say, stable costumes which will bear the test of time and perspective are worked out under circumstances where the norm of conspicuous waste asserts itself less imperatively than it does in the large modern civilized cities, whose relatively mobile wealthy population today sets the pace in matters of fashion. the countries and classes which have in this way worked out stable and artistic costumes have been so placed that the pecuniary emulation among them has taken the direction of a competition in conspicuous leisure rather than in conspicuous consumption of goods. so that it will hold true in a general way that fashions are least stable and least becoming in those communities where the principle of a conspicuous waste of goods asserts itself most imperatively, as among ourselves. all this points to an antagonism between expensiveness and artistic apparel. in point of practical fact, the norm of conspicuous waste is incompatible with the requirement that dress should be beautiful or becoming. and this antagonism offers an explanation of that restless change in fashion which neither the canon of expensiveness nor that of beauty alone can account for. the standard of reputability requires that dress should show wasteful expenditure; but all wastefulness is offensive to native taste. the psychological law has already been pointed out that all men--and women perhaps even in a higher degree abhor futility, whether of effort or of expenditure--much as nature was once said to abhor a vacuum. but the principle of conspicuous waste requires an obviously futile expenditure; and the resulting conspicuous expensiveness of dress is therefore intrinsically ugly. hence we find that in all innovations in dress, each added or altered detail strives to avoid condemnation by showing some ostensible purpose, at the same time that the requirement of conspicuous waste prevents the purposefulness of these innovations from becoming anything more than a somewhat transparent pretense. even in its freest flights, fashion rarely if ever gets away from a simulation of some ostensible use. the ostensible usefulness of the fashionable details of dress, however, is always so transparent a make-believe, and their substantial futility presently forces itself so baldly upon our attention as to become unbearable, and then we take refuge in a new style. but the new style must conform to the requirement of reputable wastefulness and futility. its futility presently becomes as odious as that of its predecessor; and the only remedy which the law of waste allows us is to seek relief in some new construction, equally futile and equally untenable. hence the essential ugliness and the unceasing change of fashionable attire. having so explained the phenomenon of shifting fashions, the next thing is to make the explanation tally with everyday facts. among these everyday facts is the well-known liking which all men have for the styles that are in vogue at any given time. a new style comes into vogue and remains in favor for a season, and, at least so long as it is a novelty, people very generally find the new style attractive. the prevailing fashion is felt to be beautiful. this is due partly to the relief it affords in being different from what went before it, partly to its being reputable. as indicated in the last chapter, the canon of reputability to some extent shapes our tastes, so that under its guidance anything will be accepted as becoming until its novelty wears off, or until the warrant of reputability is transferred to a new and novel structure serving the same general purpose. that the alleged beauty, or "loveliness," of the styles in vogue at any given time is transient and spurious only is attested by the fact that none of the many shifting fashions will bear the test of time. when seen in the perspective of half-a-dozen years or more, the best of our fashions strike us as grotesque, if not unsightly. our transient attachment to whatever happens to be the latest rests on other than aesthetic grounds, and lasts only until our abiding aesthetic sense has had time to assert itself and reject this latest indigestible contrivance. the process of developing an aesthetic nausea takes more or less time; the length of time required in any given case being inversely as the degree of intrinsic odiousness of the style in question. this time relation between odiousness and instability in fashions affords ground for the inference that the more rapidly the styles succeed and displace one another, the more offensive they are to sound taste. the presumption, therefore, is that the farther the community, especially the wealthy classes of the community, develop in wealth and mobility and in the range of their human contact, the more imperatively will the law of conspicuous waste assert itself in matters of dress, the more will the sense of beauty tend to fall into abeyance or be overborne by the canon of pecuniary reputability, the more rapidly will fashions shift and change, and the more grotesque and intolerable will be the varying styles that successively come into vogue. there remains at least one point in this theory of dress yet to be discussed. most of what has been said applies to men's attire as well as to that of women; although in modern times it applies at nearly all points with greater force to that of women. but at one point the dress of women differs substantially from that of men. in woman's dress there is obviously greater insistence on such features as testify to the wearer's exemption from or incapacity for all vulgarly productive employment. this characteristic of woman's apparel is of interest, not only as completing the theory of dress, but also as confirming what has already been said of the economic status of women, both in the past and in the present. as has been seen in the discussion of woman's status under the heads of vicarious leisure and vicarious consumption, it has in the course of economic development become the office of the woman to consume vicariously for the head of the household; and her apparel is contrived with this object in view. it has come about that obviously productive labor is in a peculiar degree derogatory to respectable women, and therefore special pains should be taken in the construction of women's dress, to impress upon the beholder the fact (often indeed a fiction) that the wearer does not and can not habitually engage in useful work. propriety requires respectable women to abstain more consistently from useful effort and to make more of a show of leisure than the men of the same social classes. it grates painfully on our nerves to contemplate the necessity of any well-bred woman's earning a livelihood by useful work. it is not "woman's sphere." her sphere is within the household, which she should "beautify," and of which she should be the "chief ornament." the male head of the household is not currently spoken of as its ornament. this feature taken in conjunction with the other fact that propriety requires more unremitting attention to expensive display in the dress and other paraphernalia of women, goes to enforce the view already implied in what has gone before. by virtue of its descent from a patriarchal past, our social system makes it the woman's function in an especial degree to put in evidence her household's ability to pay. according to the modern civilized scheme of life, the good name of the household to which she belongs should be the special care of the woman; and the system of honorific expenditure and conspicuous leisure by which this good name is chiefly sustained is therefore the woman's sphere. in the ideal scheme, as it tends to realize itself in the life of the higher pecuniary classes, this attention to conspicuous waste of substance and effort should normally be the sole economic function of the woman. at the stage of economic development at which the women were still in the full sense the property of the men, the performance of conspicuous leisure and consumption came to be part of the services required of them. the women being not their own masters, obvious expenditure and leisure on their part would redound to the credit of their master rather than to their own credit; and therefore the more expensive and the more obviously unproductive the women of the household are, the more creditable and more effective for the purpose of reputability of the household or its head will their life be. so much so that the women have been required not only to afford evidence of a life of leisure, but even to disable themselves for useful activity. it is at this point that the dress of men falls short of that of women, and for sufficient reason. conspicuous waste and conspicuous leisure are reputable because they are evidence of pecuniary strength; pecuniary strength is reputable or honorific because, in the last analysis, it argues success and superior force; therefore the evidence of waste and leisure put forth by any individual in his own behalf cannot consistently take such a form or be carried to such a pitch as to argue incapacity or marked discomfort on his part; as the exhibition would in that case show not superior force, but inferiority, and so defeat its own purpose. so, then, wherever wasteful expenditure and the show of abstention from effort is normally, or on an average, carried to the extent of showing obvious discomfort or voluntarily induced physical disability. there the immediate inference is that the individual in question does not perform this wasteful expenditure and undergo this disability for her own personal gain in pecuniary repute, but in behalf of some one else to whom she stands in a relation of economic dependence; a relation which in the last analysis must, in economic theory, reduce itself to a relation of servitude. to apply this generalization to women's dress, and put the matter in concrete terms: the high heel, the skirt, the impracticable bonnet, the corset, and the general disregard of the wearer's comfort which is an obvious feature of all civilized women's apparel, are so many items of evidence to the effect that in the modern civilized scheme of life the woman is still, in theory, the economic dependent of the man--that, perhaps in a highly idealized sense, she still is the man's chattel. the homely reason for all this conspicuous leisure and attire on the part of women lies in the fact that they are servants to whom, in the differentiation of economic functions, has been delegated the office of putting in evidence their master's ability to pay. there is a marked similarity in these respects between the apparel of women and that of domestic servants, especially liveried servants. in both there is a very elaborate show of unnecessary expensiveness, and in both cases there is also a notable disregard of the physical comfort of the wearer. but the attire of the lady goes farther in its elaborate insistence on the idleness, if not on the physical infirmity of the wearer, than does that of the domestic. and this is as it should be; for in theory, according to the ideal scheme of the pecuniary culture, the lady of the house is the chief menial of the household. besides servants, currently recognized as such, there is at least one other class of persons whose garb assimilates them to the class of servants and shows many of the features that go to make up the womanliness of woman's dress. this is the priestly class. priestly vestments show, in accentuated form, all the features that have been shown to be evidence of a servile status and a vicarious life. even more strikingly than the everyday habit of the priest, the vestments, properly so called, are ornate, grotesque, inconvenient, and, at least ostensibly, comfortless to the point of distress. the priest is at the same time expected to refrain from useful effort and, when before the public eye, to present an impassively disconsolate countenance, very much after the manner of a well-trained domestic servant. the shaven face of the priest is a further item to the same effect. this assimilation of the priestly class to the class of body servants, in demeanor and apparel, is due to the similarity of the two classes as regards economic function. in economic theory, the priest is a body servant, constructively in attendance upon the person of the divinity whose livery he wears. his livery is of a very expensive character, as it should be in order to set forth in a beseeming manner the dignity of his exalted master; but it is contrived to show that the wearing of it contributes little or nothing to the physical comfort of the wearer, for it is an item of vicarious consumption, and the repute which accrues from its consumption is to be imputed to the absent master, not to the servant. the line of demarcation between the dress of women, priests, and servants, on the one hand, and of men, on the other hand, is not always consistently observed in practice, but it will scarcely be disputed that it is always present in a more or less definite way in the popular habits of thought. there are of course also free men, and not a few of them, who, in their blind zeal for faultless reputable attire, transgress the theoretical line between man's and woman's dress, to the extent of arraying themselves in apparel that is obviously designed to vex the mortal frame; but everyone recognizes without hesitation that such apparel for men is a departure from the normal. we are in the habit of saying that such dress is "effeminate"; and one sometimes hears the remark that such or such an exquisitely attired gentleman is as well dressed as a footman. certain apparent discrepancies under this theory of dress merit a more detailed examination, especially as they mark a more or less evident trend in the later and maturer development of dress. the vogue of the corset offers an apparent exception from the rule of which it has here been cited as an illustration. a closer examination, however, will show that this apparent exception is really a verification of the rule that the vogue of any given element or feature in dress rests on its utility as an evidence of pecuniary standing. it is well known that in the industrially more advanced communities the corset is employed only within certain fairly well defined social strata. the women of the poorer classes, especially of the rural population, do not habitually use it, except as a holiday luxury. among these classes the women have to work hard, and it avails them little in the way of a pretense of leisure to so crucify the flesh in everyday life. the holiday use of the contrivance is due to imitation of a higher-class canon of decency. upwards from this low level of indigence and manual labor, the corset was until within a generation or two nearly indispensable to a socially blameless standing for all women, including the wealthiest and most reputable. this rule held so long as there still was no large class of people wealthy enough to be above the imputation of any necessity for manual labor and at the same time large enough to form a self-sufficient, isolated social body whose mass would afford a foundation for special rules of conduct within the class, enforced by the current opinion of the class alone. but now there has grown up a large enough leisure class possessed of such wealth that any aspersion on the score of enforced manual employment would be idle and harmless calumny; and the corset has therefore in large measure fallen into disuse within this class. the exceptions under this rule of exemption from the corset are more apparent than real. they are the wealthy classes of countries with a lower industrial structure--nearer the archaic, quasi-industrial type--together with the later accessions of the wealthy classes in the more advanced industrial communities. the latter have not yet had time to divest themselves of the plebeian canons of taste and of reputability carried over from their former, lower pecuniary grade. such survival of the corset is not infrequent among the higher social classes of those american cities, for instance, which have recently and rapidly risen into opulence. if the word be used as a technical term, without any odious implication, it may be said that the corset persists in great measure through the period of snobbery--the interval of uncertainty and of transition from a lower to the upper levels of pecuniary culture. that is to say, in all countries which have inherited the corset it continues in use wherever and so long as it serves its purpose as an evidence of honorific leisure by arguing physical disability in the wearer. the same rule of course applies to other mutilations and contrivances for decreasing the visible efficiency of the individual. something similar should hold true with respect to divers items of conspicuous consumption, and indeed something of the kind does seem to hold to a slight degree of sundry features of dress, especially if such features involve a marked discomfort or appearance of discomfort to the wearer. during the past one hundred years there is a tendency perceptible, in the development of men's dress especially, to discontinue methods of expenditure and the use of symbols of leisure which must have been irksome, which may have served a good purpose in their time, but the continuation of which among the upper classes today would be a work of supererogation; as, for instance, the use of powdered wigs and of gold lace, and the practice of constantly shaving the face. there has of late years been some slight recrudescence of the shaven face in polite society, but this is probably a transient and unadvised mimicry of the fashion imposed upon body servants, and it may fairly be expected to go the way of the powdered wig of our grandfathers. these indices and others which resemble them in point of the boldness with which they point out to all observers the habitual uselessness of those persons who employ them, have been replaced by other, more dedicate methods of expressing the same fact; methods which are no less evident to the trained eyes of that smaller, select circle whose good opinion is chiefly sought. the earlier and cruder method of advertisement held its ground so long as the public to which the exhibitor had to appeal comprised large portions of the community who were not trained to detect delicate variations in the evidences of wealth and leisure. the method of advertisement undergoes a refinement when a sufficiently large wealthy class has developed, who have the leisure for acquiring skill in interpreting the subtler signs of expenditure. "loud" dress becomes offensive to people of taste, as evincing an undue desire to reach and impress the untrained sensibilities of the vulgar. to the individual of high breeding, it is only the more honorific esteem accorded by the cultivated sense of the members of his own high class that is of material consequence. since the wealthy leisure class has grown so large, or the contact of the leisure-class individual with members of his own class has grown so wide, as to constitute a human environment sufficient for the honorific purpose, there arises a tendency to exclude the baser elements of the population from the scheme even as spectators whose applause or mortification should be sought. the result of all this is a refinement of methods, a resort to subtler contrivances, and a spiritualization of the scheme of symbolism in dress. and as this upper leisure class sets the pace in all matters of decency, the result for the rest of society also is a gradual amelioration of the scheme of dress. as the community advances in wealth and culture, the ability to pay is put in evidence by means which require a progressively nicer discrimination in the beholder. this nicer discrimination between advertising media is in fact a very large element of the higher pecuniary culture. chapter eight ~~ industrial exemption and conservatism the life of man in society, just like the life of other species, is a struggle for existence, and therefore it is a process of selective adaptation. the evolution of social structure has been a process of natural selection of institutions. the progress which has been and is being made in human institutions and in human character may be set down, broadly, to a natural selection of the fittest habits of thought and to a process of enforced adaptation of individuals to an environment which has progressively changed with the growth of the community and with the changing institutions under which men have lived. institutions are not only themselves the result of a selective and adaptive process which shapes the prevailing or dominant types of spiritual attitude and aptitudes; they are at the same time special methods of life and of human relations, and are therefore in their turn efficient factors of selection. so that the changing institutions in their turn make for a further selection of individuals endowed with the fittest temperament, and a further adaptation of individual temperament and habits to the changing environment through the formation of new institutions. the forces which have shaped the development of human life and of social structure are no doubt ultimately reducible to terms of living tissue and material environment; but proximately for the purpose in hand, these forces may best be stated in terms of an environment, partly human, partly non-human, and a human subject with a more or less definite physical and intellectual constitution. taken in the aggregate or average, this human subject is more or less variable; chiefly, no doubt, under a rule of selective conservation of favorable variations. the selection of favorable variations is perhaps in great measure a selective conservation of ethnic types. in the life history of any community whose population is made up of a mixture of divers ethnic elements, one or another of several persistent and relatively stable types of body and of temperament rises into dominance at any given point. the situation, including the institutions in force at any given time, will favor the survival and dominance of one type of character in preference to another; and the type of man so selected to continue and to further elaborate the institutions handed down from the past will in some considerable measure shape these institutions in his own likeness. but apart from selection as between relatively stable types of character and habits of mind, there is no doubt simultaneously going on a process of selective adaptation of habits of thought within the general range of aptitudes which is characteristic of the dominant ethnic type or types. there may be a variation in the fundamental character of any population by selection between relatively stable types; but there is also a variation due to adaptation in detail within the range of the type, and to selection between specific habitual views regarding any given social relation or group of relations. for the present purpose, however, the question as to the nature of the adaptive process--whether it is chiefly a selection between stable types of temperament and character, or chiefly an adaptation of men's habits of thought to changing circumstances--is of less importance than the fact that, by one method or another, institutions change and develop. institutions must change with changing circumstances, since they are of the nature of an habitual method of responding to the stimuli which these changing circumstances afford. the development of these institutions is the development of society. the institutions are, in substance, prevalent habits of thought with respect to particular relations and particular functions of the individual and of the community; and the scheme of life, which is made up of the aggregate of institutions in force at a given time or at a given point in the development of any society, may, on the psychological side, be broadly characterized as a prevalent spiritual attitude or a prevalent theory of life. as regards its generic features, this spiritual attitude or theory of life is in the last analysis reducible to terms of a prevalent type of character. the situation of today shapes the institutions of tomorrow through a selective, coercive process, by acting upon men's habitual view of things, and so altering or fortifying a point of view or a mental attitude handed down from the past. the institutions--that is to say the habits of thought--under the guidance of which men live are in this way received from an earlier time; more or less remotely earlier, but in any event they have been elaborated in and received from the past. institutions are products of the past process, are adapted to past circumstances, and are therefore never in full accord with the requirements of the present. in the nature of the case, this process of selective adaptation can never catch up with the progressively changing situation in which the community finds itself at any given time; for the environment, the situation, the exigencies of life which enforce the adaptation and exercise the selection, change from day to day; and each successive situation of the community in its turn tends to obsolescence as soon as it has been established. when a step in the development has been taken, this step itself constitutes a change of situation which requires a new adaptation; it becomes the point of departure for a new step in the adjustment, and so on interminably. it is to be noted then, although it may be a tedious truism, that the institutions of today--the present accepted scheme of life--do not entirely fit the situation of today. at the same time, men's present habits of thought tend to persist indefinitely, except as circumstances enforce a change. these institutions which have thus been handed down, these habits of thought, points of view, mental attitudes and aptitudes, or what not, are therefore themselves a conservative factor. this is the factor of social inertia, psychological inertia, conservatism. social structure changes, develops, adapts itself to an altered situation, only through a change in the habits of thought of the several classes of the community, or in the last analysis, through a change in the habits of thought of the individuals which make up the community. the evolution of society is substantially a process of mental adaptation on the part of individuals under the stress of circumstances which will no longer tolerate habits of thought formed under and conforming to a different set of circumstances in the past. for the immediate purpose it need not be a question of serious importance whether this adaptive process is a process of selection and survival of persistent ethnic types or a process of individual adaptation and an inheritance of acquired traits. social advance, especially as seen from the point of view of economic theory, consists in a continued progressive approach to an approximately exact "adjustment of inner relations to outer relations", but this adjustment is never definitively established, since the "outer relations" are subject to constant change as a consequence of the progressive change going on in the "inner relations." but the degree of approximation may be greater or less, depending on the facility with which an adjustment is made. a readjustment of men's habits of thought to conform with the exigencies of an altered situation is in any case made only tardily and reluctantly, and only under the coercion exercised by a stipulation which has made the accredited views untenable. the readjustment of institutions and habitual views to an altered environment is made in response to pressure from without; it is of the nature of a response to stimulus. freedom and facility of readjustment, that is to say capacity for growth in social structure, therefore depends in great measure on the degree of freedom with which the situation at any given time acts on the individual members of the community-the degree of exposure of the individual members to the constraining forces of the environment. if any portion or class of society is sheltered from the action of the environment in any essential respect, that portion of the community, or that class, will adapt its views and its scheme of life more tardily to the altered general situation; it will in so far tend to retard the process of social transformation. the wealthy leisure class is in such a sheltered position with respect to the economic forces that make for change and readjustment. and it may be said that the forces which make for a readjustment of institutions, especially in the case of a modern industrial community, are, in the last analysis, almost entirely of an economic nature. any community may be viewed as an industrial or economic mechanism, the structure of which is made up of what is called its economic institutions. these institutions are habitual methods of carrying on the life process of the community in contact with the material environment in which it lives. when given methods of unfolding human activity in this given environment have been elaborated in this way, the life of the community will express itself with some facility in these habitual directions. the community will make use of the forces of the environment for the purposes of its life according to methods learned in the past and embodied in these institutions. but as population increases, and as men's knowledge and skill in directing the forces of nature widen, the habitual methods of relation between the members of the group, and the habitual method of carrying on the life process of the group as a whole, no longer give the same result as before; nor are the resulting conditions of life distributed and apportioned in the same manner or with the same effect among the various members as before. if the scheme according to which the life process of the group was carried on under the earlier conditions gave approximately the highest attainable result--under the circumstances--in the way of efficiency or facility of the life process of the group; then the same scheme of life unaltered will not yield the highest result attainable in this respect under the altered conditions. under the altered conditions of population, skill, and knowledge, the facility of life as carried on according to the traditional scheme may not be lower than under the earlier conditions; but the chances are always that it is less than might be if the scheme were altered to suit the altered conditions. the group is made up of individuals, and the group's life is the life of individuals carried on in at least ostensible severalty. the group's accepted scheme of life is the consensus of views held by the body of these individuals as to what is right, good, expedient, and beautiful in the way of human life. in the redistribution of the conditions of life that comes of the altered method of dealing with the environment, the outcome is not an equable change in the facility of life throughout the group. the altered conditions may increase the facility of life for the group as a whole, but the redistribution will usually result in a decrease of facility or fullness of life for some members of the group. an advance in technical methods, in population, or in industrial organization will require at least some of the members of the community to change their habits of life, if they are to enter with facility and effect into the altered industrial methods; and in doing so they will be unable to live up to the received notions as to what are the right and beautiful habits of life. any one who is required to change his habits of life and his habitual relations to his fellow men will feel the discrepancy between the method of life required of him by the newly arisen exigencies, and the traditional scheme of life to which he is accustomed. it is the individuals placed in this position who have the liveliest incentive to reconstruct the received scheme of life and are most readily persuaded to accept new standards; and it is through the need of the means of livelihood that men are placed in such a position. the pressure exerted by the environment upon the group, and making for a readjustment of the group's scheme of life, impinges upon the members of the group in the form of pecuniary exigencies; and it is owing to this fact--that external forces are in great part translated into the form of pecuniary or economic exigencies--it is owing to this fact that we can say that the forces which count toward a readjustment of institutions in any modern industrial community are chiefly economic forces; or more specifically, these forces take the form of pecuniary pressure. such a readjustment as is here contemplated is substantially a change in men's views as to what is good and right, and the means through which a change is wrought in men's apprehension of what is good and right is in large part the pressure of pecuniary exigencies. any change in men's views as to what is good and right in human life make its way but tardily at the best. especially is this true of any change in the direction of what is called progress; that is to say, in the direction of divergence from the archaic position--from the position which may be accounted the point of departure at any step in the social evolution of the community. retrogression, reapproach to a standpoint to which the race has been long habituated in the past, is easier. this is especially true in case the development away from this past standpoint has not been due chiefly to a substitution of an ethnic type whose temperament is alien to the earlier standpoint. the cultural stage which lies immediately back of the present in the life history of western civilization is what has here been called the quasi-peaceable stage. at this quasi-peaceable stage the law of status is the dominant feature in the scheme of life. there is no need of pointing out how prone the men of today are to revert to the spiritual attitude of mastery and of personal subservience which characterizes that stage. it may rather be said to be held in an uncertain abeyance by the economic exigencies of today, than to have been definitely supplanted by a habit of mind that is in full accord with these later-developed exigencies. the predatory and quasi-peaceable stages of economic evolution seem to have been of long duration in life history of all the chief ethnic elements which go to make up the populations of the western culture. the temperament and the propensities proper to those cultural stages have, therefore, attained such a persistence as to make a speedy reversion to the broad features of the corresponding psychological constitution inevitable in the case of any class or community which is removed from the action of those forces that make for a maintenance of the later-developed habits of thought. it is a matter of common notoriety that when individuals, or even considerable groups of men, are segregated from a higher industrial culture and exposed to a lower cultural environment, or to an economic situation of a more primitive character, they quickly show evidence of reversion toward the spiritual features which characterize the predatory type; and it seems probable that the dolicho-blond type of european man is possessed of a greater facility for such reversion to barbarism than the other ethnic elements with which that type is associated in the western culture. examples of such a reversion on a small scale abound in the later history of migration and colonization. except for the fear of offending that chauvinistic patriotism which is so characteristic a feature of the predatory culture, and the presence of which is frequently the most striking mark of reversion in modern communities, the case of the american colonies might be cited as an example of such a reversion on an unusually large scale, though it was not a reversion of very large scope. the leisure class is in great measure sheltered from the stress of those economic exigencies which prevail in any modern, highly organized industrial community. the exigencies of the struggle for the means of life are less exacting for this class than for any other; and as a consequence of this privileged position we should expect to find it one of the least responsive of the classes of society to the demands which the situation makes for a further growth of institutions and a readjustment to an altered industrial situation. the leisure class is the conservative class. the exigencies of the general economic situation of the community do not freely or directly impinge upon the members of this class. they are not required under penalty of forfeiture to change their habits of life and their theoretical views of the external world to suit the demands of an altered industrial technique, since they are not in the full sense an organic part of the industrial community. therefore these exigencies do not readily produce, in the members of this class, that degree of uneasiness with the existing order which alone can lead any body of men to give up views and methods of life that have become habitual to them. the office of the leisure class in social evolution is to retard the movement and to conserve what is obsolescent. this proposition is by no means novel; it has long been one of the commonplaces of popular opinion. the prevalent conviction that the wealthy class is by nature conservative has been popularly accepted without much aid from any theoretical view as to the place and relation of that class in the cultural development. when an explanation of this class conservatism is offered, it is commonly the invidious one that the wealthy class opposes innovation because it has a vested interest, of an unworthy sort, in maintaining the present conditions. the explanation here put forward imputes no unworthy motive. the opposition of the class to changes in the cultural scheme is instinctive, and does not rest primarily on an interested calculation of material advantages; it is an instinctive revulsion at any departure from the accepted way of doing and of looking at things--a revulsion common to all men and only to be overcome by stress of circumstances. all change in habits of life and of thought is irksome. the difference in this respect between the wealthy and the common run of mankind lies not so much in the motive which prompts to conservatism as in the degree of exposure to the economic forces that urge a change. the members of the wealthy class do not yield to the demand for innovation as readily as other men because they are not constrained to do so. this conservatism of the wealthy class is so obvious a feature that it has even come to be recognized as a mark of respectability. since conservatism is a characteristic of the wealthier and therefore more reputable portion of the community, it has acquired a certain honorific or decorative value. it has become prescriptive to such an extent that an adherence to conservative views is comprised as a matter of course in our notions of respectability; and it is imperatively incumbent on all who would lead a blameless life in point of social repute. conservatism, being an upper-class characteristic, is decorous; and conversely, innovation, being a lower-class phenomenon, is vulgar. the first and most unreflected element in that instinctive revulsion and reprobation with which we turn from all social innovators is this sense of the essential vulgarity of the thing. so that even in cases where one recognizes the substantial merits of the case for which the innovator is spokesman--as may easily happen if the evils which he seeks to remedy are sufficiently remote in point of time or space or personal contact--still one cannot but be sensible of the fact that the innovator is a person with whom it is at least distasteful to be associated, and from whose social contact one must shrink. innovation is bad form. the fact that the usages, actions, and views of the well-to-do leisure class acquire the character of a prescriptive canon of conduct for the rest of society, gives added weight and reach to the conservative influence of that class. it makes it incumbent upon all reputable people to follow their lead. so that, by virtue of its high position as the avatar of good form, the wealthier class comes to exert a retarding influence upon social development far in excess of that which the simple numerical strength of the class would assign it. its prescriptive example acts to greatly stiffen the resistance of all other classes against any innovation, and to fix men's affections upon the good institutions handed down from an earlier generation. there is a second way in which the influence of the leisure class acts in the same direction, so far as concerns hindrance to the adoption of a conventional scheme of life more in accord with the exigencies of the time. this second method of upper-class guidance is not in strict consistency to be brought under the same category as the instinctive conservatism and aversion to new modes of thought just spoken of; but it may as well be dealt with here, since it has at least this much in common with the conservative habit of mind that it acts to retard innovation and the growth of social structure. the code of proprieties, conventionalities, and usages in vogue at any given time and among any given people has more or less of the character of an organic whole; so that any appreciable change in one point of the scheme involves something of a change or readjustment at other points also, if not a reorganization all along the line. when a change is made which immediately touches only a minor point in the scheme, the consequent derangement of the structure of conventionalities may be inconspicuous; but even in such a case it is safe to say that some derangement of the general scheme, more or less far-reaching, will follow. on the other hand, when an attempted reform involves the suppression or thorough-going remodelling of an institution of first-rate importance in the conventional scheme, it is immediately felt that a serious derangement of the entire scheme would result; it is felt that a readjustment of the structure to the new form taken on by one of its chief elements would be a painful and tedious, if not a doubtful process. in order to realize the difficulty which such a radical change in any one feature of the conventional scheme of life would involve, it is only necessary to suggest the suppression of the monogamic family, or of the agnatic system of consanguinity, or of private property, or of the theistic faith, in any country of the western civilization; or suppose the suppression of ancestor worship in china, or of the caste system in india, or of slavery in africa, or the establishment of equality of the sexes in mohammedan countries. it needs no argument to show that the derangement of the general structure of conventionalities in any of these cases would be very considerable. in order to effect such an innovation a very far-reaching alteration of men's habits of thought would be involved also at other points of the scheme than the one immediately in question. the aversion to any such innovation amounts to a shrinking from an essentially alien scheme of life. the revulsion felt by good people at any proposed departure from the accepted methods of life is a familiar fact of everyday experience. it is not unusual to hear those persons who dispense salutary advice and admonition to the community express themselves forcibly upon the far-reaching pernicious effects which the community would suffer from such relatively slight changes as the disestablishment of the anglican church, an increased facility of divorce, adoption of female suffrage, prohibition of the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages, abolition or restriction of inheritances, etc. any one of these innovations would, we are told, "shake the social structure to its base," "reduce society to chaos," "subvert the foundations of morality," "make life intolerable," "confound the order of nature," etc. these various locutions are, no doubt, of the nature of hyperbole; but, at the same time, like all overstatement, they are evidence of a lively sense of the gravity of the consequences which they are intended to describe. the effect of these and like innovations in deranging the accepted scheme of life is felt to be of much graver consequence than the simple alteration of an isolated item in a series of contrivances for the convenience of men in society. what is true in so obvious a degree of innovations of first-rate importance is true in a less degree of changes of a smaller immediate importance. the aversion to change is in large part an aversion to the bother of making the readjustment which any given change will necessitate; and this solidarity of the system of institutions of any given culture or of any given people strengthens the instinctive resistance offered to any change in men's habits of thought, even in matters which, taken by themselves, are of minor importance. a consequence of this increased reluctance, due to the solidarity of human institutions, is that any innovation calls for a greater expenditure of nervous energy in making the necessary readjustment than would otherwise be the case. it is not only that a change in established habits of thought is distasteful. the process of readjustment of the accepted theory of life involves a degree of mental effort--a more or less protracted and laborious effort to find and to keep one's bearings under the altered circumstances. this process requires a certain expenditure of energy, and so presumes, for its successful accomplishment, some surplus of energy beyond that absorbed in the daily struggle for subsistence. consequently it follows that progress is hindered by underfeeding and excessive physical hardship, no less effectually than by such a luxurious life as will shut out discontent by cutting off the occasion for it. the abjectly poor, and all those persons whose energies are entirely absorbed by the struggle for daily sustenance, are conservative because they cannot afford the effort of taking thought for the day after tomorrow; just as the highly prosperous are conservative because they have small occasion to be discontented with the situation as it stands today. from this proposition it follows that the institution of a leisure class acts to make the lower classes conservative by withdrawing from them as much as it may of the means of sustenance, and so reducing their consumption, and consequently their available energy, to such a point as to make them incapable of the effort required for the learning and adoption of new habits of thought. the accumulation of wealth at the upper end of the pecuniary scale implies privation at the lower end of the scale. it is a commonplace that, wherever it occurs, a considerable degree of privation among the body of the people is a serious obstacle to any innovation. this direct inhibitory effect of the unequal distribution of wealth is seconded by an indirect effect tending to the same result. as has already been seen, the imperative example set by the upper class in fixing the canons of reputability fosters the practice of conspicuous consumption. the prevalence of conspicuous consumption as one of the main elements in the standard of decency among all classes is of course not traceable wholly to the example of the wealthy leisure class, but the practice and the insistence on it are no doubt strengthened by the example of the leisure class. the requirements of decency in this matter are very considerable and very imperative; so that even among classes whose pecuniary position is sufficiently strong to admit a consumption of goods considerably in excess of the subsistence minimum, the disposable surplus left over after the more imperative physical needs are satisfied is not infrequently diverted to the purpose of a conspicuous decency, rather than to added physical comfort and fullness of life. moreover, such surplus energy as is available is also likely to be expended in the acquisition of goods for conspicuous consumption or conspicuous boarding. the result is that the requirements of pecuniary reputability tend (1) to leave but a scanty subsistence minimum available for other than conspicuous consumption, and (2) to absorb any surplus energy which may be available after the bare physical necessities of life have been provided for. the outcome of the whole is a strengthening of the general conservative attitude of the community. the institution of a leisure class hinders cultural development immediately (1) by the inertia proper to the class itself, (2) through its prescriptive example of conspicuous waste and of conservatism, and (3) indirectly through that system of unequal distribution of wealth and sustenance on which the institution itself rests. to this is to be added that the leisure class has also a material interest in leaving things as they are. under the circumstances prevailing at any given time this class is in a privileged position, and any departure from the existing order may be expected to work to the detriment of the class rather than the reverse. the attitude of the class, simply as influenced by its class interest, should therefore be to let well-enough alone. this interested motive comes in to supplement the strong instinctive bias of the class, and so to render it even more consistently conservative than it otherwise would be. all this, of course, has nothing to say in the way of eulogy or deprecation of the office of the leisure class as an exponent and vehicle of conservatism or reversion in social structure. the inhibition which it exercises may be salutary or the reverse. wether it is the one or the other in any given case is a question of casuistry rather than of general theory. there may be truth in the view (as a question of policy) so often expressed by the spokesmen of the conservative element, that without some such substantial and consistent resistance to innovation as is offered by the conservative well-to-do classes, social innovation and experiment would hurry the community into untenable and intolerable situations; the only possible result of which would be discontent and disastrous reaction. all this, however, is beside the present argument. but apart from all deprecation, and aside from all question as to the indispensability of some such check on headlong innovation, the leisure class, in the nature of things, consistently acts to retard that adjustment to the environment which is called social advance or development. the characteristic attitude of the class may be summed up in the maxim: "whatever is, is right" whereas the law of natural selection, as applied to human institutions, gives the axiom: "whatever is, is wrong." not that the institutions of today are wholly wrong for the purposes of the life of today, but they are, always and in the nature of things, wrong to some extent. they are the result of a more or less inadequate adjustment of the methods of living to a situation which prevailed at some point in the past development; and they are therefore wrong by something more than the interval which separates the present situation from that of the past. "right" and "wrong" are of course here used without conveying any rejection as to what ought or ought not to be. they are applied simply from the (morally colorless) evolutionary standpoint, and are intended to designate compatibility or incompatibility with the effective evolutionary process. the institution of a leisure class, by force or class interest and instinct, and by precept and prescriptive example, makes for the perpetuation of the existing maladjustment of institutions, and even favors a reversion to a somewhat more archaic scheme of life; a scheme which would be still farther out of adjustment with the exigencies of life under the existing situation even than the accredited, obsolescent scheme that has come down from the immediate past. but after all has been said on the head of conservation of the good old ways, it remains true that institutions change and develop. there is a cumulative growth of customs and habits of thought; a selective adaptation of conventions and methods of life. something is to be said of the office of the leisure class in guiding this growth as well as in retarding it; but little can be said here of its relation to institutional growth except as it touches the institutions that are primarily and immediately of an economic character. these institutions--the economic structure--may be roughly distinguished into two classes or categories, according as they serve one or the other of two divergent purposes of economic life. to adapt the classical terminology, they are institutions of acquisition or of production; or to revert to terms already employed in a different connection in earlier chapters, they are pecuniary or industrial institutions; or in still other terms, they are institutions serving either the invidious or the non-invidious economic interest. the former category have to do with "business," the latter with industry, taking the latter word in the mechanical sense. the latter class are not often recognized as institutions, in great part because they do not immediately concern the ruling class, and are, therefore, seldom the subject of legislation or of deliberate convention. when they do receive attention they are commonly approached from the pecuniary or business side; that being the side or phase of economic life that chiefly occupies men's deliberations in our time, especially the deliberations of the upper classes. these classes have little else than a business interest in things economic, and on them at the same time it is chiefly incumbent to deliberate upon the community's affairs. the relation of the leisure (that is, propertied non-industrial) class to the economic process is a pecuniary relation--a relation of acquisition, not of production; of exploitation, not of serviceability. indirectly their economic office may, of course, be of the utmost importance to the economic life process; and it is by no means here intended to depreciate the economic function of the propertied class or of the captains of industry. the purpose is simply to point out what is the nature of the relation of these classes to the industrial process and to economic institutions. their office is of a parasitic character, and their interest is to divert what substance they may to their own use, and to retain whatever is under their hand. the conventions of the business world have grown up under the selective surveillance of this principle of predation or parasitism. they are conventions of ownership; derivatives, more or less remote, of the ancient predatory culture. but these pecuniary institutions do not entirely fit the situation of today, for they have grown up under a past situation differing somewhat from the present. even for effectiveness in the pecuniary way, therefore, they are not as apt as might be. the changed industrial life requires changed methods of acquisition; and the pecuniary classes have some interest in so adapting the pecuniary institutions as to give them the best effect for acquisition of private gain that is compatible with the continuance of the industrial process out of which this gain arises. hence there is a more or less consistent trend in the leisure-class guidance of institutional growth, answering to the pecuniary ends which shape leisure-class economic life. the effect of the pecuniary interest and the pecuniary habit of mind upon the growth of institutions is seen in those enactments and conventions that make for security of property, enforcement of contracts, facility of pecuniary transactions, vested interests. of such bearing are changes affecting bankruptcy and receiverships, limited liability, banking and currency, coalitions of laborers or employers, trusts and pools. the community's institutional furniture of this kind is of immediate consequence only to the propertied classes, and in proportion as they are propertied; that is to say, in proportion as they are to be ranked with the leisure class. but indirectly these conventions of business life are of the gravest consequence for the industrial process and for the life of the community. and in guiding the institutional growth in this respect, the pecuniary classes, therefore, serve a purpose of the most serious importance to the community, not only in the conservation of the accepted social scheme, but also in shaping the industrial process proper. the immediate end of this pecuniary institutional structure and of its amelioration is the greater facility of peaceable and orderly exploitation; but its remoter effects far outrun this immediate object. not only does the more facile conduct of business permit industry and extra-industrial life to go on with less perturbation; but the resulting elimination of disturbances and complications calling for an exercise of astute discrimination in everyday affairs acts to make the pecuniary class itself superfluous. as fast as pecuniary transactions are reduced to routine, the captain of industry can be dispensed with. this consummation, it is needless to say, lies yet in the indefinite future. the ameliorations wrought in favor of the pecuniary interest in modern institutions tend, in another field, to substitute the "soulless" joint-stock corporation for the captain, and so they make also for the dispensability, of the great leisure-class function of ownership. indirectly, therefore, the bent given to the growth of economic institutions by the leisure-class influence is of very considerable industrial consequence. chapter nine ~~ the conservation of archaic traits the institution of a leisure class has an effect not only upon social structure but also upon the individual character of the members of society. so soon as a given proclivity or a given point of view has won acceptance as an authoritative standard or norm of life it will react upon the character of the members of the society which has accepted it as a norm. it will to some extent shape their habits of thought and will exercise a selective surveillance over the development of men's aptitudes and inclinations. this effect is wrought partly by a coercive, educational adaptation of the habits of all individuals, partly by a selective elimination of the unfit individuals and lines of descent. such human material as does not lend itself to the methods of life imposed by the accepted scheme suffers more or less elimination as well as repression. the principles of pecuniary emulation and of industrial exemption have in this way been erected into canons of life, and have become coercive factors of some importance in the situation to which men have to adapt themselves. these two broad principles of conspicuous waste and industrial exemption affect the cultural development both by guiding men's habits of thought, and so controlling the growth of institutions, and by selectively conserving certain traits of human nature that conduce to facility of life under the leisure-class scheme, and so controlling the effective temper of the community. the proximate tendency of the institution of a leisure class in shaping human character runs in the direction of spiritual survival and reversion. its effect upon the temper of a community is of the nature of an arrested spiritual development. in the later culture especially, the institution has, on the whole, a conservative trend. this proposition is familiar enough in substance, but it may to many have the appearance of novelty in its present application. therefore a summary review of its logical grounds may not be uncalled for, even at the risk of some tedious repetition and formulation of commonplaces. social evolution is a process of selective adaptation of temperament and habits of thought under the stress of the circumstances of associated life. the adaptation of habits of thought is the growth of institutions. but along with the growth of institutions has gone a change of a more substantial character. not only have the habits of men changed with the changing exigencies of the situation, but these changing exigencies have also brought about a correlative change in human nature. the human material of society itself varies with the changing conditions of life. this variation of human nature is held by the later ethnologists to be a process of selection between several relatively stable and persistent ethnic types or ethnic elements. men tend to revert or to breed true, more or less closely, to one or another of certain types of human nature that have in their main features been fixed in approximate conformity to a situation in the past which differed from the situation of today. there are several of these relatively stable ethnic types of mankind comprised in the populations of the western culture. these ethnic types survive in the race inheritance today, not as rigid and invariable moulds, each of a single precise and specific pattern, but in the form of a greater or smaller number of variants. some variation of the ethnic types has resulted under the protracted selective process to which the several types and their hybrids have been subjected during the prehistoric and historic growth of culture. this necessary variation of the types themselves, due to a selective process of considerable duration and of a consistent trend, has not been sufficiently noticed by the writers who have discussed ethnic survival. the argument is here concerned with two main divergent variants of human nature resulting from this, relatively late, selective adaptation of the ethnic types comprised in the western culture; the point of interest being the probable effect of the situation of today in furthering variation along one or the other of these two divergent lines. the ethnological position may be briefly summed up; and in order to avoid any but the most indispensable detail the schedule of types and variants and the scheme of reversion and survival in which they are concerned are here presented with a diagrammatic meagerness and simplicity which would not be admissible for any other purpose. the man of our industrial communities tends to breed true to one or the other of three main ethic types; the dolichocephalic-blond, the brachycephalic-brunette, and the mediterranean--disregarding minor and outlying elements of our culture. but within each of these main ethnic types the reversion tends to one or the other of at least two main directions of variation; the peaceable or antepredatory variant and the predatory variant. the former of these two characteristic variants is nearer to the generic type in each case, being the reversional representative of its type as it stood at the earliest stage of associated life of which there is available evidence, either archaeological or psychological. this variant is taken to represent the ancestors of existing civilized man at the peaceable, savage phase of life which preceded the predatory culture, the regime of status, and the growth of pecuniary emulation. the second or predatory variant of the types is taken to be a survival of a more recent modification of the main ethnic types and their hybrids--of these types as they were modified, mainly by a selective adaptation, under the discipline of the predatory culture and the latter emulative culture of the quasi-peaceable stage, or the pecuniary culture proper. under the recognized laws of heredity there may be a survival from a more or less remote past phase. in the ordinary, average, or normal case, if the type has varied, the traits of the type are transmitted approximately as they have stood in the recent past--which may be called the hereditary present. for the purpose in hand this hereditary present is represented by the later predatory and the quasi-peaceable culture. it is to the variant of human nature which is characteristic of this recent--hereditarily still existing--predatory or quasi-predatory culture that the modern civilized man tends to breed true in the common run of cases. this proposition requires some qualification so far as concerns the descendants of the servile or repressed classes of barbarian times, but the qualification necessary is probably not so great as might at first thought appear. taking the population as a whole, this predatory, emulative variant does not seem to have attained a high degree of consistency or stability. that is to say, the human nature inherited by modern occidental man is not nearly uniform in respect of the range or the relative strength of the various aptitudes and propensities which go to make it up. the man of the hereditary present is slightly archaic as judged for the purposes of the latest exigencies of associated life. and the type to which the modern man chiefly tends to revert under the law of variation is a somewhat more archaic human nature. on the other hand, to judge by the reversional traits which show themselves in individuals that vary from the prevailing predatory style of temperament, the ante-predatory variant seems to have a greater stability and greater symmetry in the distribution or relative force of its temperamental elements. this divergence of inherited human nature, as between an earlier and a later variant of the ethnic type to which the individual tends to breed true, is traversed and obscured by a similar divergence between the two or three main ethnic types that go to make up the occidental populations. the individuals in these communities are conceived to be, in virtually every instance, hybrids of the prevailing ethnic elements combined in the most varied proportions; with the result that they tend to take back to one or the other of the component ethnic types. these ethnic types differ in temperament in a way somewhat similar to the difference between the predatory and the antepredatory variants of the types; the dolicho-blond type showing more of the characteristics of the predatory temperament--or at least more of the violent disposition--than the brachycephalic-brunette type, and especially more than the mediterranean. when the growth of institutions or of the effective sentiment of a given community shows a divergence from the predatory human nature, therefore, it is impossible to say with certainty that such a divergence indicates a reversion to the ante-predatory variant. it may be due to an increasing dominance of the one or the other of the "lower" ethnic elements in the population. still, although the evidence is not as conclusive as might be desired, there are indications that the variations in the effective temperament of modern communities is not altogether due to a selection between stable ethnic types. it seems to be to some appreciable extent a selection between the predatory and the peaceable variants of the several types. this conception of contemporary human evolution is not indispensable to the discussion. the general conclusions reached by the use of these concepts of selective adaptation would remain substantially true if the earlier, darwinian and spencerian, terms and concepts were substituted. under the circumstances, some latitude may be admissible in the use of terms. the word "type" is used loosely, to denote variations of temperament which the ethnologists would perhaps recognize only as trivial variants of the type rather than as distinct ethnic types. wherever a closer discrimination seems essential to the argument, the effort to make such a closer discrimination will be evident from the context. the ethnic types of today, then, are variants of the primitive racial types. they have suffered some alteration, and have attained some degree of fixity in their altered form, under the discipline of the barbarian culture. the man of the hereditary present is the barbarian variant, servile or aristocratic, of the ethnic elements that constitute him. but this barbarian variant has not attained the highest degree of homogeneity or of stability. the barbarian culture--the predatory and quasi-peaceable cultural stages--though of great absolute duration, has been neither protracted enough nor invariable enough in character to give an extreme fixity of type. variations from the barbarian human nature occur with some frequency, and these cases of variation are becoming more noticeable today, because the conditions of modern life no longer act consistently to repress departures from the barbarian normal. the predatory temperament does not lead itself to all the purposes of modern life, and more especially not to modern industry. departures from the human nature of the hereditary present are most frequently of the nature of reversions to an earlier variant of the type. this earlier variant is represented by the temperament which characterizes the primitive phase of peaceable savagery. the circumstances of life and the ends of effort that prevailed before the advent of the barbarian culture, shaped human nature and fixed it as regards certain fundamental traits. and it is to these ancient, generic features that modern men are prone to take back in case of variation from the human nature of the hereditary present. the conditions under which men lived in the most primitive stages of associated life that can properly be called human, seem to have been of a peaceful kind; and the character--the temperament and spiritual attitude of men under these early conditions or environment and institutions seems to have been of a peaceful and unaggressive, not to say an indolent, cast. for the immediate purpose this peaceable cultural stage may be taken to mark the initial phase of social development. so far as concerns the present argument, the dominant spiritual feature of this presumptive initial phase of culture seems to have been an unreflecting, unformulated sense of group solidarity, largely expressing itself in a complacent, but by no means strenuous, sympathy with all facility of human life, and an uneasy revulsion against apprehended inhibition or futility of life. through its ubiquitous presence in the habits of thought of the ante-predatory savage man, this pervading but uneager sense of the generically useful seems to have exercised an appreciable constraining force upon his life and upon the manner of his habitual contact with other members of the group. the traces of this initial, undifferentiated peaceable phase of culture seem faint and doubtful if we look merely to such categorical evidence of its existence as is afforded by usages and views in vogue within the historical present, whether in civilized or in rude communities; but less dubious evidence of its existence is to be found in psychological survivals, in the way of persistent and pervading traits of human character. these traits survive perhaps in an especial degree among those ethic elements which were crowded into the background during the predatory culture. traits that were suited to the earlier habits of life then became relatively useless in the individual struggle for existence. and those elements of the population, or those ethnic groups, which were by temperament less fitted to the predatory life were repressed and pushed into the background. on the transition to the predatory culture the character of the struggle for existence changed in some degree from a struggle of the group against a non-human environment to a struggle against a human environment. this change was accompanied by an increasing antagonism and consciousness of antagonism between the individual members of the group. the conditions of success within the group, as well as the conditions of the survival of the group, changed in some measure; and the dominant spiritual attitude for the group gradually changed, and brought a different range of aptitudes and propensities into the position of legitimate dominance in the accepted scheme of life. among these archaic traits that are to be regarded as survivals from the peaceable cultural phase, are that instinct of race solidarity which we call conscience, including the sense of truthfulness and equity, and the instinct of workmanship, in its naive, non-invidious expression. under the guidance of the later biological and psychological science, human nature will have to be restated in terms of habit; and in the restatement, this, in outline, appears to be the only assignable place and ground of these traits. these habits of life are of too pervading a character to be ascribed to the influence of a late or brief discipline. the ease with which they are temporarily overborne by the special exigencies of recent and modern life argues that these habits are the surviving effects of a discipline of extremely ancient date, from the teachings of which men have frequently been constrained to depart in detail under the altered circumstances of a later time; and the almost ubiquitous fashion in which they assert themselves whenever the pressure of special exigencies is relieved, argues that the process by which the traits were fixed and incorporated into the spiritual make-up of the type must have lasted for a relatively very long time and without serious intermission. the point is not seriously affected by any question as to whether it was a process of habituation in the old-fashioned sense of the word or a process of selective adaptation of the race. the character and exigencies of life, under that regime of status and of individual and class antithesis which covers the entire interval from the beginning of predatory culture to the present, argue that the traits of temperament here under discussion could scarcely have arisen and acquired fixity during that interval. it is entirely probable that these traits have come down from an earlier method of life, and have survived through the interval of predatory and quasi-peaceable culture in a condition of incipient, or at least imminent, desuetude, rather than that they have been brought out and fixed by this later culture. they appear to be hereditary characteristics of the race, and to have persisted in spite of the altered requirements of success under the predatory and the later pecuniary stages of culture. they seem to have persisted by force of the tenacity of transmission that belongs to an hereditary trait that is present in some degree in every member of the species, and which therefore rests on a broad basis of race continuity. such a generic feature is not readily eliminated, even under a process of selection so severe and protracted as that to which the traits here under discussion were subjected during the predatory and quasi-peaceable stages. these peaceable traits are in great part alien to the methods and the animus of barbarian life. the salient characteristic of the barbarian culture is an unremitting emulation and antagonism between classes and between individuals. this emulative discipline favors those individuals and lines of descent which possess the peaceable savage traits in a relatively slight degree. it therefore tends to eliminate these traits, and it has apparently weakened them, in an appreciable degree, in the populations that have been subject to it. even where the extreme penalty for non-conformity to the barbarian type of temperament is not paid, there results at least a more or less consistent repression of the non-conforming individuals and lines of descent. where life is largely a struggle between individuals within the group, the possession of the ancient peaceable traits in a marked degree would hamper an individual in the struggle for life. under any known phase of culture, other or later than the presumptive initial phase here spoken of, the gifts of good-nature, equity, and indiscriminate sympathy do not appreciably further the life of the individual. their possession may serve to protect the individual from hard usage at the hands of a majority that insists on a modicum of these ingredients in their ideal of a normal man; but apart from their indirect and negative effect in this way, the individual fares better under the regime of competition in proportion as he has less of these gifts. freedom from scruple, from sympathy, honesty and regard for life, may, within fairly wide limits, be said to further the success of the individual in the pecuniary culture. the highly successful men of all times have commonly been of this type; except those whose success has not been scored in terms of either wealth or power. it is only within narrow limits, and then only in a pickwickian sense, that honesty is the best policy. as seen from the point of view of life under modern civilized conditions in an enlightened community of the western culture, the primitive, ante-predatory savage, whose character it has been attempted to trace in outline above, was not a great success. even for the purposes of that hypothetical culture to which his type of human nature owes what stability it has--even for the ends of the peaceable savage group--this primitive man has quite as many and as conspicuous economic failings as he has economic virtues--as should be plain to any one whose sense of the case is not biased by leniency born of a fellow-feeling. at his best he is "a clever, good-for-nothing fellow." the shortcomings of this presumptively primitive type of character are weakness, inefficiency, lack of initiative and ingenuity, and a yielding and indolent amiability, together with a lively but inconsequential animistic sense. along with these traits go certain others which have some value for the collective life process, in the sense that they further the facility of life in the group. these traits are truthfulness, peaceableness, good-will, and a non-emulative, non-invidious interest in men and things. with the advent of the predatory stage of life there comes a change in the requirements of the successful human character. men's habits of life are required to adapt themselves to new exigencies under a new scheme of human relations. the same unfolding of energy, which had previously found expression in the traits of savage life recited above, is now required to find expression along a new line of action, in a new group of habitual responses to altered stimuli. the methods which, as counted in terms of facility of life, answered measurably under the earlier conditions, are no longer adequate under the new conditions. the earlier situation was characterized by a relative absence of antagonism or differentiation of interests, the later situation by an emulation constantly increasing in relative absence of antagonism or differentiation of interests, the later situation by an emulation constantly increasing in intensity and narrowing in scope. the traits which characterize the predatory and subsequent stages of culture, and which indicate the types of man best fitted to survive under the regime of status, are (in their primary expression) ferocity, self-seeking, clannishness, and disingenuousness--a free resort to force and fraud. under the severe and protracted discipline of the regime of competition, the selection of ethnic types has acted to give a somewhat pronounced dominance to these traits of character, by favoring the survival of those ethnic elements which are most richly endowed in these respects. at the same time the earlier--acquired, more generic habits of the race have never ceased to have some usefulness for the purpose of the life of the collectivity and have never fallen into definitive abeyance. it may be worth while to point out that the dolicho-blond type of european man seems to owe much of its dominating influence and its masterful position in the recent culture to its possessing the characteristics of predatory man in an exceptional degree. these spiritual traits, together with a large endowment of physical energy--itself probably a result of selection between groups and between lines of descent--chiefly go to place any ethnic element in the position of a leisure or master class, especially during the earlier phases of the development of the institution of a leisure class. this need not mean that precisely the same complement of aptitudes in any individual would insure him an eminent personal success. under the competitive regime, the conditions of success for the individual are not necessarily the same as those for a class. the success of a class or party presumes a strong element of clannishness, or loyalty to a chief, or adherence to a tenet; whereas the competitive individual can best achieve his ends if he combines the barbarian's energy, initiative, self-seeking and disingenuousness with the savage's lack of loyalty or clannishness. it may be remarked by the way, that the men who have scored a brilliant (napoleonic) success on the basis of an impartial self-seeking and absence of scruple, have not uncommonly shown more of the physical characteristics of the brachycephalic-brunette than of the dolicho-blond. the greater proportion of moderately successful individuals, in a self-seeking way, however, seem, in physique, to belong to the last-named ethnic element. the temperament induced by the predatory habit of life makes for the survival and fullness of life of the individual under a regime of emulation; at the same time it makes for the survival and success of the group if the group's life as a collectivity is also predominantly a life of hostile competition with other groups. but the evolution of economic life in the industrially more mature communities has now begun to take such a turn that the interest of the community no longer coincides with the emulative interests of the individual. in their corporate capacity, these advanced industrial communities are ceasing to be competitors for the means of life or for the right to live--except in so far as the predatory propensities of their ruling classes keep up the tradition of war and rapine. these communities are no longer hostile to one another by force of circumstances, other than the circumstances of tradition and temperament. their material interests--apart, possibly, from the interests of the collective good fame--are not only no longer incompatible, but the success of any one of the communities unquestionably furthers the fullness of life of any other community in the group, for the present and for an incalculable time to come. no one of them any longer has any material interest in getting the better of any other. the same is not true in the same degree as regards individuals and their relations to one another. the collective interests of any modern community center in industrial efficiency. the individual is serviceable for the ends of the community somewhat in proportion to his efficiency in the productive employments vulgarly so called. this collective interest is best served by honesty, diligence, peacefulness, good-will, an absence of self-seeking, and an habitual recognition and apprehension of causal sequence, without admixture of animistic belief and without a sense of dependence on any preternatural intervention in the course of events. not much is to be said for the beauty, moral excellence, or general worthiness and reputability of such a prosy human nature as these traits imply; and there is little ground of enthusiasm for the manner of collective life that would result from the prevalence of these traits in unmitigated dominance. but that is beside the point. the successful working of a modern industrial community is best secured where these traits concur, and it is attained in the degree in which the human material is characterized by their possession. their presence in some measure is required in order to have a tolerable adjustment to the circumstances of the modern industrial situation. the complex, comprehensive, essentially peaceable, and highly organized mechanism of the modern industrial community works to the best advantage when these traits, or most of them, are present in the highest practicable degree. these traits are present in a markedly less degree in the man of the predatory type than is useful for the purposes of the modern collective life. on the other hand, the immediate interest of the individual under the competitive regime is best served by shrewd trading and unscrupulous management. the characteristics named above as serving the interests of the community are disserviceable to the individual, rather than otherwise. the presence of these aptitudes in his make-up diverts his energies to other ends than those of pecuniary gain; and also in his pursuit of gain they lead him to seek gain by the indirect and ineffectual channels of industry, rather than by a free and unfaltering career of sharp practice. the industrial aptitudes are pretty consistently a hindrance to the individual. under the regime of emulation the members of a modern industrial community are rivals, each of whom will best attain his individual and immediate advantage if, through an exceptional exemption from scruple, he is able serenely to overreach and injure his fellows when the chance offers. it has already been noticed that modern economic institutions fall into two roughly distinct categories--the pecuniary and the industrial. the like is true of employments. under the former head are employments that have to do with ownership or acquisition; under the latter head, those that have to do with workmanship or production. as was found in speaking of the growth of institutions, so with regard to employments. the economic interests of the leisure class lie in the pecuniary employments; those of the working classes lie in both classes of employments, but chiefly in the industrial. entrance to the leisure class lies through the pecuniary employments. these two classes of employment differ materially in respect of the aptitudes required for each; and the training which they give similarly follows two divergent lines. the discipline of the pecuniary employments acts to conserve and to cultivate certain of the predatory aptitudes and the predatory animus. it does this both by educating those individuals and classes who are occupied with these employments and by selectively repressing and eliminating those individuals and lines of descent that are unfit in this respect. so far as men's habits of thought are shaped by the competitive process of acquisition and tenure; so far as their economic functions are comprised within the range of ownership of wealth as conceived in terms of exchange value, and its management and financiering through a permutation of values; so far their experience in economic life favors the survival and accentuation of the predatory temperament and habits of thought. under the modern, peaceable system, it is of course the peaceable range of predatory habits and aptitudes that is chiefly fostered by a life of acquisition. that is to say, the pecuniary employments give proficiency in the general line of practices comprised under fraud, rather than in those that belong under the more archaic method of forcible seizure. these pecuniary employments, tending to conserve the predatory temperament, are the employments which have to do with ownership--the immediate function of the leisure class proper--and the subsidiary functions concerned with acquisition and accumulation. these cover the class of persons and that range of duties in the economic process which have to do with the ownership of enterprises engaged in competitive industry; especially those fundamental lines of economic management which are classed as financiering operations. to these may be added the greater part of mercantile occupations. in their best and clearest development these duties make up the economic office of the "captain of industry." the captain of industry is an astute man rather than an ingenious one, and his captaincy is a pecuniary rather than an industrial captaincy. such administration of industry as he exercises is commonly of a permissive kind. the mechanically effective details of production and of industrial organization are delegated to subordinates of a less "practical" turn of mind--men who are possessed of a gift for workmanship rather than administrative ability. so far as regards their tendency in shaping human nature by education and selection, the common run of non-economic employments are to be classed with the pecuniary employments. such are politics and ecclesiastical and military employments. the pecuniary employments have also the sanction of reputability in a much higher degree than the industrial employments. in this way the leisure-class standards of good repute come in to sustain the prestige of those aptitudes that serve the invidious purpose; and the leisure-class scheme of decorous living, therefore, also furthers the survival and culture of the predatory traits. employments fall into a hierarchical gradation of reputability. those which have to do immediately with ownership on a large scale are the most reputable of economic employments proper. next to these in good repute come those employments that are immediately subservient to ownership and financiering--such as banking and the law. banking employments also carry a suggestion of large ownership, and this fact is doubtless accountable for a share of the prestige that attaches to the business. the profession of the law does not imply large ownership; but since no taint of usefulness, for other than the competitive purpose, attaches to the lawyer's trade, it grades high in the conventional scheme. the lawyer is exclusively occupied with the details of predatory fraud, either in achieving or in checkmating chicanery, and success in the profession is therefore accepted as marking a large endowment of that barbarian astuteness which has always commanded men's respect and fear. mercantile pursuits are only half-way reputable, unless they involve a large element of ownership and a small element of usefulness. they grade high or low somewhat in proportion as they serve the higher or the lower needs; so that the business of retailing the vulgar necessaries of life descends to the level of the handicrafts and factory labor. manual labor, or even the work of directing mechanical processes, is of course on a precarious footing as regards respectability. a qualification is necessary as regards the discipline given by the pecuniary employments. as the scale of industrial enterprise grows larger, pecuniary management comes to bear less of the character of chicanery and shrewd competition in detail. that is to say, for an ever-increasing proportion of the persons who come in contact with this phase of economic life, business reduces itself to a routine in which there is less immediate suggestion of overreaching or exploiting a competitor. the consequent exemption from predatory habits extends chiefly to subordinates employed in business. the duties of ownership and administration are virtually untouched by this qualification. the case is different as regards those individuals or classes who are immediately occupied with the technique and manual operations of production. their daily life is not in the same degree a course of habituation to the emulative and invidious motives and maneuvers of the pecuniary side of industry. they are consistently held to the apprehension and coordination of mechanical facts and sequences, and to their appreciation and utilization for the purposes of human life. so far as concerns this portion of the population, the educative and selective action of the industrial process with which they are immediately in contact acts to adapt their habits of thought to the non-invidious purposes of the collective life. for them, therefore, it hastens the obsolescence of the distinctively predatory aptitudes and propensities carried over by heredity and tradition from the barbarian past of the race. the educative action of the economic life of the community, therefore, is not of a uniform kind throughout all its manifestations. that range of economic activities which is concerned immediately with pecuniary competition has a tendency to conserve certain predatory traits; while those industrial occupations which have to do immediately with the production of goods have in the main the contrary tendency. but with regard to the latter class of employments it is to be noticed in qualification that the persons engaged in them are nearly all to some extent also concerned with matters of pecuniary competition (as, for instance, in the competitive fixing of wages and salaries, in the purchase of goods for consumption, etc.). therefore the distinction here made between classes of employments is by no means a hard and fast distinction between classes of persons. the employments of the leisure classes in modern industry are such as to keep alive certain of the predatory habits and aptitudes. so far as the members of those classes take part in the industrial process, their training tends to conserve in them the barbarian temperament. but there is something to be said on the other side. individuals so placed as to be exempt from strain may survive and transmit their characteristics even if they differ widely from the average of the species both in physique and in spiritual make-up. the chances for a survival and transmission of atavistic traits are greatest in those classes that are most sheltered from the stress of circumstances. the leisure class is in some degree sheltered from the stress of the industrial situation, and should, therefore, afford an exceptionally great proportion of reversions to the peaceable or savage temperament. it should be possible for such aberrant or atavistic individuals to unfold their life activity on ante-predatory lines without suffering as prompt a repression or elimination as in the lower walks of life. something of the sort seems to be true in fact. there is, for instance, an appreciable proportion of the upper classes whose inclinations lead them into philanthropic work, and there is a considerable body of sentiment in the class going to support efforts of reform and amelioration. and much of this philanthropic and reformatory effort, moreover, bears the marks of that amiable "cleverness" and incoherence that is characteristic of the primitive savage. but it may still be doubtful whether these facts are evidence of a larger proportion of reversions in the higher than in the lower strata, even if the same inclinations were present in the impecunious classes, it would not as easily find expression there; since those classes lack the means and the time and energy to give effect to their inclinations in this respect. the prima facie evidence of the facts can scarcely go unquestioned. in further qualification it is to be noted that the leisure class of today is recruited from those who have been successful in a pecuniary way, and who, therefore, are presumably endowed with more than an even complement of the predatory traits. entrance into the leisure class lies through the pecuniary employments, and these employments, by selection and adaptation, act to admit to the upper levels only those lines of descent that are pecuniarily fit to survive under the predatory test. and so soon as a case of reversion to non-predatory human nature shows itself on these upper levels, it is commonly weeded out and thrown back to the lower pecuniary levels. in order to hold its place in the class, a stock must have the pecuniary temperament; otherwise its fortune would be dissipated and it would presently lose caste. instances of this kind are sufficiently frequent. the constituency of the leisure class is kept up by a continual selective process, whereby the individuals and lines of descent that are eminently fitted for an aggressive pecuniary competition are withdrawn from the lower classes. in order to reach the upper levels the aspirant must have, not only a fair average complement of the pecuniary aptitudes, but he must have these gifts in such an eminent degree as to overcome very material difficulties that stand in the way of his ascent. barring accidents, the nouveaux arrivã©s are a picked body. this process of selective admission has, of course, always been going on; ever since the fashion of pecuniary emulation set in--which is much the same as saying, ever since the institution of a leisure class was first installed. but the precise ground of selection has not always been the same, and the selective process has therefore not always given the same results. in the early barbarian, or predatory stage proper, the test of fitness was prowess, in the naive sense of the word. to gain entrance to the class, the candidate had to be gifted with clannishness, massiveness, ferocity, unscrupulousness, and tenacity of purpose. these were the qualities that counted toward the accumulation and continued tenure of wealth. the economic basis of the leisure class, then as later, was the possession of wealth; but the methods of accumulating wealth, and the gifts required for holding it, have changed in some degree since the early days of the predatory culture. in consequence of the selective process the dominant traits of the early barbarian leisure class were bold aggression, an alert sense of status, and a free resort to fraud. the members of the class held their place by tenure of prowess. in the later barbarian culture society attained settled methods of acquisition and possession under the quasi-peaceable regime of status. simple aggression and unrestrained violence in great measure gave place to shrewd practice and chicanery, as the best approved method of accumulating wealth. a different range of aptitudes and propensities would then be conserved in the leisure class. masterful aggression, and the correlative massiveness, together with a ruthlessly consistent sense of status, would still count among the most splendid traits of the class. these have remained in our traditions as the typical "aristocratic virtues." but with these were associated an increasing complement of the less obtrusive pecuniary virtues; such as providence, prudence, and chicanery. as time has gone on, and the modern peaceable stage of pecuniary culture has been approached, the last-named range of aptitudes and habits has gained in relative effectiveness for pecuniary ends, and they have counted for relatively more in the selective process under which admission is gained and place is held in the leisure class. the ground of selection has changed, until the aptitudes which now qualify for admission to the class are the pecuniary aptitudes only. what remains of the predatory barbarian traits is the tenacity of purpose or consistency of aim which distinguished the successful predatory barbarian from the peaceable savage whom he supplanted. but this trait can not be said characteristically to distinguish the pecuniarily successful upper-class man from the rank and file of the industrial classes. the training and the selection to which the latter are exposed in modern industrial life give a similarly decisive weight to this trait. tenacity of purpose may rather be said to distinguish both these classes from two others; the shiftless ne'er do-well and the lower-class delinquent. in point of natural endowment the pecuniary man compares with the delinquent in much the same way as the industrial man compares with the good-natured shiftless dependent. the ideal pecuniary man is like the ideal delinquent in his unscrupulous conversion of goods and persons to his own ends, and in a callous disregard of the feelings and wishes of others and of the remoter effects of his actions; but he is unlike him in possessing a keener sense of status, and in working more consistently and farsightedly to a remoter end. the kinship of the two types of temperament is further shown in a proclivity to "sport" and gambling, and a relish of aimless emulation. the ideal pecuniary man also shows a curious kinship with the delinquent in one of the concomitant variations of the predatory human nature. the delinquent is very commonly of a superstitious habit of mind; he is a great believer in luck, spells, divination and destiny, and in omens and shamanistic ceremony. where circumstances are favorable, this proclivity is apt to express itself in a certain servile devotional fervor and a punctilious attention to devout observances; it may perhaps be better characterized as devoutness than as religion. at this point the temperament of the delinquent has more in common with the pecuniary and leisure classes than with the industrial man or with the class of shiftless dependents. life in a modern industrial community, or in other words life under the pecuniary culture, acts by a process of selection to develop and conserve a certain range of aptitudes and propensities. the present tendency of this selective process is not simply a reversion to a given, immutable ethnic type. it tends rather to a modification of human nature differing in some respects from any of the types or variants transmitted out of the past. the objective point of the evolution is not a single one. the temperament which the evolution acts to establish as normal differs from any one of the archaic variants of human nature in its greater stability of aim--greater singleness of purpose and greater persistence in effort. so far as concerns economic theory, the objective point of the selective process is on the whole single to this extent; although there are minor tendencies of considerable importance diverging from this line of development. but apart from this general trend the line of development is not single. as concerns economic theory, the development in other respects runs on two divergent lines. so far as regards the selective conservation of capacities or aptitudes in individuals, these two lines may be called the pecuniary and the industrial. as regards the conservation of propensities, spiritual attitude, or animus, the two may be called the invidious or self-regarding and the non-invidious or economical. as regards the intellectual or cognitive bent of the two directions of growth, the former may be characterized as the personal standpoint, of conation, qualitative relation, status, or worth; the latter as the impersonal standpoint, of sequence, quantitative relation, mechanical efficiency, or use. the pecuniary employments call into action chiefly the former of these two ranges of aptitudes and propensities, and act selectively to conserve them in the population. the industrial employments, on the other hand, chiefly exercise the latter range, and act to conserve them. an exhaustive psychological analysis will show that each of these two ranges of aptitudes and propensities is but the multiform expression of a given temperamental bent. by force of the unity or singleness of the individual, the aptitudes, animus, and interests comprised in the first-named range belong together as expressions of a given variant of human nature. the like is true of the latter range. the two may be conceived as alternative directions of human life, in such a way that a given individual inclines more or less consistently to the one or the other. the tendency of the pecuniary life is, in a general way, to conserve the barbarian temperament, but with the substitution of fraud and prudence, or administrative ability, in place of that predilection for physical damage that characterizes the early barbarian. this substitution of chicanery in place of devastation takes place only in an uncertain degree. within the pecuniary employments the selective action runs pretty consistently in this direction, but the discipline of pecuniary life, outside the competition for gain, does not work consistently to the same effect. the discipline of modern life in the consumption of time and goods does not act unequivocally to eliminate the aristocratic virtues or to foster the bourgeois virtues. the conventional scheme of decent living calls for a considerable exercise of the earlier barbarian traits. some details of this traditional scheme of life, bearing on this point, have been noticed in earlier chapters under the head of leisure, and further details will be shown in later chapters. from what has been said, it appears that the leisure-class life and the leisure-class scheme of life should further the conservation of the barbarian temperament; chiefly of the quasi-peaceable, or bourgeois, variant, but also in some measure of the predatory variant. in the absence of disturbing factors, therefore, it should be possible to trace a difference of temperament between the classes of society. the aristocratic and the bourgeois virtues--that is to say the destructive and pecuniary traits--should be found chiefly among the upper classes, and the industrial virtues--that is to say the peaceable traits--chiefly among the classes given to mechanical industry. in a general and uncertain way this holds true, but the test is not so readily applied nor so conclusive as might be wished. there are several assignable reasons for its partial failure. all classes are in a measure engaged in the pecuniary struggle, and in all classes the possession of the pecuniary traits counts towards the success and survival of the individual. wherever the pecuniary culture prevails, the selective process by which men's habits of thought are shaped, and by which the survival of rival lines of descent is decided, proceeds proximately on the basis of fitness for acquisition. consequently, if it were not for the fact that pecuniary efficiency is on the whole incompatible with industrial efficiency, the selective action of all occupations would tend to the unmitigated dominance of the pecuniary temperament. the result would be the installation of what has been known as the "economic man," as the normal and definitive type of human nature. but the "economic man," whose only interest is the self-regarding one and whose only human trait is prudence is useless for the purposes of modern industry. the modern industry requires an impersonal, non-invidious interest in the work in hand. without this the elaborate processes of industry would be impossible, and would, indeed, never have been conceived. this interest in work differentiates the workman from the criminal on the one hand, and from the captain of industry on the other. since work must be done in order to the continued life of the community, there results a qualified selection favoring the spiritual aptitude for work, within a certain range of occupations. this much, however, is to be conceded, that even within the industrial occupations the selective elimination of the pecuniary traits is an uncertain process, and that there is consequently an appreciable survival of the barbarian temperament even within these occupations. on this account there is at present no broad distinction in this respect between the leisure-class character and the character of the common run of the population. the whole question as to a class distinction in respect to spiritual make-up is also obscured by the presence, in all classes of society, of acquired habits of life that closely simulate inherited traits and at the same time act to develop in the entire body of the population the traits which they simulate. these acquired habits, or assumed traits of character, are most commonly of an aristocratic cast. the prescriptive position of the leisure class as the exemplar of reputability has imposed many features of the leisure-class theory of life upon the lower classes; with the result that there goes on, always and throughout society, a more or less persistent cultivation of these aristocratic traits. on this ground also these traits have a better chance of survival among the body of the people than would be the case if it were not for the precept and example of the leisure class. as one channel, and an important one, through which this transfusion of aristocratic views of life, and consequently more or less archaic traits of character goes on, may be mentioned the class of domestic servants. these have their notions of what is good and beautiful shaped by contact with the master class and carry the preconceptions so acquired back among their low-born equals, and so disseminate the higher ideals abroad through the community without the loss of time which this dissemination might otherwise suffer. the saying "like master, like man," has a greater significance than is commonly appreciated for the rapid popular acceptance of many elements of upper-class culture. there is also a further range of facts that go to lessen class differences as regards the survival of the pecuniary virtues. the pecuniary struggle produces an underfed class, of large proportions. this underfeeding consists in a deficiency of the necessaries of life or of the necessaries of a decent expenditure. in either case the result is a closely enforced struggle for the means with which to meet the daily needs; whether it be the physical or the higher needs. the strain of self-assertion against odds takes up the whole energy of the individual; he bends his efforts to compass his own invidious ends alone, and becomes continually more narrowly self-seeking. the industrial traits in this way tend to obsolescence through disuse. indirectly, therefore, by imposing a scheme of pecuniary decency and by withdrawing as much as may be of the means of life from the lower classes, the institution of a leisure class acts to conserve the pecuniary traits in the body of the population. the result is an assimilation of the lower classes to the type of human nature that belongs primarily to the upper classes only. it appears, therefore, that there is no wide difference in temperament between the upper and the lower classes; but it appears also that the absence of such a difference is in good part due to the prescriptive example of the leisure class and to the popular acceptance of those broad principles of conspicuous waste and pecuniary emulation on which the institution of a leisure class rests. the institution acts to lower the industrial efficiency of the community and retard the adaptation of human nature to the exigencies of modern industrial life. it affects the prevalent or effective human nature in a conservative direction, (1) by direct transmission of archaic traits, through inheritance within the class and wherever the leisure-class blood is transfused outside the class, and (2) by conserving and fortifying the traditions of the archaic regime, and so making the chances of survival of barbarian traits greater also outside the range of transfusion of leisure-class blood. but little if anything has been done towards collecting or digesting data that are of special significance for the question of survival or elimination of traits in the modern populations. little of a tangible character can therefore be offered in support of the view here taken, beyond a discursive review of such everyday facts as lie ready to hand. such a recital can scarcely avoid being commonplace and tedious, but for all that it seems necessary to the completeness of the argument, even in the meager outline in which it is here attempted. a degree of indulgence may therefore fairly be bespoken for the succeeding chapters, which offer a fragmentary recital of this kind. chapter ten ~~ modern survivals of prowess the leisure class lives by the industrial community rather than in it. its relations to industry are of a pecuniary rather than an industrial kind. admission to the class is gained by exercise of the pecuniary aptitudes--aptitudes for acquisition rather than for serviceability. there is, therefore, a continued selective sifting of the human material that makes up the leisure class, and this selection proceeds on the ground of fitness for pecuniary pursuits. but the scheme of life of the class is in large part a heritage from the past, and embodies much of the habits and ideals of the earlier barbarian period. this archaic, barbarian scheme of life imposes itself also on the lower orders, with more or less mitigation. in its turn the scheme of life, of conventions, acts selectively and by education to shape the human material, and its action runs chiefly in the direction of conserving traits, habits, and ideals that belong to the early barbarian age--the age of prowess and predatory life. the most immediate and unequivocal expression of that archaic human nature which characterizes man in the predatory stage is the fighting propensity proper. in cases where the predatory activity is a collective one, this propensity is frequently called the martial spirit, or, latterly, patriotism. it needs no insistence to find assent to the proposition that in the countries of civilized europe the hereditary leisure class is endowed with this martial spirit in a higher degree than the middle classes. indeed, the leisure class claims the distinction as a matter of pride, and no doubt with some grounds. war is honorable, and warlike prowess is eminently honorific in the eyes of the generality of men; and this admiration of warlike prowess is itself the best voucher of a predatory temperament in the admirer of war. the enthusiasm for war, and the predatory temper of which it is the index, prevail in the largest measure among the upper classes, especially among the hereditary leisure class. moreover, the ostensible serious occupation of the upper class is that of government, which, in point of origin and developmental content, is also a predatory occupation. the only class which could at all dispute with the hereditary leisure class the honor of an habitual bellicose frame of mind is that of the lower-class delinquents. in ordinary times, the large body of the industrial classes is relatively apathetic touching warlike interests. when unexcited, this body of the common people, which makes up the effective force of the industrial community, is rather averse to any other than a defensive fight; indeed, it responds a little tardily even to a provocation which makes for an attitude of defense. in the more civilized communities, or rather in the communities which have reached an advanced industrial development, the spirit of warlike aggression may be said to be obsolescent among the common people. this does not say that there is not an appreciable number of individuals among the industrial classes in whom the martial spirit asserts itself obtrusively. nor does it say that the body of the people may not be fired with martial ardor for a time under the stimulus of some special provocation, such as is seen in operation today in more than one of the countries of europe, and for the time in america. but except for such seasons of temporary exaltation, and except for those individuals who are endowed with an archaic temperament of the predatory type, together with the similarly endowed body of individuals among the higher and the lowest classes, the inertness of the mass of any modern civilized community in this respect is probably so great as would make war impracticable, except against actual invasion. the habits and aptitudes of the common run of men make for an unfolding of activity in other, less picturesque directions than that of war. this class difference in temperament may be due in part to a difference in the inheritance of acquired traits in the several classes, but it seems also, in some measure, to correspond with a difference in ethnic derivation. the class difference is in this respect visibly less in those countries whose population is relatively homogeneous, ethnically, than in the countries where there is a broader divergence between the ethnic elements that make up the several classes of the community. in the same connection it may be noted that the later accessions to the leisure class in the latter countries, in a general way, show less of the martial spirit than contemporary representatives of the aristocracy of the ancient line. these nouveaux arrivã©s have recently emerged from the commonplace body of the population and owe their emergence into the leisure class to the exercise of traits and propensities which are not to be classed as prowess in the ancient sense. apart from warlike activity proper, the institution of the duel is also an expression of the same superior readiness for combat; and the duel is a leisure-class institution. the duel is in substance a more or less deliberate resort to a fight as a final settlement of a difference of opinion. in civilized communities it prevails as a normal phenomenon only where there is an hereditary leisure class, and almost exclusively among that class. the exceptions are (1) military and naval officers who are ordinarily members of the leisure class, and who are at the same time specially trained to predatory habits of mind and (2) the lower-class delinquents--who are by inheritance, or training, or both, of a similarly predatory disposition and habit. it is only the high-bred gentleman and the rowdy that normally resort to blows as the universal solvent of differences of opinion. the plain man will ordinarily fight only when excessive momentary irritation or alcoholic exaltation act to inhibit the more complex habits of response to the stimuli that make for provocation. he is then thrown back upon the simpler, less differentiated forms of the instinct of self-assertion; that is to say, he reverts temporarily and without reflection to an archaic habit of mind. this institution of the duel as a mode of finally settling disputes and serious questions of precedence shades off into the obligatory, unprovoked private fight, as a social obligation due to one's good repute. as a leisure-class usage of this kind we have, particularly, that bizarre survival of bellicose chivalry, the german student duel. in the lower or spurious leisure class of the delinquents there is in all countries a similar, though less formal, social obligation incumbent on the rowdy to assert his manhood in unprovoked combat with his fellows. and spreading through all grades of society, a similar usage prevails among the boys of the community. the boy usually knows to nicety, from day to day, how he and his associates grade in respect of relative fighting capacity; and in the community of boys there is ordinarily no secure basis of reputability for any one who, by exception, will not or can not fight on invitation. all this applies especially to boys above a certain somewhat vague limit of maturity. the child's temperament does not commonly answer to this description during infancy and the years of close tutelage, when the child still habitually seeks contact with its mother at every turn of its daily life. during this earlier period there is little aggression and little propensity for antagonism. the transition from this peaceable temper to the predaceous, and in extreme cases malignant, mischievousness of the boy is a gradual one, and it is accomplished with more completeness, covering a larger range of the individual's aptitudes, in some cases than in others. in the earlier stage of his growth, the child, whether boy or girl, shows less of initiative and aggressive self-assertion and less of an inclination to isolate himself and his interests from the domestic group in which he lives, and he shows more of sensitiveness to rebuke, bashfulness, timidity, and the need of friendly human contact. in the common run of cases this early temperament passes, by a gradual but somewhat rapid obsolescence of the infantile features, into the temperament of the boy proper; though there are also cases where the predaceous futures of boy life do not emerge at all, or at the most emerge in but a slight and obscure degree. in girls the transition to the predaceous stage is seldom accomplished with the same degree of completeness as in boys; and in a relatively large proportion of cases it is scarcely undergone at all. in such cases the transition from infancy to adolescence and maturity is a gradual and unbroken process of the shifting of interest from infantile purposes and aptitudes to the purposes, functions, and relations of adult life. in the girls there is a less general prevalence of a predaceous interval in the development; and in the cases where it occurs, the predaceous and isolating attitude during the interval is commonly less accentuated. in the male child the predaceous interval is ordinarily fairly well marked and lasts for some time, but it is commonly terminated (if at all) with the attainment of maturity. this last statement may need very material qualification. the cases are by no means rare in which the transition from the boyish to the adult temperament is not made, or is made only partially--understanding by the "adult" temperament the average temperament of those adult individuals in modern industrial life who have some serviceability for the purposes of the collective life process, and who may therefore be said to make up the effective average of the industrial community. the ethnic composition of the european populations varies. in some cases even the lower classes are in large measure made up of the peace-disturbing dolicho-blond; while in others this ethnic element is found chiefly among the hereditary leisure class. the fighting habit seems to prevail to a less extent among the working-class boys in the latter class of populations than among the boys of the upper classes or among those of the populations first named. if this generalization as to the temperament of the boy among the working classes should be found true on a fuller and closer scrutiny of the field, it would add force to the view that the bellicose temperament is in some appreciable degree a race characteristic; it appears to enter more largely into the make-up of the dominant, upper-class ethnic type--the dolicho-blond--of the european countries than into the subservient, lower-class types of man which are conceived to constitute the body of the population of the same communities. the case of the boy may seem not to bear seriously on the question of the relative endowment of prowess with which the several classes of society are gifted; but it is at least of some value as going to show that this fighting impulse belongs to a more archaic temperament than that possessed by the average adult man of the industrious classes. in this, as in many other features of child life, the child reproduces, temporarily and in miniature, some of the earlier phases of the development of adult man. under this interpretation, the boy's predilection for exploit and for isolation of his own interest is to be taken as a transient reversion to the human nature that is normal to the early barbarian culture--the predatory culture proper. in this respect, as in much else, the leisure-class and the delinquent-class character shows a persistence into adult life of traits that are normal to childhood and youth, and that are likewise normal or habitual to the earlier stages of culture. unless the difference is traceable entirely to a fundamental difference between persistent ethnic types, the traits that distinguish the swaggering delinquent and the punctilious gentleman of leisure from the common crowd are, in some measure, marks of an arrested spiritual development. they mark an immature phase, as compared with the stage of development attained by the average of the adults in the modern industrial community. and it will appear presently that the puerile spiritual make-up of these representatives of the upper and the lowest social strata shows itself also in the presence of other archaic traits than this proclivity to ferocious exploit and isolation. as if to leave no doubt about the essential immaturity of the fighting temperament, we have, bridging the interval between legitimate boyhood and adult manhood, the aimless and playful, but more or less systematic and elaborate, disturbances of the peace in vogue among schoolboys of a slightly higher age. in the common run of cases, these disturbances are confined to the period of adolescence. they recur with decreasing frequency and acuteness as youth merges into adult life, and so they reproduce, in a general way, in the life of the individual, the sequence by which the group has passed from the predatory to a more settled habit of life. in an appreciable number of cases the spiritual growth of the individual comes to a close before he emerges from this puerile phase; in these cases the fighting temper persists through life. those individuals who in spiritual development eventually reach man's estate, therefore, ordinarily pass through a temporary archaic phase corresponding to the permanent spiritual level of the fighting and sporting men. different individuals will, of course, achieve spiritual maturity and sobriety in this respect in different degrees; and those who fail of the average remain as an undissolved residue of crude humanity in the modern industrial community and as a foil for that selective process of adaptation which makes for a heightened industrial efficiency and the fullness of life of the collectivity. this arrested spiritual development may express itself not only in a direct participation by adults in youthful exploits of ferocity, but also indirectly in aiding and abetting disturbances of this kind on the part of younger persons. it thereby furthers the formation of habits of ferocity which may persist in the later life of the growing generation, and so retard any movement in the direction of a more peaceable effective temperament on the part of the community. if a person so endowed with a proclivity for exploits is in a position to guide the development of habits in the adolescent members of the community, the influence which he exerts in the direction of conservation and reversion to prowess may be very considerable. this is the significance, for instance, of the fostering care latterly bestowed by many clergymen and other pillars of society upon "boys' brigades" and similar pseudo-military organizations. the same is true of the encouragement given to the growth of "college spirit," college athletics, and the like, in the higher institutions of learning. these manifestations of the predatory temperament are all to be classed under the head of exploit. they are partly simple and unreflected expressions of an attitude of emulative ferocity, partly activities deliberately entered upon with a view to gaining repute for prowess. sports of all kinds are of the same general character, including prize-fights, bull-fights, athletics, shooting, angling, yachting, and games of skill, even where the element of destructive physical efficiency is not an obtrusive feature. sports shade off from the basis of hostile combat, through skill, to cunning and chicanery, without its being possible to draw a line at any point. the ground of an addiction to sports is an archaic spiritual constitution--the possession of the predatory emulative propensity in a relatively high potency, a strong proclivity to adventuresome exploit and to the infliction of damage is especially pronounced in those employments which are in colloquial usage specifically called sportsmanship. it is perhaps truer, or at least more evident, as regards sports than as regards the other expressions of predatory emulation already spoken of, that the temperament which inclines men to them is essentially a boyish temperament. the addiction to sports, therefore, in a peculiar degree marks an arrested development of the man's moral nature. this peculiar boyishness of temperament in sporting men immediately becomes apparent when attention is directed to the large element of make-believe that is present in all sporting activity. sports share this character of make-believe with the games and exploits to which children, especially boys, are habitually inclined. make-believe does not enter in the same proportion into all sports, but it is present in a very appreciable degree in all. it is apparently present in a larger measure in sportsmanship proper and in athletic contests than in set games of skill of a more sedentary character; although this rule may not be found to apply with any great uniformity. it is noticeable, for instance, that even very mild-mannered and matter-of-fact men who go out shooting are apt to carry an excess of arms and accoutrements in order to impress upon their own imagination the seriousness of their undertaking. these huntsmen are also prone to a histrionic, prancing gait and to an elaborate exaggeration of the motions, whether of stealth or of onslaught, involved in their deeds of exploit. similarly in athletic sports there is almost invariably present a good share of rant and swagger and ostensible mystification--features which mark the histrionic nature of these employments. in all this, of course, the reminder of boyish make-believe is plain enough. the slang of athletics, by the way, is in great part made up of extremely sanguinary locutions borrowed from the terminology of warfare. except where it is adopted as a necessary means of secret communication, the use of a special slang in any employment is probably to be accepted as evidence that the occupation in question is substantially make-believe. a further feature in which sports differ from the duel and similar disturbances of the peace is the peculiarity that they admit of other motives being assigned for them besides the impulses of exploit and ferocity. there is probably little if any other motive present in any given case, but the fact that other reasons for indulging in sports are frequently assigned goes to say that other grounds are sometimes present in a subsidiary way. sportsmen--hunters and anglers--are more or less in the habit of assigning a love of nature, the need of recreation, and the like, as the incentives to their favorite pastime. these motives are no doubt frequently present and make up a part of the attractiveness of the sportsman's life; but these can not be the chief incentives. these ostensible needs could be more readily and fully satisfied without the accompaniment of a systematic effort to take the life of those creatures that make up an essential feature of that "nature" that is beloved by the sportsman. it is, indeed, the most noticeable effect of the sportsman's activity to keep nature in a state of chronic desolation by killing off all living thing whose destruction he can compass. still, there is ground for the sportsman's claim that under the existing conventionalities his need of recreation and of contact with nature can best be satisfied by the course which he takes. certain canons of good breeding have been imposed by the prescriptive example of a predatory leisure class in the past and have been somewhat painstakingly conserved by the usage of the latter-day representatives of that class; and these canons will not permit him, without blame, to seek contact with nature on other terms. from being an honorable employment handed down from the predatory culture as the highest form of everyday leisure, sports have come to be the only form of outdoor activity that has the full sanction of decorum. among the proximate incentives to shooting and angling, then, may be the need of recreation and outdoor life. the remoter cause which imposes the necessity of seeking these objects under the cover of systematic slaughter is a prescription that can not be violated except at the risk of disrepute and consequent lesion to one's self-respect. the case of other kinds of sport is somewhat similar. of these, athletic games are the best example. prescriptive usage with respect to what forms of activity, exercise, and recreation are permissible under the code of reputable living is of course present here also. those who are addicted to athletic sports, or who admire them, set up the claim that these afford the best available means of recreation and of "physical culture." and prescriptive usage gives countenance to the claim. the canons of reputable living exclude from the scheme of life of the leisure class all activity that can not be classed as conspicuous leisure. and consequently they tend by prescription to exclude it also from the scheme of life of the community generally. at the same time purposeless physical exertion is tedious and distasteful beyond tolerance. as has been noticed in another connection, recourse is in such a case had to some form of activity which shall at least afford a colorable pretense of purpose, even if the object assigned be only a make-believe. sports satisfy these requirements of substantial futility together with a colorable make-believe of purpose. in addition to this they afford scope for emulation, and are attractive also on that account. in order to be decorous, an employment must conform to the leisure-class canon of reputable waste; at the same time all activity, in order to be persisted in as an habitual, even if only partial, expression of life, must conform to the generically human canon of efficiency for some serviceable objective end. the leisure-class canon demands strict and comprehensive futility, the instinct of workmanship demands purposeful action. the leisure-class canon of decorum acts slowly and pervasively, by a selective elimination of all substantially useful or purposeful modes of action from the accredited scheme of life; the instinct of workmanship acts impulsively and may be satisfied, provisionally, with a proximate purpose. it is only as the apprehended ulterior futility of a given line of action enters the reflective complex of consciousness as an element essentially alien to the normally purposeful trend of the life process that its disquieting and deterrent effect on the consciousness of the agent is wrought. the individual's habits of thought make an organic complex, the trend of which is necessarily in the direction of serviceability to the life process. when it is attempted to assimilate systematic waste or futility, as an end in life, into this organic complex, there presently supervenes a revulsion. but this revulsion of the organism may be avoided if the attention can be confined to the proximate, unreflected purpose of dexterous or emulative exertion. sports--hunting, angling, athletic games, and the like--afford an exercise for dexterity and for the emulative ferocity and astuteness characteristic of predatory life. so long as the individual is but slightly gifted with reflection or with a sense of the ulterior trend of his actions so long as his life is substantially a life of naive impulsive action--so long the immediate and unreflected purposefulness of sports, in the way of an expression of dominance, will measurably satisfy his instinct of workmanship. this is especially true if his dominant impulses are the unreflecting emulative propensities of the predaceous temperament. at the same time the canons of decorum will commend sports to him as expressions of a pecuniarily blameless life. it is by meeting these two requirements, of ulterior wastefulness and proximate purposefulness, that any given employment holds its place as a traditional and habitual mode of decorous recreation. in the sense that other forms of recreation and exercise are morally impossible to persons of good breeding and delicate sensibilities, then, sports are the best available means of recreation under existing circumstances. but those members of respectable society who advocate athletic games commonly justify their attitude on this head to themselves and to their neighbors on the ground that these games serve as an invaluable means of development. they not only improve the contestant's physique, but it is commonly added that they also foster a manly spirit, both in the participants and in the spectators. football is the particular game which will probably first occur to any one in this community when the question of the serviceability of athletic games is raised, as this form of athletic contest is at present uppermost in the mind of those who plead for or against games as a means of physical or moral salvation. this typical athletic sport may, therefore, serve to illustrate the bearing of athletics upon the development of the contestant's character and physique. it has been said, not inaptly, that the relation of football to physical culture is much the same as that of the bull-fight to agriculture. serviceability for these lusory institutions requires sedulous training or breeding. the material used, whether brute or human, is subjected to careful selection and discipline, in order to secure and accentuate certain aptitudes and propensities which are characteristic of the ferine state, and which tend to obsolescence under domestication. this does not mean that the result in either case is an all around and consistent rehabilitation of the ferine or barbarian habit of mind and body. the result is rather a one-sided return to barbarism or to the feroe natura--a rehabilitation and accentuation of those ferine traits which make for damage and desolation, without a corresponding development of the traits which would serve the individual's self-preservation and fullness of life in a ferine environment. the culture bestowed in football gives a product of exotic ferocity and cunning. it is a rehabilitation of the early barbarian temperament, together with a suppression of those details of temperament, which, as seen from the standpoint of the social and economic exigencies, are the redeeming features of the savage character. the physical vigor acquired in the training for athletic games--so far as the training may be said to have this effect--is of advantage both to the individual and to the collectivity, in that, other things being equal, it conduces to economic serviceability. the spiritual traits which go with athletic sports are likewise economically advantageous to the individual, as contradistinguished from the interests of the collectivity. this holds true in any community where these traits are present in some degree in the population. modern competition is in large part a process of self-assertion on the basis of these traits of predatory human nature. in the sophisticated form in which they enter into the modern, peaceable emulation, the possession of these traits in some measure is almost a necessary of life to the civilized man. but while they are indispensable to the competitive individual, they are not directly serviceable to the community. so far as regards the serviceability of the individual for the purposes of the collective life, emulative efficiency is of use only indirectly if at all. ferocity and cunning are of no use to the community except in its hostile dealings with other communities; and they are useful to the individual only because there is so large a proportion of the same traits actively present in the human environment to which he is exposed. any individual who enters the competitive struggle without the due endowment of these traits is at a disadvantage, somewhat as a hornless steer would find himself at a disadvantage in a drove of horned cattle. the possession and the cultivation of the predatory traits of character may, of course, be desirable on other than economic grounds. there is a prevalent aesthetic or ethical predilection for the barbarian aptitudes, and the traits in question minister so effectively to this predilection that their serviceability in the aesthetic or ethical respect probably offsets any economic unserviceability which they may give. but for the present purpose that is beside the point. therefore nothing is said here as to the desirability or advisability of sports on the whole, or as to their value on other than economic grounds. in popular apprehension there is much that is admirable in the type of manhood which the life of sport fosters. there is self-reliance and good-fellowship, so termed in the somewhat loose colloquial use of the words. from a different point of view the qualities currently so characterized might be described as truculence and clannishness. the reason for the current approval and admiration of these manly qualities, as well as for their being called manly, is the same as the reason for their usefulness to the individual. the members of the community, and especially that class of the community which sets the pace in canons of taste, are endowed with this range of propensities in sufficient measure to make their absence in others felt as a shortcoming, and to make their possession in an exceptional degree appreciated as an attribute of superior merit. the traits of predatory man are by no means obsolete in the common run of modern populations. they are present and can be called out in bold relief at any time by any appeal to the sentiments in which they express themselves--unless this appeal should clash with the specific activities that make up our habitual occupations and comprise the general range of our everyday interests. the common run of the population of any industrial community is emancipated from these, economically considered, untoward propensities only in the sense that, through partial and temporary disuse, they have lapsed into the background of sub-conscious motives. with varying degrees of potency in different individuals, they remain available for the aggressive shaping of men's actions and sentiments whenever a stimulus of more than everyday intensity comes in to call them forth. and they assert themselves forcibly in any case where no occupation alien to the predatory culture has usurped the individual's everyday range of interest and sentiment. this is the case among the leisure class and among certain portions of the population which are ancillary to that class. hence the facility with which any new accessions to the leisure class take to sports; and hence the rapid growth of sports and of the sporting sentient in any industrial community where wealth has accumulated sufficiently to exempt a considerable part of the population from work. a homely and familiar fact may serve to show that the predaceous impulse does not prevail in the same degree in all classes. taken simply as a feature of modern life, the habit of carrying a walking-stick may seem at best a trivial detail; but the usage has a significance for the point in question. the classes among whom the habit most prevails--the classes with whom the walking-stick is associated in popular apprehension--are the men of the leisure class proper, sporting men, and the lower-class delinquents. to these might perhaps be added the men engaged in the pecuniary employments. the same is not true of the common run of men engaged in industry and it may be noted by the way that women do not carry a stick except in case of infirmity, where it has a use of a different kind. the practice is of course in great measure a matter of polite usage; but the basis of polite usage is, in turn, the proclivities of the class which sets the pace in polite usage. the walking-stick serves the purpose of an advertisement that the bearer's hands are employed otherwise than in useful effort, and it therefore has utility as an evidence of leisure. but it is also a weapon, and it meets a felt need of barbarian man on that ground. the handling of so tangible and primitive a means of offense is very comforting to any one who is gifted with even a moderate share of ferocity. the exigencies of the language make it impossible to avoid an apparent implication of disapproval of the aptitudes, propensities, and expressions of life here under discussion. it is, however, not intended to imply anything in the way of deprecation or commendation of any one of these phases of human character or of the life process. the various elements of the prevalent human nature are taken up from the point of view of economic theory, and the traits discussed are gauged and graded with regard to their immediate economic bearing on the facility of the collective life process. that is to say, these phenomena are here apprehended from the economic point of view and are valued with respect to their direct action in furtherance or hindrance of a more perfect adjustment of the human collectivity to the environment and to the institutional structure required by the economic situation of the collectivity for the present and for the immediate future. for these purposes the traits handed down from the predatory culture are less serviceable than might be. although even in this connection it is not to be overlooked that the energetic aggressiveness and pertinacity of predatory man is a heritage of no mean value. the economic value--with some regard also to the social value in the narrower sense--of these aptitudes and propensities is attempted to be passed upon without reflecting on their value as seen from another point of view. when contrasted with the prosy mediocrity of the latter-day industrial scheme of life, and judged by the accredited standards of morality, and more especially by the standards of aesthetics and of poetry, these survivals from a more primitive type of manhood may have a very different value from that here assigned them. but all this being foreign to the purpose in hand, no expression of opinion on this latter head would be in place here. all that is admissible is to enter the caution that these standards of excellence, which are alien to the present purpose, must not be allowed to influence our economic appreciation of these traits of human character or of the activities which foster their growth. this applies both as regards those persons who actively participate in sports and those whose sporting experience consists in contemplation only. what is here said of the sporting propensity is likewise pertinent to sundry reflections presently to be made in this connection on what would colloquially be known as the religious life. the last paragraph incidentally touches upon the fact that everyday speech can scarcely be employed in discussing this class of aptitudes and activities without implying deprecation or apology. the fact is significant as showing the habitual attitude of the dispassionate common man toward the propensities which express themselves in sports and in exploit generally. and this is perhaps as convenient a place as any to discuss that undertone of deprecation which runs through all the voluminous discourse in defense or in laudation of athletic sports, as well as of other activities of a predominantly predatory character. the same apologetic frame of mind is at least beginning to be observable in the spokesmen of most other institutions handed down from the barbarian phase of life. among these archaic institutions which are felt to need apology are comprised, with others, the entire existing system of the distribution of wealth, together with the resulting class distinction of status; all or nearly all forms of consumption that come under the head of conspicuous waste; the status of women under the patriarchal system; and many features of the traditional creeds and devout observances, especially the exoteric expressions of the creed and the naive apprehension of received observances. what is to be said in this connection of the apologetic attitude taken in commending sports and the sporting character will therefore apply, with a suitable change in phraseology, to the apologies offered in behalf of these other, related elements of our social heritage. there is a feeling--usually vague and not commonly avowed in so many words by the apologist himself, but ordinarily perceptible in the manner of his discourse--that these sports, as well as the general range of predaceous impulses and habits of thought which underlie the sporting character, do not altogether commend themselves to common sense. "as to the majority of murderers, they are very incorrect characters." this aphorism offers a valuation of the predaceous temperament, and of the disciplinary effects of its overt expression and exercise, as seen from the moralist's point of view. as such it affords an indication of what is the deliverance of the sober sense of mature men as to the degree of availability of the predatory habit of mind for the purposes of the collective life. it is felt that the presumption is against any activity which involves habituation to the predatory attitude, and that the burden of proof lies with those who speak for the rehabilitation of the predaceous temper and for the practices which strengthen it. there is a strong body of popular sentiment in favor of diversions and enterprises of the kind in question; but there is at the same time present in the community a pervading sense that this ground of sentiment wants legitimation. the required legitimation is ordinarily sought by showing that although sports are substantially of a predatory, socially disintegrating effect; although their proximate effect runs in the direction of reversion to propensities that are industrially disserviceable; yet indirectly and remotely--by some not readily comprehensible process of polar induction, or counter-irritation perhaps--sports are conceived to foster a habit of mind that is serviceable for the social or industrial purpose. that is to say, although sports are essentially of the nature of invidious exploit, it is presumed that by some remote and obscure effect they result in the growth of a temperament conducive to non-invidious work. it is commonly attempted to show all this empirically or it is rather assumed that this is the empirical generalization which must be obvious to any one who cares to see it. in conducting the proof of this thesis the treacherous ground of inference from cause to effect is somewhat shrewdly avoided, except so far as to show that the "manly virtues" spoken of above are fostered by sports. but since it is these manly virtues that are (economically) in need of legitimation, the chain of proof breaks off where it should begin. in the most general economic terms, these apologies are an effort to show that, in spite of the logic of the thing, sports do in fact further what may broadly be called workmanship. so long as he has not succeeded in persuading himself or others that this is their effect the thoughtful apologist for sports will not rest content, and commonly, it is to be admitted, he does not rest content. his discontent with his own vindication of the practice in question is ordinarily shown by his truculent tone and by the eagerness with which he heaps up asseverations in support of his position. but why are apologies needed? if there prevails a body of popular sentient in favor of sports, why is not that fact a sufficient legitimation? the protracted discipline of prowess to which the race has been subjected under the predatory and quasi-peaceable culture has transmitted to the men of today a temperament that finds gratification in these expressions of ferocity and cunning. so, why not accept these sports as legitimate expressions of a normal and wholesome human nature? what other norm is there that is to be lived up to than that given in the aggregate range of propensities that express themselves in the sentiments of this generation, including the hereditary strain of prowess? the ulterior norm to which appeal is taken is the instinct of workmanship, which is an instinct more fundamental, of more ancient prescription, than the propensity to predatory emulation. the latter is but a special development of the instinct of workmanship, a variant, relatively late and ephemeral in spite of its great absolute antiquity. the emulative predatory impulse--or the instinct of sportsmanship, as it might well be called--is essentially unstable in comparison with the primordial instinct of workmanship out of which it has been developed and differentiated. tested by this ulterior norm of life, predatory emulation, and therefore the life of sports, falls short. the manner and the measure in which the institution of a leisure class conduces to the conservation of sports and invidious exploit can of course not be succinctly stated. from the evidence already recited it appears that, in sentient and inclinations, the leisure class is more favorable to a warlike attitude and animus than the industrial classes. something similar seems to be true as regards sports. but it is chiefly in its indirect effects, though the canons of decorous living, that the institution has its influence on the prevalent sentiment with respect to the sporting life. this indirect effect goes almost unequivocally in the direction of furthering a survival of the predatory temperament and habits; and this is true even with respect to those variants of the sporting life which the higher leisure-class code of proprieties proscribes; as, e.g., prize-fighting, cock-fighting, and other like vulgar expressions of the sporting temper. whatever the latest authenticated schedule of detail proprieties may say, the accredited canons of decency sanctioned by the institution say without equivocation that emulation and waste are good and their opposites are disreputable. in the crepuscular light of the social nether spaces the details of the code are not apprehended with all the facility that might be desired, and these broad underlying canons of decency are therefore applied somewhat unreflectingly, with little question as to the scope of their competence or the exceptions that have been sanctioned in detail. addiction to athletic sports, not only in the way of direct participation, but also in the way of sentiment and moral support, is, in a more or less pronounced degree, a characteristic of the leisure class; and it is a trait which that class shares with the lower-class delinquents, and with such atavistic elements throughout the body of the community as are endowed with a dominant predaceous trend. few individuals among the populations of western civilized countries are so far devoid of the predaceous instinct as to find no diversion in contemplating athletic sports and games, but with the common run of individuals among the industrial classes the inclination to sports does not assert itself to the extent of constituting what may fairly be called a sporting habit. with these classes sports are an occasional diversion rather than a serious feature of life. this common body of the people can therefore not be said to cultivate the sporting propensity. although it is not obsolete in the average of them, or even in any appreciable number of individuals, yet the predilection for sports in the commonplace industrial classes is of the nature of a reminiscence, more or less diverting as an occasional interest, rather than a vital and permanent interest that counts as a dominant factor in shaping the organic complex of habits of thought into which it enters. as it manifests itself in the sporting life of today, this propensity may not appear to be an economic factor of grave consequence. taken simply by itself it does not count for a great deal in its direct effects on the industrial efficiency or the consumption of any given individual; but the prevalence and the growth of the type of human nature of which this propensity is a characteristic feature is a matter of some consequence. it affects the economic life of the collectivity both as regards the rate of economic development and as regards the character of the results attained by the development. for better or worse, the fact that the popular habits of thought are in any degree dominated by this type of character can not but greatly affect the scope, direction, standards, and ideals of the collective economic life, as well as the degree of adjustment of the collective life to the environment. something to a like effect is to be said of other traits that go to make up the barbarian character. for the purposes of economic theory, these further barbarian traits may be taken as concomitant variations of that predaceous temper of which prowess is an expression. in great measure they are not primarily of an economic character, nor do they have much direct economic bearing. they serve to indicate the stage of economic evolution to which the individual possessed of them is adapted. they are of importance, therefore, as extraneous tests of the degree of adaptation of the character in which they are comprised to the economic exigencies of today, but they are also to some extent important as being aptitudes which themselves go to increase or diminish the economic serviceability of the individual. as it finds expression in the life of the barbarian, prowess manifests itself in two main directions--force and fraud. in varying degrees these two forms of expression are similarly present in modern warfare, in the pecuniary occupations, and in sports and games. both lines of aptitudes are cultivated and strengthened by the life of sport as well as by the more serious forms of emulative life. strategy or cunning is an element invariably present in games, as also in warlike pursuits and in the chase. in all of these employments strategy tends to develop into finesse and chicanery. chicanery, falsehood, browbeating, hold a well-secured place in the method of procedure of any athletic contest and in games generally. the habitual employment of an umpire, and the minute technical regulations governing the limits and details of permissible fraud and strategic advantage, sufficiently attest the fact that fraudulent practices and attempts to overreach one's opponents are not adventitious features of the game. in the nature of the case habituation to sports should conduce to a fuller development of the aptitude for fraud; and the prevalence in the community of that predatory temperament which inclines men to sports connotes a prevalence of sharp practice and callous disregard of the interests of others, individually and collectively. resort to fraud, in any guise and under any legitimation of law or custom, is an expression of a narrowly self-regarding habit of mind. it is needless to dwell at any length on the economic value of this feature of the sporting character. in this connection it is to be noted that the most obvious characteristic of the physiognomy affected by athletic and other sporting men is that of an extreme astuteness. the gifts and exploits of ulysses are scarcely second to those of achilles, either in their substantial furtherance of the game or in the ã©clat which they give the astute sporting man among his associates. the pantomime of astuteness is commonly the first step in that assimilation to the professional sporting man which a youth undergoes after matriculation in any reputable school, of the secondary or the higher education, as the case may be. and the physiognomy of astuteness, as a decorative feature, never ceases to receive the thoughtful attention of men whose serious interest lies in athletic games, races, or other contests of a similar emulative nature. as a further indication of their spiritual kinship, it may be pointed out that the members of the lower delinquent class usually show this physiognomy of astuteness in a marked degree, and that they very commonly show the same histrionic exaggeration of it that is often seen in the young candidate for athletic honors. this, by the way, is the most legible mark of what is vulgarly called "toughness" in youthful aspirants for a bad name. the astute man, it may be remarked, is of no economic value to the community--unless it be for the purpose of sharp practice in dealings with other communities. his functioning is not a furtherance of the generic life process. at its best, in its direct economic bearing, it is a conversion of the economic substance of the collectivity to a growth alien to the collective life process--very much after the analogy of what in medicine would be called a benign tumor, with some tendency to transgress the uncertain line that divides the benign from the malign growths. the two barbarian traits, ferocity and astuteness, go to make up the predaceous temper or spiritual attitude. they are the expressions of a narrowly self-regarding habit of mind. both are highly serviceable for individual expediency in a life looking to invidious success. both also have a high aesthetic value. both are fostered by the pecuniary culture. but both alike are of no use for the purposes of the collective life. chapter eleven ~~ the belief in luck the gambling propensity is another subsidiary trait of the barbarian temperament. it is a concomitant variation of character of almost universal prevalence among sporting men and among men given to warlike and emulative activities generally. this trait also has a direct economic value. it is recognized to be a hindrance to the highest industrial efficiency of the aggregate in any community where it prevails in an appreciable degree. the gambling proclivity is doubtfully to be classed as a feature belonging exclusively to the predatory type of human nature. the chief factor in the gambling habit is the belief in luck; and this belief is apparently traceable, at least in its elements, to a stage in human evolution antedating the predatory culture. it may well have been under the predatory culture that the belief in luck was developed into the form in which it is present, as the chief element of the gambling proclivity, in the sporting temperament. it probably owes the specific form under which it occurs in the modern culture to the predatory discipline. but the belief in luck is in substance a habit of more ancient date than the predatory culture. it is one form of the artistic apprehension of things. the belief seems to be a trait carried over in substance from an earlier phase into the barbarian culture, and transmuted and transmitted through that culture to a later stage of human development under a specific form imposed by the predatory discipline. but in any case, it is to be taken as an archaic trait, inherited from a more or less remote past, more or less incompatible with the requirements of the modern industrial process, and more or less of a hindrance to the fullest efficiency of the collective economic life of the present. while the belief in luck is the basis of the gambling habit, it is not the only element that enters into the habit of betting. betting on the issue of contests of strength and skill proceeds on a further motive, without which the belief in luck would scarcely come in as a prominent feature of sporting life. this further motive is the desire of the anticipated winner, or the partisan of the anticipated winning side, to heighten his side's ascendency at the cost of the loser. not only does the stronger side score a more signal victory, and the losing side suffer a more painful and humiliating defeat, in proportion as the pecuniary gain and loss in the wager is large; although this alone is a consideration of material weight. but the wager is commonly laid also with a view, not avowed in words nor even recognized in set terms in petto, to enhancing the chances of success for the contestant on which it is laid. it is felt that substance and solicitude expended to this end can not go for naught in the issue. there is here a special manifestation of the instinct of workmanship, backed by an even more manifest sense that the animistic congruity of things must decide for a victorious outcome for the side in whose behalf the propensity inherent in events has been propitiated and fortified by so much of conative and kinetic urging. this incentive to the wager expresses itself freely under the form of backing one's favorite in any contest, and it is unmistakably a predatory feature. it is as ancillary to the predaceous impulse proper that the belief in luck expresses itself in a wager. so that it may be set down that in so far as the belief in luck comes to expression in the form of laying a wager, it is to be accounted an integral element of the predatory type of character. the belief is, in its elements, an archaic habit which belongs substantially to early, undifferentiated human nature; but when this belief is helped out by the predatory emulative impulse, and so is differentiated into the specific form of the gambling habit, it is, in this higher-developed and specific form, to be classed as a trait of the barbarian character. the belief in luck is a sense of fortuitous necessity in the sequence of phenomena. in its various mutations and expressions, it is of very serious importance for the economic efficiency of any community in which it prevails to an appreciable extent. so much so as to warrant a more detailed discussion of its origin and content and of the bearing of its various ramifications upon economic structure and function, as well as a discussion of the relation of the leisure class to its growth, differentiation, and persistence. in the developed, integrated form in which it is most readily observed in the barbarian of the predatory culture or in the sporting man of modern communities, the belief comprises at least two distinguishable elements--which are to be taken as two different phases of the same fundamental habit of thought, or as the same psychological factor in two successive phases of its evolution. the fact that these two elements are successive phases of the same general line of growth of belief does not hinder their coexisting in the habits of thought of any given individual. the more primitive form (or the more archaic phase) is an incipient animistic belief, or an animistic sense of relations and things, that imputes a quasi-personal character to facts. to the archaic man all the obtrusive and obviously consequential objects and facts in his environment have a quasi-personal individuality. they are conceived to be possessed of volition, or rather of propensities, which enter into the complex of causes and affect events in an inscrutable manner. the sporting man's sense of luck and chance, or of fortuitous necessity, is an inarticulate or inchoate animism. it applies to objects and situations, often in a very vague way; but it is usually so far defined as to imply the possibility of propitiating, or of deceiving and cajoling, or otherwise disturbing the holding of propensities resident in the objects which constitute the apparatus and accessories of any game of skill or chance. there are few sporting men who are not in the habit of wearing charms or talismans to which more or less of efficacy is felt to belong. and the proportion is not much less of those who instinctively dread the "hoodooing" of the contestants or the apparatus engaged in any contest on which they lay a wager; or who feel that the fact of their backing a given contestant or side in the game does and ought to strengthen that side; or to whom the "mascot" which they cultivate means something more than a jest. in its simple form the belief in luck is this instinctive sense of an inscrutable teleological propensity in objects or situations. objects or events have a propensity to eventuate in a given end, whether this end or objective point of the sequence is conceived to be fortuitously given or deliberately sought. from this simple animism the belief shades off by insensible gradations into the second, derivative form or phase above referred to, which is a more or less articulate belief in an inscrutable preternatural agency. the preternatural agency works through the visible objects with which it is associated, but is not identified with these objects in point of individuality. the use of the term "preternatural agency" here carries no further implication as to the nature of the agency spoken of as preternatural. this is only a farther development of animistic belief. the preternatural agency is not necessarily conceived to be a personal agent in the full sense, but it is an agency which partakes of the attributes of personality to the extent of somewhat arbitrarily influencing the outcome of any enterprise, and especially of any contest. the pervading belief in the hamingia or gipta (gaefa, authna) which lends so much of color to the icelandic sagas specifically, and to early germanic folk-legends, is an illustration of this sense of an extra-physical propensity in the course of events. in this expression or form of the belief the propensity is scarcely personified although to a varying extent an individuality is imputed to it; and this individuated propensity is sometimes conceived to yield to circumstances, commonly to circumstances of a spiritual or preternatural character. a well-known and striking exemplification of the belief--in a fairly advanced stage of differentiation and involving an anthropomorphic personification of the preternatural agent appealed to--is afforded by the wager of battle. here the preternatural agent was conceived to act on request as umpire, and to shape the outcome of the contest in accordance with some stipulated ground of decision, such as the equity or legality of the respective contestants' claims. the like sense of an inscrutable but spiritually necessary tendency in events is still traceable as an obscure element in current popular belief, as shown, for instance, by the well-accredited maxim, "thrice is he armed who knows his quarrel just,"--a maxim which retains much of its significance for the average unreflecting person even in the civilized communities of today. the modern reminiscence of the belief in the hamingia, or in the guidance of an unseen hand, which is traceable in the acceptance of this maxim is faint and perhaps uncertain; and it seems in any case to be blended with other psychological moments that are not clearly of an animistic character. for the purpose in hand it is unnecessary to look more closely into the psychological process or the ethnological line of descent by which the later of these two animistic apprehensions of propensity is derived from the earlier. this question may be of the gravest importance to folk-psychology or to the theory of the evolution of creeds and cults. the same is true of the more fundamental question whether the two are related at all as successive phases in a sequence of development. reference is here made to the existence of these questions only to remark that the interest of the present discussion does not lie in that direction. so far as concerns economic theory, these two elements or phases of the belief in luck, or in an extra-causal trend or propensity in things, are of substantially the same character. they have an economic significance as habits of thought which affect the individual's habitual view of the facts and sequences with which he comes in contact, and which thereby affect the individual's serviceability for the industrial purpose. therefore, apart from all question of the beauty, worth, or beneficence of any animistic belief, there is place for a discussion of their economic bearing on the serviceability of the individual as an economic factor, and especially as an industrial agent. it has already been noted in an earlier connection, that in order to have the highest serviceability in the complex industrial processes of today, the individual must be endowed with the aptitude and the habit of readily apprehending and relating facts in terms of causal sequence. both as a whole and in its details, the industrial process is a process of quantitative causation. the "intelligence" demanded of the workman, as well as of the director of an industrial process, is little else than a degree of facility in the apprehension of and adaptation to a quantitatively determined causal sequence. this facility of apprehension and adaptation is what is lacking in stupid workmen, and the growth of this facility is the end sought in their education--so far as their education aims to enhance their industrial efficiency. in so far as the individual's inherited aptitudes or his training incline him to account for facts and sequences in other terms than those of causation or matter-of-fact, they lower his productive efficiency or industrial usefulness. this lowering of efficiency through a penchant for animistic methods of apprehending facts is especially apparent when taken in the mass-when a given population with an animistic turn is viewed as a whole. the economic drawbacks of animism are more patent and its consequences are more far-reaching under the modern system of large industry than under any other. in the modern industrial communities, industry is, to a constantly increasing extent, being organized in a comprehensive system of organs and functions mutually conditioning one another; and therefore freedom from all bias in the causal apprehension of phenomena grows constantly more requisite to efficiency on the part of the men concerned in industry. under a system of handicraft an advantage in dexterity, diligence, muscular force, or endurance may, in a very large measure, offset such a bias in the habits of thought of the workmen. similarly in agricultural industry of the traditional kind, which closely resembles handicraft in the nature of the demands made upon the workman. in both, the workman is himself the prime mover chiefly depended upon, and the natural forces engaged are in large part apprehended as inscrutable and fortuitous agencies, whose working lies beyond the workman's control or discretion. in popular apprehension there is in these forms of industry relatively little of the industrial process left to the fateful swing of a comprehensive mechanical sequence which must be comprehended in terms of causation and to which the operations of industry and the movements of the workmen must be adapted. as industrial methods develop, the virtues of the handicraftsman count for less and less as an offset to scanty intelligence or a halting acceptance of the sequence of cause and effect. the industrial organization assumes more and more of the character of a mechanism, in which it is man's office to discriminate and select what natural forces shall work out their effects in his service. the workman's part in industry changes from that of a prime mover to that of discrimination and valuation of quantitative sequences and mechanical facts. the faculty of a ready apprehension and unbiased appreciation of causes in his environment grows in relative economic importance and any element in the complex of his habits of thought which intrudes a bias at variance with this ready appreciation of matter-of-fact sequence gains proportionately in importance as a disturbing element acting to lower his industrial usefulness. through its cumulative effect upon the habitual attitude of the population, even a slight or inconspicuous bias towards accounting for everyday facts by recourse to other ground than that of quantitative causation may work an appreciable lowering of the collective industrial efficiency of a community. the animistic habit of mind may occur in the early, undifferentiated form of an inchoate animistic belief, or in the later and more highly integrated phase in which there is an anthropomorphic personification of the propensity imputed to facts. the industrial value of such a lively animistic sense, or of such recourse to a preternatural agency or the guidance of an unseen hand, is of course very much the same in either case. as affects the industrial serviceability of the individual, the effect is of the same kind in either case; but the extent to which this habit of thought dominates or shapes the complex of his habits of thought varies with the degree of immediacy, urgency, or exclusiveness with which the individual habitually applies the animistic or anthropomorphic formula in dealing with the facts of his environment. the animistic habit acts in all cases to blur the appreciation of causal sequence; but the earlier, less reflected, less defined animistic sense of propensity may be expected to affect the intellectual processes of the individual in a more pervasive way than the higher forms of anthropomorphism. where the animistic habit is present in the naive form, its scope and range of application are not defined or limited. it will therefore palpably affect his thinking at every turn of the person's life--wherever he has to do with the material means of life. in the later, maturer development of animism, after it has been defined through the process of anthropomorphic elaboration, when its application has been limited in a somewhat consistent fashion to the remote and the invisible, it comes about that an increasing range of everyday facts are provisionally accounted for without recourse to the preternatural agency in which a cultivated animism expresses itself. a highly integrated, personified preternatural agency is not a convenient means of handling the trivial occurrences of life, and a habit is therefore easily fallen into of accounting for many trivial or vulgar phenomena in terms of sequence. the provisional explanation so arrived at is by neglect allowed to stand as definitive, for trivial purposes, until special provocation or perplexity recalls the individual to his allegiance. but when special exigencies arise, that is to say, when there is peculiar need of a full and free recourse to the law of cause and effect, then the individual commonly has recourse to the preternatural agency as a universal solvent, if he is possessed of an anthropomorphic belief. the extra-causal propensity or agent has a very high utility as a recourse in perplexity, but its utility is altogether of a non-economic kind. it is especially a refuge and a fund of comfort where it has attained the degree of consistency and specialization that belongs to an anthropomorphic divinity. it has much to commend it even on other grounds than that of affording the perplexed individual a means of escape from the difficulty of accounting for phenomena in terms of causal sequence. it would scarcely be in place here to dwell on the obvious and well-accepted merits of an anthropomorphic divinity, as seen from the point of view of the aesthetic, moral, or spiritual interest, or even as seen from the less remote standpoint of political, military, or social policy. the question here concerns the less picturesque and less urgent economic value of the belief in such a preternatural agency, taken as a habit of thought which affects the industrial serviceability of the believer. and even within this narrow, economic range, the inquiry is perforce confined to the immediate bearing of this habit of thought upon the believer's workmanlike serviceability, rather than extended to include its remoter economic effects. these remoter effects are very difficult to trace. the inquiry into them is so encumbered with current preconceptions as to the degree in which life is enhanced by spiritual contact with such a divinity, that any attempt to inquire into their economic value must for the present be fruitless. the immediate, direct effect of the animistic habit of thought upon the general frame of mind of the believer goes in the direction of lowering his effective intelligence in the respect in which intelligence is of especial consequence for modern industry. the effect follows, in varying degree, whether the preternatural agent or propensity believed in is of a higher or a lower cast. this holds true of the barbarian's and the sporting man's sense of luck and propensity, and likewise of the somewhat higher developed belief in an anthropomorphic divinity, such as is commonly possessed by the same class. it must be taken to hold true also--though with what relative degree of cogency is not easy to say--of the more adequately developed anthropomorphic cults, such as appeal to the devout civilized man. the industrial disability entailed by a popular adherence to one of the higher anthropomorphic cults may be relatively slight, but it is not to be overlooked. and even these high-class cults of the western culture do not represent the last dissolving phase of this human sense of extra-causal propensity. beyond these the same animistic sense shows itself also in such attenuations of anthropomorphism as the eighteenth-century appeal to an order of nature and natural rights, and in their modern representative, the ostensibly post-darwinian concept of a meliorative trend in the process of evolution. this animistic explanation of phenomena is a form of the fallacy which the logicians knew by the name of ignava ratio. for the purposes of industry or of science it counts as a blunder in the apprehension and valuation of facts. apart from its direct industrial consequences, the animistic habit has a certain significance for economic theory on other grounds. (1) it is a fairly reliable indication of the presence, and to some extent even of the degree of potency, of certain other archaic traits that accompany it and that are of substantial economic consequence; and (2) the material consequences of that code of devout proprieties to which the animistic habit gives rise in the development of an anthropomorphic cult are of importance both (a) as affecting the community's consumption of goods and the prevalent canons of taste, as already suggested in an earlier chapter, and (b) by inducing and conserving a certain habitual recognition of the relation to a superior, and so stiffening the current sense of status and allegiance. as regards the point last named (b), that body of habits of thought which makes up the character of any individual is in some sense an organic whole. a marked variation in a given direction at any one point carries with it, as its correlative, a concomitant variation in the habitual expression of life in other directions or other groups of activities. these various habits of thought, or habitual expressions of life, are all phases of the single life sequence of the individual; therefore a habit formed in response to a given stimulus will necessarily affect the character of the response made to other stimuli. a modification of human nature at any one point is a modification of human nature as a whole. on this ground, and perhaps to a still greater extent on obscurer grounds that can not be discussed here, there are these concomitant variations as between the different traits of human nature. so, for instance, barbarian peoples with a well-developed predatory scheme of life are commonly also possessed of a strong prevailing animistic habit, a well-formed anthropomorphic cult, and a lively sense of status. on the other hand, anthropomorphism and the realizing sense of an animistic propensity in material are less obtrusively present in the life of the peoples at the cultural stages which precede and which follow the barbarian culture. the sense of status is also feebler; on the whole, in peaceable communities. it is to be remarked that a lively, but slightly specialized, animistic belief is to be found in most if not all peoples living in the ante-predatory, savage stage of culture. the primitive savage takes his animism less seriously than the barbarian or the degenerate savage. with him it eventuates in fantastic myth-making, rather than in coercive superstition. the barbarian culture shows sportsmanship, status, and anthropomorphism. there is commonly observable a like concomitance of variations in the same respects in the individual temperament of men in the civilized communities of today. those modern representatives of the predaceous barbarian temper that make up the sporting element are commonly believers in luck; at least they have a strong sense of an animistic propensity in things, by force of which they are given to gambling. so also as regards anthropomorphism in this class. such of them as give in their adhesion to some creed commonly attach themselves to one of the naively and consistently anthropomorphic creeds; there are relatively few sporting men who seek spiritual comfort in the less anthropomorphic cults, such as the unitarian or the universalist. closely bound up with this correlation of anthropomorphism and prowess is the fact that anthropomorphic cults act to conserve, if not to initiate, habits of mind favorable to a regime of status. as regards this point, it is quite impossible to say where the disciplinary effect of the cult ends and where the evidence of a concomitance of variations in inherited traits begins. in their finest development, the predatory temperament, the sense of status, and the anthropomorphic cult all together belong to the barbarian culture; and something of a mutual causal relation subsists between the three phenomena as they come into sight in communities on that cultural level. the way in which they recur in correlation in the habits and attitudes of individuals and classes today goes far to imply a like causal or organic relation between the same psychological phenomena considered as traits or habits of the individual. it has appeared at an earlier point in the discussion that the relation of status, as a feature of social structure, is a consequence of the predatory habit of life. as regards its line of derivation, it is substantially an elaborated expression of the predatory attitude. on the other hand, an anthropomorphic cult is a code of detailed relations of status superimposed upon the concept of a preternatural, inscrutable propensity in material things. so that, as regards the external facts of its derivation, the cult may be taken as an outgrowth of archaic man's pervading animistic sense, defined and in some degree transformed by the predatory habit of life, the result being a personified preternatural agency, which is by imputation endowed with a full complement of the habits of thought that characterize the man of the predatory culture. the grosser psychological features in the case, which have an immediate bearing on economic theory and are consequently to be taken account of here, are therefore: (a) as has appeared in an earlier chapter, the predatory, emulative habit of mind here called prowess is but the barbarian variant of the generically human instinct of workmanship, which has fallen into this specific form under the guidance of a habit of invidious comparison of persons; (b) the relation of status is a formal expression of such an invidious comparison duly gauged and graded according to a sanctioned schedule; (c) an anthropomorphic cult, in the days of its early vigor at least, is an institution the characteristic element of which is a relation of status between the human subject as inferior and the personified preternatural agency as superior. with this in mind, there should be no difficulty in recognizing the intimate relation which subsists between these three phenomena of human nature and of human life; the relation amounts to an identity in some of their substantial elements. on the one hand, the system of status and the predatory habit of life are an expression of the instinct of workmanship as it takes form under a custom of invidious comparison; on the other hand, the anthropomorphic cult and the habit of devout observances are an expression of men's animistic sense of a propensity in material things, elaborated under the guidance of substantially the same general habit of invidious comparison. the two categories--the emulative habit of life and the habit of devout observances--are therefore to be taken as complementary elements of the barbarian type of human nature and of its modern barbarian variants. they are expressions of much the same range of aptitudes, made in response to different sets of stimuli. chapter twelve ~~ devout observances a discoursive rehearsal of certain incidents of modern life will show the organic relation of the anthropomorphic cults to the barbarian culture and temperament. it will likewise serve to show how the survival and efficacy of the cults and he prevalence of their schedule of devout observances are related to the institution of a leisure class and to the springs of action underlying that institution. without any intention to commend or to deprecate the practices to be spoken of under the head of devout observances, or the spiritual and intellectual traits of which these observances are the expression, the everyday phenomena of current anthropomorphic cults may be taken up from the point of view of the interest which they have for economic theory. what can properly be spoken of here are the tangible, external features of devout observances. the moral, as well as the devotional value of the life of faith lies outside of the scope of the present inquiry. of course no question is here entertained as to the truth or beauty of the creeds on which the cults proceed. and even their remoter economic bearing can not be taken up here; the subject is too recondite and of too grave import to find a place in so slight a sketch. something has been said in an earlier chapter as to the influence which pecuniary standards of value exert upon the processes of valuation carried out on other bases, not related to the pecuniary interest. the relation is not altogether one-sided. the economic standards or canons of valuation are in their turn influenced by extra-economic standards of value. our judgments of the economic bearing of facts are to some extent shaped by the dominant presence of these weightier interests. there is a point of view, indeed, from which the economic interest is of weight only as being ancillary to these higher, non-economic interests. for the present purpose, therefore, some thought must be taken to isolate the economic interest or the economic hearing of these phenomena of anthropomorphic cults. it takes some effort to divest oneself of the more serious point of view, and to reach an economic appreciation of these facts, with as little as may be of the bias due to higher interests extraneous to economic theory. in the discussion of the sporting temperament, it has appeared that the sense of an animistic propensity in material things and events is what affords the spiritual basis of the sporting man's gambling habit. for the economic purpose, this sense of propensity is substantially the same psychological element as expresses itself, under a variety of forms, in animistic beliefs and anthropomorphic creeds. so far as concerns those tangible psychological features with which economic theory has to deal, the gambling spirit which pervades the sporting element shades off by insensible gradations into that frame of mind which finds gratification in devout observances. as seen from the point of view of economic theory, the sporting character shades off into the character of a religious devotee. where the betting man's animistic sense is helped out by a somewhat consistent tradition, it has developed into a more or less articulate belief in a preternatural or hyperphysical agency, with something of an anthropomorphic content. and where this is the case, there is commonly a perceptible inclination to make terms with the preternatural agency by some approved method of approach and conciliation. this element of propitiation and cajoling has much in common with the crasser forms of worship--if not in historical derivation, at least in actual psychological content. it obviously shades off in unbroken continuity into what is recognized as superstitious practice and belief, and so asserts its claim to kinship with the grosser anthropomorphic cults. the sporting or gambling temperament, then, comprises some of the substantial psychological elements that go to make a believer in creeds and an observer of devout forms, the chief point of coincidence being the belief in an inscrutable propensity or a preternatural interposition in the sequence of events. for the purpose of the gambling practice the belief in preternatural agency may be, and ordinarily is, less closely formulated, especially as regards the habits of thought and the scheme of life imputed to the preternatural agent; or, in other words, as regards his moral character and his purposes in interfering in events. with respect to the individuality or personality of the agency whose presence as luck, or chance, or hoodoo, or mascot, etc., he feels and sometimes dreads and endeavors to evade, the sporting man's views are also less specific, less integrated and differentiated. the basis of his gambling activity is, in great measure, simply an instinctive sense of the presence of a pervasive extraphysical and arbitrary force or propensity in things or situations, which is scarcely recognized as a personal agent. the betting man is not infrequently both a believer in luck, in this naive sense, and at the same time a pretty staunch adherent of some form of accepted creed. he is especially prone to accept so much of the creed as concerts the inscrutable power and the arbitrary habits of the divinity which has won his confidence. in such a case he is possessed of two, or sometimes more than two, distinguishable phases of animism. indeed, the complete series of successive phases of animistic belief is to be found unbroken in the spiritual furniture of any sporting community. such a chain of animistic conceptions will comprise the most elementary form of an instinctive sense of luck and chance and fortuitous necessity at one end of the series, together with the perfectly developed anthropomorphic divinity at the other end, with all intervening stages of integration. coupled with these beliefs in preternatural agency goes an instinctive shaping of conduct to conform with the surmised requirements of the lucky chance on the one hand, and a more or less devout submission to the inscrutable decrees of the divinity on the other hand. there is a relationship in this respect between the sporting temperament and the temperament of the delinquent classes; and the two are related to the temperament which inclines to an anthropomorphic cult. both the delinquent and the sporting man are on the average more apt to be adherents of some accredited creed, and are also rather more inclined to devout observances, than the general average of the community. it is also noticeable that unbelieving members of these classes show more of a proclivity to become proselytes to some accredited faith than the average of unbelievers. this fact of observation is avowed by the spokesmen of sports, especially in apologizing for the more naively predatory athletic sports. indeed, it is somewhat insistently claimed as a meritorious feature of sporting life that the habitual participants in athletic games are in some degree peculiarly given to devout practices. and it is observable that the cult to which sporting men and the predaceous delinquent classes adhere, or to which proselytes from these classes commonly attach themselves, is ordinarily not one of the so-called higher faiths, but a cult which has to do with a thoroughly anthropomorphic divinity. archaic, predatory human nature is not satisfied with abstruse conceptions of a dissolving personality that shades off into the concept of quantitative causal sequence, such as the speculative, esoteric creeds of christendom impute to the first cause, universal intelligence, world soul, or spiritual aspect. as an instance of a cult of the character which the habits of mind of the athlete and the delinquent require, may be cited that branch of the church militant known as the salvation army. this is to some extent recruited from the lower-class delinquents, and it appears to comprise also, among its officers especially, a larger proportion of men with a sporting record than the proportion of such men in the aggregate population of the community. college athletics afford a case in point. it is contended by exponents of the devout element in college life--and there seems to be no ground for disputing the claim--that the desirable athletic material afforded by any student body in this country is at the same time predominantly religious; or that it is at least given to devout observances to a greater degree than the average of those students whose interest in athletics and other college sports is less. this is what might be expected on theoretical grounds. it may be remarked, by the way, that from one point of view this is felt to reflect credit on the college sporting life, on athletic games, and on those persons who occupy themselves with these matters. it happens not frequently that college sporting men devote themselves to religious propaganda, either as a vocation or as a by-occupation; and it is observable that when this happens they are likely to become propagandists of some one of the more anthropomorphic cults. in their teaching they are apt to insist chiefly on the personal relation of status which subsists between an anthropomorphic divinity and the human subject. this intimate relation between athletics and devout observance among college men is a fact of sufficient notoriety; but it has a special feature to which attention has not been called, although it is obvious enough. the religious zeal which pervades much of the college sporting element is especially prone to express itself in an unquestioning devoutness and a naive and complacent submission to an inscrutable providence. it therefore by preference seeks affiliation with some one of those lay religious organizations which occupy themselves with the spread of the exoteric forms of faith--as, e.g., the young men's christian association or the young people's society for christian endeavor. these lay bodies are organized to further "practical" religion; and as if to enforce the argument and firmly establish the close relationship between the sporting temperament and the archaic devoutness, these lay religious bodies commonly devote some appreciable portion of their energies to the furtherance of athletic contests and similar games of chance and skill. it might even be said that sports of this kind are apprehended to have some efficacy as a means of grace. they are apparently useful as a means of proselyting, and as a means of sustaining the devout attitude in converts once made. that is to say, the games which give exercise to the animistic sense and to the emulative propensity help to form and to conserve that habit of mind to which the more exoteric cults are congenial. hence, in the hands of the lay organizations, these sporting activities come to do duty as a novitiate or a means of induction into that fuller unfolding of the life of spiritual status which is the privilege of the full communicant along. that the exercise of the emulative and lower animistic proclivities are substantially useful for the devout purpose seems to be placed beyond question by the fact that the priesthood of many denominations is following the lead of the lay organizations in this respect. those ecclesiastical organizations especially which stand nearest the lay organizations in their insistence on practical religion have gone some way towards adopting these or analogous practices in connection with the traditional devout observances. so there are "boys' brigades," and other organizations, under clerical sanction, acting to develop the emulative proclivity and the sense of status in the youthful members of the congregation. these pseudo-military organizations tend to elaborate and accentuate the proclivity to emulation and invidious comparison, and so strengthen the native facility for discerning and approving the relation of personal mastery and subservience. and a believer is eminently a person who knows how to obey and accept chastisement with good grace. but the habits of thought which these practices foster and conserve make up but one half of the substance of the anthropomorphic cults. the other, complementary element of devout life--the animistic habit of mind--is recruited and conserved by a second range of practices organized under clerical sanction. these are the class of gambling practices of which the church bazaar or raffle may be taken as the type. as indicating the degree of legitimacy of these practices in connection with devout observances proper, it is to be remarked that these raffles, and the like trivial opportunities for gambling, seem to appeal with more effect to the common run of the members of religious organizations than they do to persons of a less devout habit of mind. all this seems to argue, on the one hand, that the same temperament inclines people to sports as inclines them to the anthropomorphic cults, and on the other hand that the habituation to sports, perhaps especially to athletic sports, acts to develop the propensities which find satisfaction in devout observances. conversely; it also appears that habituation to these observances favors the growth of a proclivity for athletic sports and for all games that give play to the habit of invidious comparison and of the appeal to luck. substantially the same range of propensities finds expression in both these directions of the spiritual life. that barbarian human nature in which the predatory instinct and the animistic standpoint predominate is normally prone to both. the predatory habit of mind involves an accentuated sense of personal dignity and of the relative standing of individuals. the social structure in which the predatory habit has been the dominant factor in the shaping of institutions is a structure based on status. the pervading norm in the predatory community's scheme of life is the relation of superior and inferior, noble and base, dominant and subservient persons and classes, master and slave. the anthropomorphic cults have come down from that stage of industrial development and have been shaped by the same scheme of economic differentiation--a differentiation into consumer and producer--and they are pervaded by the same dominant principle of mastery and subservience. the cults impute to their divinity the habits of thought answering to the stage of economic differentiation at which the cults took shape. the anthropomorphic divinity is conceived to be punctilious in all questions of precedence and is prone to an assertion of mastery and an arbitrary exercise of power--an habitual resort to force as the final arbiter. in the later and maturer formulations of the anthropomorphic creed this imputed habit of dominance on the part of a divinity of awful presence and inscrutable power is chastened into "the fatherhood of god." the spiritual attitude and the aptitudes imputed to the preternatural agent are still such as belong under the regime of status, but they now assume the patriarchal cast characteristic of the quasi-peaceable stage of culture. still it is to be noted that even in this advanced phase of the cult the observances in which devoutness finds expression consistently aim to propitiate the divinity by extolling his greatness and glory and by professing subservience and fealty. the act of propitiation or of worship is designed to appeal to a sense of status imputed to the inscrutable power that is thus approached. the propitiatory formulas most in vogue are still such as carry or imply an invidious comparison. a loyal attachment to the person of an anthropomorphic divinity endowed with such an archaic human nature implies the like archaic propensities in the devotee. for the purposes of economic theory, the relation of fealty, whether to a physical or to an extraphysical person, is to be taken as a variant of that personal subservience which makes up so large a share of the predatory and the quasi-peaceable scheme of life. the barbarian conception of the divinity, as a warlike chieftain inclined to an overbearing manner of government, has been greatly softened through the milder manners and the soberer habits of life that characterize those cultural phases which lie between the early predatory stage and the present. but even after this chastening of the devout fancy, and the consequent mitigation of the harsher traits of conduct and character that are currently imputed to the divinity, there still remains in the popular apprehension of the divine nature and temperament a very substantial residue of the barbarian conception. so it comes about, for instance, that in characterizing the divinity and his relations to the process of human life, speakers and writers are still able to make effective use of similes borrowed from the vocabulary of war and of the predatory manner of life, as well as of locutions which involve an invidious comparison. figures of speech of this import are used with good effect even in addressing the less warlike modern audiences, made up of adherents of the blander variants of the creed. this effective use of barbarian epithets and terms of comparison by popular speakers argues that the modern generation has retained a lively appreciation of the dignity and merit of the barbarian virtues; and it argues also that there is a degree of congruity between the devout attitude and the predatory habit of mind. it is only on second thought, if at all, that the devout fancy of modern worshippers revolts at the imputation of ferocious and vengeful emotions and actions to the object of their adoration. it is a matter of common observation that sanguinary epithets applied to the divinity have a high aesthetic and honorific value in the popular apprehension. that is to say, suggestions which these epithets carry are very acceptable to our unreflecting apprehension. mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord: he is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; he hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword; his truth is marching on. the guiding habits of thought of a devout person move on the plane of an archaic scheme of life which has outlived much of its usefulness for the economic exigencies of the collective life of today. in so far as the economic organization fits the exigencies of the collective life of today, it has outlived the regime of status, and has no use and no place for a relation of personal subserviency. so far as concerns the economic efficiency of the community, the sentiment of personal fealty, and the general habit of mind of which that sentiment is an expression, are survivals which cumber the ground and hinder an adequate adjustment of human institutions to the existing situation. the habit of mind which best lends itself to the purposes of a peaceable, industrial community, is that matter-of-fact temper which recognizes the value of material facts simply as opaque items in the mechanical sequence. it is that frame of mind which does not instinctively impute an animistic propensity to things, nor resort to preternatural intervention as an explanation of perplexing phenomena, nor depend on an unseen hand to shape the course of events to human use. to meet the requirements of the highest economic efficiency under modern conditions, the world process must habitually be apprehended in terms of quantitative, dispassionate force and sequence. as seen from the point of view of the later economic exigencies, devoutness is, perhaps in all cases, to be looked upon as a survival from an earlier phase of associated life--a mark of arrested spiritual development. of course it remains true that in a community where the economic structure is still substantially a system of status; where the attitude of the average of persons in the community is consequently shaped by and adapted to the relation of personal dominance and personal subservience; or where for any other reason--of tradition or of inherited aptitude--the population as a whole is strongly inclined to devout observances; there a devout habit of mind in any individual, not in excess of the average of the community, must be taken simply as a detail of the prevalent habit of life. in this light, a devout individual in a devout community can not be called a case of reversion, since he is abreast of the average of the community. but as seen from the point of view of the modern industrial situation, exceptional devoutness--devotional zeal that rises appreciably above the average pitch of devoutness in the community--may safely be set down as in all cases an atavistic trait. it is, of course, equally legitimate to consider these phenomena from a different point of view. they may be appreciated for a different purpose, and the characterization here offered may be turned about. in speaking from the point of view of the devotional interest, or the interest of devout taste, it may, with equal cogency, be said that the spiritual attitude bred in men by the modern industrial life is unfavorable to a free development of the life of faith. it might fairly be objected to the later development of the industrial process that its discipline tends to "materialism," to the elimination of filial piety. from the aesthetic point of view, again, something to a similar purport might be said. but, however legitimate and valuable these and the like reflections may be for their purpose, they would not be in place in the present inquiry, which is exclusively concerned with the valuation of these phenomena from the economic point of view. the grave economic significance of the anthropomorphic habit of mind and of the addiction to devout observances must serve as apology for speaking further on a topic which it can not but be distasteful to discuss at all as an economic phenomenon in a community so devout as ours. devout observances are of economic importance as an index of a concomitant variation of temperament, accompanying the predatory habit of mind and so indicating the presence of industrially disserviceable traits. they indicate the presence of a mental attitude which has a certain economic value of its own by virtue of its influence upon the industrial serviceability of the individual. but they are also of importance more directly, in modifying the economic activities of the community, especially as regards the distribution and consumption of goods. the most obvious economic bearing of these observances is seen in the devout consumption of goods and services. the consumption of ceremonial paraphernalia required by any cult, in the way of shrines, temples, churches, vestments, sacrifices, sacraments, holiday attire, etc., serves no immediate material end. all this material apparatus may, therefore, without implying deprecation, be broadly characterized as items of conspicuous waste. the like is true in a general way of the personal service consumed under this head; such as priestly education, priestly service, pilgrimages, fasts, holidays, household devotions, and the like. at the same time the observances in the execution of which this consumption takes place serve to extend and protract the vogue of those habits of thought on which an anthropomorphic cult rests. that is to say, they further the habits of thought characteristic of the regime of status. they are in so far an obstruction to the most effective organization of industry under modern circumstances; and are, in the first instance, antagonistic to the development of economic institutions in the direction required by the situation of today. for the present purpose, the indirect as well as the direct effects of this consumption are of the nature of a curtailment of the community's economic efficiency. in economic theory, then, and considered in its proximate consequences, the consumption of goods and effort in the service of an anthropomorphic divinity means a lowering of the vitality of the community. what may be the remoter, indirect, moral effects of this class of consumption does not admit of a succinct answer, and it is a question which can not be taken up here. it will be to the point, however, to note the general economic character of devout consumption, in comparison with consumption for other purposes. an indication of the range of motives and purposes from which devout consumption of goods proceeds will help toward an appreciation of the value both of this consumption itself and of the general habit of mind to which it is congenial. there is a striking parallelism, if not rather a substantial identity of motive, between the consumption which goes to the service of an anthropomorphic divinity and that which goes to the service of a gentleman of leisure chieftain or patriarch--in the upper class of society during the barbarian culture. both in the case of the chieftain and in that of the divinity there are expensive edifices set apart for the behoof of the person served. these edifices, as well as the properties which supplement them in the service, must not be common in kind or grade; they always show a large element of conspicuous waste. it may also be noted that the devout edifices are invariably of an archaic cast in their structure and fittings. so also the servants, both of the chieftain and of the divinity, must appear in the presence clothed in garments of a special, ornate character. the characteristic economic feature of this apparel is a more than ordinarily accentuated conspicuous waste, together with the secondary feature--more accentuated in the case of the priestly servants than in that of the servants or courtiers of the barbarian potentate--that this court dress must always be in some degree of an archaic fashion. also the garments worn by the lay members of the community when they come into the presence, should be of a more expensive kind than their everyday apparel. here, again, the parallelism between the usage of the chieftain's audience hall and that of the sanctuary is fairly well marked. in this respect there is required a certain ceremonial "cleanness" of attire, the essential feature of which, in the economic respect, is that the garments worn on these occasions should carry as little suggestion as may be of any industrial occupation or of any habitual addiction to such employments as are of material use. this requirement of conspicuous waste and of ceremonial cleanness from the traces of industry extends also to the apparel, and in a less degree to the food, which is consumed on sacred holidays; that is to say, on days set apart--tabu--for the divinity or for some member of the lower ranks of the preternatural leisure class. in economic theory, sacred holidays are obviously to be construed as a season of vicarious leisure performed for the divinity or saint in whose name the tabu is imposed and to whose good repute the abstention from useful effort on these days is conceived to inure. the characteristic feature of all such seasons of devout vicarious leisure is a more or less rigid tabu on all activity that is of human use. in the case of fast-days the conspicuous abstention from gainful occupations and from all pursuits that (materially) further human life is further accentuated by compulsory abstinence from such consumption as would conduce to the comfort or the fullness of life of the consumer. it may be remarked, parenthetically, that secular holidays are of the same origin, by slightly remoter derivation. they shade off by degrees from the genuinely sacred days, through an intermediate class of semi-sacred birthdays of kings and great men who have been in some measure canonized, to the deliberately invented holiday set apart to further the good repute of some notable event or some striking fact, to which it is intended to do honor, or the good fame of which is felt to be in need of repair. the remoter refinement in the employment of vicarious leisure as a means of augmenting the good repute of a phenomenon or datum is seen at its best in its very latest application. a day of vicarious leisure has in some communities been set apart as labor day. this observance is designed to augment the prestige of the fact of labor, by the archaic, predatory method of a compulsory abstention from useful effort. to this datum of labor-in-general is imputed the good repute attributable to the pecuniary strength put in evidence by abstaining from labor. sacred holidays, and holidays generally, are of the nature of a tribute levied on the body of the people. the tribute is paid in vicarious leisure, and the honorific effect which emerges is imputed to the person or the fact for whose good repute the holiday has been instituted. such a tithe of vicarious leisure is a perquisite of all members of the preternatural leisure class and is indispensable to their good fame. un saint qu'on ne chã´me pas is indeed a saint fallen on evil days. besides this tithe of vicarious leisure levied on the laity, there are also special classes of persons--the various grades of priests and hierodules--whose time is wholly set apart for a similar service. it is not only incumbent on the priestly class to abstain from vulgar labor, especially so far as it is lucrative or is apprehended to contribute to the temporal well-being of mankind. the tabu in the case of the priestly class goes farther and adds a refinement in the form of an injunction against their seeking worldly gain even where it may be had without debasing application to industry. it is felt to be unworthy of the servant of the divinity, or rather unworthy the dignity of the divinity whose servant he is, that he should seek material gain or take thought for temporal matters. "of all contemptible things a man who pretends to be a priest of god and is a priest to his own comforts and ambitions is the most contemptible." there is a line of discrimination, which a cultivated taste in matters of devout observance finds little difficulty in drawing, between such actions and conduct as conduce to the fullness of human life and such as conduce to the good fame of the anthropomorphic divinity; and the activity of the priestly class, in the ideal barbarian scheme, falls wholly on the hither side of this line. what falls within the range of economics falls below the proper level of solicitude of the priesthood in its best estate. such apparent exceptions to this rule as are afforded, for instance, by some of the medieval orders of monks (the members of which actually labored to some useful end), scarcely impugn the rule. these outlying orders of the priestly class are not a sacerdotal element in the full sense of the term. and it is noticeable also that these doubtfully sacerdotal orders, which countenanced their members in earning a living, fell into disrepute through offending the sense of propriety in the communities where they existed. the priest should not put his hand to mechanically productive work; but he should consume in large measure. but even as regards his consumption it is to be noted that it should take such forms as do not obviously conduce to his own comfort or fullness of life; it should conform to the rules governing vicarious consumption, as explained under that head in an earlier chapter. it is not ordinarily in good form for the priestly class to appear well fed or in hilarious spirits. indeed, in many of the more elaborate cults the injunction against other than vicarious consumption by this class frequently goes so far as to enjoin mortification of the flesh. and even in those modern denominations which have been organized under the latest formulations of the creed, in a modern industrial community, it is felt that all levity and avowed zest in the enjoyment of the good things of this world is alien to the true clerical decorum. whatever suggests that these servants of an invisible master are living a life, not of devotion to their master's good fame, but of application to their own ends, jars harshly on our sensibilities as something fundamentally and eternally wrong. they are a servant class, although, being servants of a very exalted master, they rank high in the social scale by virtue of this borrowed light. their consumption is vicarious consumption; and since, in the advanced cults, their master has no need of material gain, their occupation is vicarious leisure in the full sense. "whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of god." it may be added that so far as the laity is assimilated to the priesthood in the respect that they are conceived to be servants of the divinity. so far this imputed vicarious character attaches also to the layman's life. the range of application of this corollary is somewhat wide. it applies especially to such movements for the reform or rehabilitation of the religious life as are of an austere, pietistic, ascetic cast--where the human subject is conceived to hold his life by a direct servile tenure from his spiritual sovereign. that is to say, where the institution of the priesthood lapses, or where there is an exceptionally lively sense of the immediate and masterful presence of the divinity in the affairs of life, there the layman is conceived to stand in an immediate servile relation to the divinity, and his life is construed to be a performance of vicarious leisure directed to the enhancement of his master's repute. in such cases of reversion there is a return to the unmediated relation of subservience, as the dominant fact of the devout attitude. the emphasis is thereby thrown on an austere and discomforting vicarious leisure, to the neglect of conspicuous consumption as a means of grace. a doubt will present itself as to the full legitimacy of this characterization of the sacerdotal scheme of life, on the ground that a considerable proportion of the modern priesthood departs from the scheme in many details. the scheme does not hold good for the clergy of those denominations which have in some measure diverged from the old established schedule of beliefs or observances. these take thought, at least ostensibly or permissively, for the temporal welfare of the laity, as well as for their own. their manner of life, not only in the privacy of their own household, but often even before the public, does not differ in an extreme degree from that of secular-minded persons, either in its ostensible austerity or in the archaism of its apparatus. this is truest for those denominations that have wandered the farthest. to this objection it is to be said that we have here to do not with a discrepancy in the theory of sacerdotal life, but with an imperfect conformity to the scheme on the part of this body of clergy. they are but a partial and imperfect representative of the priesthood, and must not be taken as exhibiting the sacerdotal scheme of life in an authentic and competent manner. the clergy of the sects and denominations might be characterized as a half-caste priesthood, or a priesthood in process of becoming or of reconstitution. such a priesthood may be expected to show the characteristics of the sacerdotal office only as blended and obscured with alien motives and traditions, due to the disturbing presence of other factors than those of animism and status in the purposes of the organizations to which this non-conforming fraction of the priesthood belongs. appeal may be taken direct to the taste of any person with a discriminating and cultivated sense of the sacerdotal proprieties, or to the prevalent sense of what constitutes clerical decorum in any community at all accustomed to think or to pass criticism on what a clergyman may or may not do without blame. even in the most extremely secularized denominations, there is some sense of a distinction that should be observed between the sacerdotal and the lay scheme of life. there is no person of sensibility but feels that where the members of this denominational or sectarian clergy depart from traditional usage, in the direction of a less austere or less archaic demeanor and apparel, they are departing from the ideal of priestly decorum. there is probably no community and no sect within the range of the western culture in which the bounds of permissible indulgence are not drawn appreciably closer for the incumbent of the priestly office than for the common layman. if the priest's own sense of sacerdotal propriety does not effectually impose a limit, the prevalent sense of the proprieties on the part of the community will commonly assert itself so obtrusively as to lead to his conformity or his retirement from office. few if any members of any body of clergy, it may be added, would avowedly seek an increase of salary for gain's sake; and if such avowal were openly made by a clergyman, it would be found obnoxious to the sense of propriety among his congregation. it may also be noted in this connection that no one but the scoffers and the very obtuse are not instinctively grieved inwardly at a jest from the pulpit; and that there are none whose respect for their pastor does not suffer through any mark of levity on his part in any conjuncture of life, except it be levity of a palpably histrionic kind--a constrained unbending of dignity. the diction proper to the sanctuary and to the priestly office should also carry little if any suggestion of effective everyday life, and should not draw upon the vocabulary of modern trade or industry. likewise, one's sense of the proprieties is readily offended by too detailed and intimate a handling of industrial and other purely human questions at the hands of the clergy. there is a certain level of generality below which a cultivated sense of the proprieties in homiletical discourse will not permit a well-bred clergyman to decline in his discussion of temporal interests. these matters that are of human and secular consequence simply, should properly be handled with such a degree of generality and aloofness as may imply that the speaker represents a master whose interest in secular affairs goes only so far as to permissively countenance them. it is further to be noticed that the non-conforming sects and variants whose priesthood is here under discussion, vary among themselves in the degree of their conformity to the ideal scheme of sacerdotal life. in a general way it will be found that the divergence in this respect is widest in the case of the relatively young denominations, and especially in the case of such of the newer denominations as have chiefly a lower middle-class constituency. they commonly show a large admixture of humanitarian, philanthropic, or other motives which can not be classed as expressions of the devotional attitude; such as the desire of learning or of conviviality, which enter largely into the effective interest shown by members of these organizations. the non-conforming or sectarian movements have commonly proceeded from a mixture of motives, some of which are at variance with that sense of status on which the priestly office rests. sometimes, indeed, the motive has been in good part a revulsion against a system of status. where this is the case the institution of the priesthood has broken down in the transition, at least partially. the spokesman of such an organization is at the outset a servant and representative of the organization, rather than a member of a special priestly class and the spokesman of a divine master. and it is only by a process of gradual specialization that, in succeeding generations, this spokesman regains the position of priest, with a full investiture of sacerdotal authority, and with its accompanying austere, archaic and vicarious manner of life. the like is true of the breakdown and redintegration of devout ritual after such a revulsion. the priestly office, the scheme of sacerdotal life, and the schedule of devout observances are rehabilitated only gradually, insensibly, and with more or less variation in details, as a persistent human sense of devout propriety reasserts its primacy in questions touching the interest in the preternatural--and it may be added, as the organization increases in wealth, and so acquires more of the point of view and the habits of thought of a leisure class. beyond the priestly class, and ranged in an ascending hierarchy, ordinarily comes a superhuman vicarious leisure class of saints, angels, etc.--or their equivalents in the ethnic cults. these rise in grade, one above another, according to elaborate system of status. the principle of status runs through the entire hierarchical system, both visible and invisible. the good fame of these several orders of the supernatural hierarchy also commonly requires a certain tribute of vicarious consumption and vicarious leisure. in many cases they accordingly have devoted to their service sub-orders of attendants or dependents who perform a vicarious leisure for them, after much the same fashion as was found in an earlier chapter to be true of the dependent leisure class under the patriarchal system. it may not appear without reflection how these devout observances and the peculiarity of temperament which they imply, or the consumption of goods and services which is comprised in the cult, stand related to the leisure class of a modern community, or to the economic motives of which that class is the exponent in the modern scheme of life to this end a summary review of certain facts bearing on this relation will be useful. it appears from an earlier passage in this discussion that for the purpose of the collective life of today, especially so far as concerns the industrial efficiency of the modern community, the characteristic traits of the devout temperament are a hindrance rather than a help. it should accordingly be found that the modern industrial life tends selectively to eliminate these traits of human nature from the spiritual constitution of the classes that are immediately engaged in the industrial process. it should hold true, approximately, that devoutness is declining or tending to obsolescence among the members of what may be called the effective industrial community. at the same time it should appear that this aptitude or habit survives in appreciably greater vigor among those classes which do not immediately or primarily enter into the community's life process as an industrial factor. it has already been pointed out that these latter classes, which live by, rather than in, the industrial process, are roughly comprised under two categories (1) the leisure class proper, which is shielded from the stress of the economic situation; and (2) the indigent classes, including the lower-class delinquents, which are unduly exposed to the stress. in the case of the former class an archaic habit of mind persists because no effectual economic pressure constrains this class to an adaptation of its habits of thought to the changing situation; while in the latter the reason for a failure to adjust their habits of thought to the altered requirements of industrial efficiency is innutrition, absence of such surplus of energy as is needed in order to make the adjustment with facility, together with a lack of opportunity to acquire and become habituated to the modern point of view. the trend of the selective process runs in much the same direction in both cases. from the point of view which the modern industrial life inculcates, phenomena are habitually subsumed under the quantitative relation of mechanical sequence. the indigent classes not only fall short of the modicum of leisure necessary in order to appropriate and assimilate the more recent generalizations of science which this point of view involves, but they also ordinarily stand in such a relation of personal dependence or subservience to their pecuniary superiors as materially to retard their emancipation from habits of thought proper to the regime of status. the result is that these classes in some measure retain that general habit of mind the chief expression of which is a strong sense of personal status, and of which devoutness is one feature. in the older communities of the european culture, the hereditary leisure class, together with the mass of the indigent population, are given to devout observances in an appreciably higher degree than the average of the industrious middle class, wherever a considerable class of the latter character exists. but in some of these countries, the two categories of conservative humanity named above comprise virtually the whole population. where these two classes greatly preponderate, their bent shapes popular sentiment to such an extent as to bear down any possible divergent tendency in the inconsiderable middle class, and imposes a devout attitude upon the whole community. this must, of course, not be construed to say that such communities or such classes as are exceptionally prone to devout observances tend to conform in any exceptional degree to the specifications of any code of morals that we may be accustomed to associate with this or that confession of faith. a large measure of the devout habit of mind need not carry with it a strict observance of the injunctions of the decalogue or of the common law. indeed, it is becoming somewhat of a commonplace with observers of criminal life in european communities that the criminal and dissolute classes are, if anything, rather more devout, and more naively so, than the average of the population. it is among those who constitute the pecuniary middle class and the body of law-abiding citizens that a relative exemption from the devotional attitude is to be looked for. those who best appreciate the merits of the higher creeds and observances would object to all this and say that the devoutness of the low-class delinquents is a spurious, or at the best a superstitious devoutness; and the point is no doubt well taken and goes directly and cogently to the purpose intended. but for the purpose of the present inquiry these extra-economic, extra-psychological distinctions must perforce be neglected, however valid and however decisive they may be for the purpose for which they are made. what has actually taken place with regard to class emancipation from the habit of devout observance is shown by the latter-day complaint of the clergy--that the churches are losing the sympathy of the artisan classes, and are losing their hold upon them. at the same time it is currently believed that the middle class, commonly so called, is also falling away in the cordiality of its support of the church, especially so far as regards the adult male portion of that class. these are currently recognized phenomena, and it might seem that a simple reference to these facts should sufficiently substantiate the general position outlined. such an appeal to the general phenomena of popular church attendance and church membership may be sufficiently convincing for the proposition here advanced. but it will still be to the purpose to trace in some detail the course of events and the particular forces which have wrought this change in the spiritual attitude of the more advanced industrial communities of today. it will serve to illustrate the manner in which economic causes work towards a secularization of men's habits of thought. in this respect the american community should afford an exceptionally convincing illustration, since this community has been the least trammelled by external circumstances of any equally important industrial aggregate. after making due allowance for exceptions and sporadic departures from the normal, the situation here at the present time may be summarized quite briefly. as a general rule the classes that are low in economic efficiency, or in intelligence, or both, are peculiarly devout--as, for instance, the negro population of the south, much of the lower-class foreign population, much of the rural population, especially in those sections which are backward in education, in the stage of development of their industry, or in respect of their industrial contact with the rest of the community. so also such fragments as we possess of a specialized or hereditary indigent class, or of a segregated criminal or dissolute class; although among these latter the devout habit of mind is apt to take the form of a naive animistic belief in luck and in the efficacy of shamanistic practices perhaps more frequently than it takes the form of a formal adherence to any accredited creed. the artisan class, on the other hand, is notoriously falling away from the accredited anthropomorphic creeds and from all devout observances. this class is in an especial degree exposed to the characteristic intellectual and spiritual stress of modern organized industry, which requires a constant recognition of the undisguised phenomena of impersonal, matter-of-fact sequence and an unreserved conformity to the law of cause and effect. this class is at the same time not underfed nor over-worked to such an extent as to leave no margin of energy for the work of adaptation. the case of the lower or doubtful leisure class in america--the middle class commonly so called--is somewhat peculiar. it differs in respect of its devotional life from its european counterpart, but it differs in degree and method rather than in substance. the churches still have the pecuniary support of this class; although the creeds to which the class adheres with the greatest facility are relatively poor in anthropomorphic content. at the same time the effective middle-class congregation tends, in many cases, more or less remotely perhaps, to become a congregation of women and minors. there is an appreciable lack of devotional fervor among the adult males of the middle class, although to a considerable extent there survives among them a certain complacent, reputable assent to the outlines of the accredited creed under which they were born. their everyday life is carried on in a more or less close contact with the industrial process. this peculiar sexual differentiation, which tends to delegate devout observances to the women and their children, is due, at least in part, to the fact that the middle-class women are in great measure a (vicarious) leisure class. the same is true in a less degree of the women of the lower, artisan classes. they live under a regime of status handed down from an earlier stage of industrial development, and thereby they preserve a frame of mind and habits of thought which incline them to an archaic view of things generally. at the same time they stand in no such direct organic relation to the industrial process at large as would tend strongly to break down those habits of thought which, for the modern industrial purpose, are obsolete. that is to say, the peculiar devoutness of women is a particular expression of that conservatism which the women of civilized communities owe, in great measure, to their economic position. for the modern man the patriarchal relation of status is by no means the dominant feature of life; but for the women on the other hand, and for the upper middle-class women especially, confined as they are by prescription and by economic circumstances to their "domestic sphere," this relation is the most real and most formative factor of life. hence a habit of mind favorable to devout observances and to the interpretation of the facts of life generally in terms of personal status. the logic, and the logical processes, of her everyday domestic life are carried over into the realm of the supernatural, and the woman finds herself at home and content in a range of ideas which to the man are in great measure alien and imbecile. still the men of this class are also not devoid of piety, although it is commonly not piety of an aggressive or exuberant kind. the men of the upper middle class commonly take a more complacent attitude towards devout observances than the men of the artisan class. this may perhaps be explained in part by saying that what is true of the women of the class is true to a less extent also of the men. they are to an appreciable extent a sheltered class; and the patriarchal relation of status which still persists in their conjugal life and in their habitual use of servants, may also act to conserve an archaic habit of mind and may exercise a retarding influence upon the process of secularization which their habits of thought are undergoing. the relations of the american middle-class man to the economic community, however, are usually pretty close and exacting; although it may be remarked, by the way and in qualification, that their economic activity frequently also partakes in some degree of the patriarchal or quasi-predatory character. the occupations which are in good repute among this class and which have most to do with shaping the class habits of thought, are the pecuniary occupations which have been spoken of in a similar connection in an earlier chapter. there is a good deal of the relation of arbitrary command and submission, and not a little of shrewd practice, remotely akin to predatory fraud. all this belongs on the plane of life of the predatory barbarian, to whom a devotional attitude is habitual. and in addition to this, the devout observances also commend themselves to this class on the ground of reputability. but this latter incentive to piety deserves treatment by itself and will be spoken of presently. there is no hereditary leisure class of any consequence in the american community, except in the south. this southern leisure class is somewhat given to devout observances; more so than any class of corresponding pecuniary standing in other parts of the country. it is also well known that the creeds of the south are of a more old-fashioned cast than their counterparts in the north. corresponding to this more archaic devotional life of the south is the lower industrial development of that section. the industrial organization of the south is at present, and especially it has been until quite recently, of a more primitive character than that of the american community taken as a whole. it approaches nearer to handicraft, in the paucity and rudeness of its mechanical appliances, and there is more of the element of mastery and subservience. it may also be noted that, owing to the peculiar economic circumstances of this section, the greater devoutness of the southern population, both white and black, is correlated with a scheme of life which in many ways recalls the barbarian stages of industrial development. among this population offenses of an archaic character also are and have been relatively more prevalent and are less deprecated than they are elsewhere; as, for example, duels, brawls, feuds, drunkenness, horse-racing, cock-fighting, gambling, male sexual incontinence (evidenced by the considerable number of mulattoes). there is also a livelier sense of honor--an expression of sportsmanship and a derivative of predatory life. as regards the wealthier class of the north, the american leisure class in the best sense of the term, it is, to begin with, scarcely possible to speak of an hereditary devotional attitude. this class is of too recent growth to be possessed of a well-formed transmitted habit in this respect, or even of a special home-grown tradition. still, it may be noted in passing that there is a perceptible tendency among this class to give in at least a nominal, and apparently something of a real, adherence to some one of the accredited creeds. also, weddings, funerals, and the like honorific events among this class are pretty uniformly solemnized with some especial degree of religious circumstance. it is impossible to say how far this adherence to a creed is a bona fide reversion to a devout habit of mind, and how far it is to be classed as a case of protective mimicry assumed for the purpose of an outward assimilation to canons of reputability borrowed from foreign ideals. something of a substantial devotional propensity seems to be present, to judge especially by the somewhat peculiar degree of ritualistic observance which is in process of development in the upper-class cults. there is a tendency perceptible among the upper-class worshippers to affiliate themselves with those cults which lay relatively great stress on ceremonial and on the spectacular accessories of worship; and in the churches in which an upper-class membership predominates, there is at the same time a tendency to accentuate the ritualistic, at the cost of the intellectual features in the service and in the apparatus of the devout observances. this holds true even where the church in question belongs to a denomination with a relatively slight general development of ritual and paraphernalia. this peculiar development of the ritualistic element is no doubt due in part to a predilection for conspicuously wasteful spectacles, but it probably also in part indicates something of the devotional attitude of the worshippers. so far as the latter is true, it indicates a relatively archaic form of the devotional habit. the predominance of spectacular effects in devout observances is noticeable in all devout communities at a relatively primitive stage of culture and with a slight intellectual development. it is especially characteristic of the barbarian culture. here there is pretty uniformly present in the devout observances a direct appeal to the emotions through all the avenues of sense. and a tendency to return to this naive, sensational method of appeal is unmistakable in the upper-class churches of today. it is perceptible in a less degree in the cults which claim the allegiance of the lower leisure class and of the middle classes. there is a reversion to the use of colored lights and brilliant spectacles, a freer use of symbols, orchestral music and incense, and one may even detect in "processionals" and "recessionals" and in richly varied genuflexional evolutions, an incipient reversion to so antique an accessory of worship as the sacred dance. this reversion to spectacular observances is not confined to the upper-class cults, although it finds its best exemplification and its highest accentuation in the higher pecuniary and social altitudes. the cults of the lower-class devout portion of the community, such as the southern negroes and the backward foreign elements of the population, of course also show a strong inclination to ritual, symbolism, and spectacular effects; as might be expected from the antecedents and the cultural level of those classes. with these classes the prevalence of ritual and anthropomorphism are not so much a matter of reversion as of continued development out of the past. but the use of ritual and related features of devotion are also spreading in other directions. in the early days of the american community the prevailing denominations started out with a ritual and paraphernalia of an austere simplicity; but it is a matter familiar to every one that in the course of time these denominations have, in a varying degree, adopted much of the spectacular elements which they once renounced. in a general way, this development has gone hand in hand with the growth of the wealth and the ease of life of the worshippers and has reached its fullest expression among those classes which grade highest in wealth and repute. the causes to which this pecuniary stratification of devoutness is due have already been indicated in a general way in speaking of class differences in habits of thought. class differences as regards devoutness are but a special expression of a generic fact. the lax allegiance of the lower middle class, or what may broadly be called the failure of filial piety among this class, is chiefly perceptible among the town populations engaged in the mechanical industries. in a general way, one does not, at the present time, look for a blameless filial piety among those classes whose employment approaches that of the engineer and the mechanician. these mechanical employments are in a degree a modern fact. the handicraftsmen of earlier times, who served an industrial end of a character similar to that now served by the mechanician, were not similarly refractory under the discipline of devoutness. the habitual activity of the men engaged in these branches of industry has greatly changed, as regards its intellectual discipline, since the modern industrial processes have come into vogue; and the discipline to which the mechanician is exposed in his daily employment affects the methods and standards of his thinking also on topics which lie outside his everyday work. familiarity with the highly organized and highly impersonal industrial processes of the present acts to derange the animistic habits of thought. the workman's office is becoming more and more exclusively that of discretion and supervision in a process of mechanical, dispassionate sequences. so long as the individual is the chief and typical prime mover in the process; so long as the obtrusive feature of the industrial process is the dexterity and force of the individual handicraftsman; so long the habit of interpreting phenomena in terms of personal motive and propensity suffers no such considerable and consistent derangement through facts as to lead to its elimination. but under the later developed industrial processes, when the prime movers and the contrivances through which they work are of an impersonal, non-individual character, the grounds of generalization habitually present in the workman's mind and the point of view from which he habitually apprehends phenomena is an enforced cognizance of matter-of-fact sequence. the result, so far as concerts the workman's life of faith, is a proclivity to undevout scepticism. it appears, then, that the devout habit of mind attains its best development under a relatively archaic culture; the term "devout" being of course here used in its anthropological sense simply, and not as implying anything with respect to the spiritual attitude so characterized, beyond the fact of a proneness to devout observances. it appears also that this devout attitude marks a type of human nature which is more in consonance with the predatory mode of life than with the later-developed, more consistently and organically industrial life process of the community. it is in large measure an expression of the archaic habitual sense of personal status--the relation of mastery and subservience--and it therefore fits into the industrial scheme of the predatory and the quasi-peaceable culture, but does not fit into the industrial scheme of the present. it also appears that this habit persists with greatest tenacity among those classes in the modern communities whose everyday life is most remote from the mechanical processes of industry and which are the most conservative also in other respects; while for those classes that are habitually in immediate contact with modern industrial processes, and whose habits of thought are therefore exposed to the constraining force of technological necessities, that animistic interpretation of phenomena and that respect of persons on which devout observance proceeds are in process of obsolescence. and also--as bearing especially on the present discussion--it appears that the devout habit to some extent progressively gains in scope and elaboration among those classes in the modern communities to whom wealth and leisure accrue in the most pronounced degree. in this as in other relations, the institution of a leisure class acts to conserve, and even to rehabilitate, that archaic type of human nature and those elements of the archaic culture which the industrial evolution of society in its later stages acts to eliminate. chapter thirteen ~~ survivals of the non-invidious interests in an increasing proportion as time goes on, the anthropomorphic cult, with its code of devout observations, suffers a progressive disintegration through the stress of economic exigencies and the decay of the system of status. as this disintegration proceeds, there come to be associated and blended with the devout attitude certain other motives and impulses that are not always of an anthropomorphic origin, nor traceable to the habit of personal subservience. not all of these subsidiary impulses that blend with the habit of devoutness in the later devotional life are altogether congruous with the devout attitude or with the anthropomorphic apprehension of the sequence of phenomena. the origin being not the same, their action upon the scheme of devout life is also not in the same direction. in many ways they traverse the underlying norm of subservience or vicarious life to which the code of devout observations and the ecclesiastical and sacerdotal institutions are to be traced as their substantial basis. through the presence of these alien motives the social and industrial regime of status gradually disintegrates, and the canon of personal subservience loses the support derived from an unbroken tradition. extraneous habits and proclivities encroach upon the field of action occupied by this canon, and it presently comes about that the ecclesiastical and sacerdotal structures are partially converted to other uses, in some measure alien to the purposes of the scheme of devout life as it stood in the days of the most vigorous and characteristic development of the priesthood. among these alien motives which affect the devout scheme in its later growth, may be mentioned the motives of charity and of social good-fellowship, or conviviality; or, in more general terms, the various expressions of the sense of human solidarity and sympathy. it may be added that these extraneous uses of the ecclesiastical structure contribute materially to its survival in name and form even among people who may be ready to give up the substance of it. a still more characteristic and more pervasive alien element in the motives which have gone to formally uphold the scheme of devout life is that non-reverent sense of aesthetic congruity with the environment, which is left as a residue of the latter-day act of worship after elimination of its anthropomorphic content. this has done good service for the maintenance of the sacerdotal institution through blending with the motive of subservience. this sense of impulse of aesthetic congruity is not primarily of an economic character, but it has a considerable indirect effect in shaping the habit of mind of the individual for economic purposes in the later stages of industrial development; its most perceptible effect in this regard goes in the direction of mitigating the somewhat pronounced self-regarding bias that has been transmitted by tradition from the earlier, more competent phases of the regime of status. the economic bearing of this impulse is therefore seen to transverse that of the devout attitude; the former goes to qualify, if not eliminate, the self-regarding bias, through sublation of the antithesis or antagonism of self and not-self; while the latter, being and expression of the sense of personal subservience and mastery, goes to accentuate this antithesis and to insist upon the divergence between the self-regarding interest and the interests of the generically human life process. this non-invidious residue of the religious life--the sense of communion with the environment, or with the generic life process--as well as the impulse of charity or of sociability, act in a pervasive way to shape men's habits of thought for the economic purpose. but the action of all this class of proclivities is somewhat vague, and their effects are difficult to trace in detail. so much seems clear, however, as that the action of this entire class of motives or aptitudes tends in a direction contrary to the underlying principles of the institution of the leisure class as already formulated. the basis of that institution, as well as of the anthropomorphic cults associated with it in the cultural development, is the habit of invidious comparison; and this habit is incongruous with the exercise of the aptitudes now in question. the substantial canons of the leisure-class scheme of life are a conspicuous waste of time and substance and a withdrawal from the industrial process; while the particular aptitudes here in question assert themselves, on the economic side, in a deprecation of waste and of a futile manner of life, and in an impulse to participation in or identification with the life process, whether it be on the economic side or in any other of its phases or aspects. it is plain that these aptitudes and habits of life to which they give rise where circumstances favor their expression, or where they assert themselves in a dominant way, run counter to the leisure-class scheme of life; but it is not clear that life under the leisure-class scheme, as seen in the later stages of its development, tends consistently to the repression of these aptitudes or to exemption from the habits of thought in which they express themselves. the positive discipline of the leisure-class scheme of life goes pretty much all the other way. in its positive discipline, by prescription and by selective elimination, the leisure-class scheme favors the all-pervading and all-dominating primacy of the canons of waste and invidious comparison at every conjuncture of life. but in its negative effects the tendency of the leisure-class discipline is not so unequivocally true to the fundamental canons of the scheme. in its regulation of human activity for the purpose of pecuniary decency the leisure-class canon insists on withdrawal from the industrial process. that is to say, it inhibits activity in the directions in which the impecunious members of the community habitually put forth their efforts. especially in the case of women, and more particularly as regards the upper-class and upper-middle-class women of advanced industrial communities, this inhibition goes so far as to insist on withdrawal even from the emulative process of accumulation by the quasi-predator methods of the pecuniary occupations. the pecuniary or the leisure-class culture, which set out as an emulative variant of the impulse of workmanship, is in its latest development beginning to neutralize its own ground, by eliminating the habit of invidious comparison in respect of efficiency, or even of pecuniary standing. on the other hand, the fact that members of the leisure class, both men and women, are to some extent exempt from the necessity of finding a livelihood in a competitive struggle with their fellows, makes it possible for members of this class not only to survive, but even, within bounds, to follow their bent in case they are not gifted with the aptitudes which make for success in the competitive struggle. that is to say, in the latest and fullest development of the institution, the livelihood of members of this class does not depend on the possession and the unremitting exercise of those aptitudes are therefore greater in the higher grades of the leisure class than in the general average of a population living under the competitive system. in an earlier chapter, in discussing the conditions of survival of archaic traits, it has appeared that the peculiar position of the leisure class affords exceptionally favorable chances for the survival of traits which characterize the type of human nature proper to an earlier and obsolete cultural stage. the class is sheltered from the stress of economic exigencies, and is in this sense withdrawn from the rude impact of forces which make for adaptation to the economic situation. the survival in the leisure class, and under the leisure-class scheme of life, of traits and types that are reminiscent of the predatory culture has already been discussed. these aptitudes and habits have an exceptionally favorable chance of survival under the leisure-class regime. not only does the sheltered pecuniary position of the leisure class afford a situation favorable to the survival of such individuals as are not gifted with the complement of aptitudes required for serviceability in the modern industrial process; but the leisure-class canons of reputability at the same time enjoin the conspicuous exercise of certain predatory aptitudes. the employments in which the predatory aptitudes find exercise serve as an evidence of wealth, birth, and withdrawal from the industrial process. the survival of the predatory traits under the leisure-class culture is furthered both negatively, through the industrial exemption of the class, and positively, through the sanction of the leisure-class canons of decency. with respect to the survival of traits characteristic of the ante-predatory savage culture the case is in some degree different. the sheltered position of the leisure class favors the survival also of these traits; but the exercise of the aptitudes for peace and good-will does not have the affirmative sanction of the code of proprieties. individuals gifted with a temperament that is reminiscent of the ante-predatory culture are placed at something of an advantage within the leisure class, as compared with similarly gifted individuals outside the class, in that they are not under a pecuniary necessity to thwart these aptitudes that make for a non-competitive life; but such individuals are still exposed to something of a moral constraint which urges them to disregard these inclinations, in that the code of proprieties enjoins upon them habits of life based on the predatory aptitudes. so long as the system of status remains intact, and so long as the leisure class has other lines of non-industrial activity to take to than obvious killing of time in aimless and wasteful fatigation, so long no considerable departure from the leisure-class scheme of reputable life is to be looked for. the occurrence of non-predatory temperament with the class at that stage is to be looked upon as a case of sporadic reversion. but the reputable non-industrial outlets for the human propensity to action presently fail, through the advance of economic development, the disappearance of large game, the decline of war, the obsolescence of proprietary government, and the decay of the priestly office. when this happens, the situation begins to change. human life must seek expression in one direction if it may not in another; and if the predatory outlet fails, relief is sought elsewhere. as indicated above, the exemption from pecuniary stress has been carried farther in the case of the leisure-class women of the advanced industrial communities than in that of any other considerable group of persons. the women may therefore be expected to show a more pronounced reversion to a non-invidious temperament than the men. but there is also among men of the leisure class a perceptible increase in the range and scope of activities that proceed from aptitudes which are not to be classed as self-regarding, and the end of which is not an invidious distinction. so, for instance, the greater number of men who have to do with industry in the way of pecuniarily managing an enterprise take some interest and some pride in seeing that the work is well done and is industrially effective, and this even apart from the profit which may result from any improvement of this kind. the efforts of commercial clubs and manufacturers' organizations in this direction of non-invidious advancement of industrial efficiency are also well know. the tendency to some other than an invidious purpose in life has worked out in a multitude of organizations, the purpose of which is some work of charity or of social amelioration. these organizations are often of a quasi-religious or pseudo-religious character, and are participated in by both men and women. examples will present themselves in abundance on reflection, but for the purpose of indicating the range of the propensities in question and of characterizing them, some of the more obvious concrete cases may be cited. such, for instance, are the agitation for temperance and similar social reforms, for prison reform, for the spread of education, for the suppression of vice, and for the avoidance of war by arbitration, disarmament, or other means; such are, in some measure, university settlements, neighborhood guilds, the various organizations typified by the young men's christian association and young people's society for christian endeavor, sewing-clubs, art clubs, and even commercial clubs; such are also, in some slight measure, the pecuniary foundations of semi-public establishments for charity, education, or amusement, whether they are endowed by wealthy individuals or by contributions collected from persons of smaller means--in so far as these establishments are not of a religious character. it is of course not intended to say that these efforts proceed entirely from other motives than those of a self-regarding kind. what can be claimed is that other motives are present in the common run of cases, and that the perceptibly greater prevalence of effort of this kind under the circumstances of the modern industrial life than under the unbroken regime of the principle of status, indicates the presence in modern life of an effective scepticism with respect to the full legitimacy of an emulative scheme of life. it is a matter of sufficient notoriety to have become a commonplace jest that extraneous motives are commonly present among the incentives to this class of work--motives of a self-regarding kind, and especially the motive of an invidious distinction. to such an extent is this true, that many ostensible works of disinterested public spirit are no doubt initiated and carried on with a view primarily to the enhance repute or even to the pecuniary gain, of their promoters. in the case of some considerable groups of organizations or establishments of this kind the invidious motive is apparently the dominant motive both with the initiators of the work and with their supporters. this last remark would hold true especially with respect to such works as lend distinction to their doer through large and conspicuous expenditure; as, for example, the foundation of a university or of a public library or museum; but it is also, and perhaps equally, true of the more commonplace work of participation in such organizations. these serve to authenticate the pecuniary reputability of their members, as well as gratefully to keep them in mind of their superior status by pointing the contrast between themselves and the lower-lying humanity in whom the work of amelioration is to be wrought; as, for example, the university settlement, which now has some vogue. but after all allowances and deductions have been made, there is left some remainder of motives of a non-emulative kind. the fact itself that distinction or a decent good fame is sought by this method is evidence of a prevalent sense of the legitimacy, and of the presumptive effectual presence, of a non-emulative, non-invidious interest, as a consistent factor in the habits of thought of modern communities. in all this latter-day range of leisure-class activities that proceed on the basis of a non-invidious and non-religious interest, it is to be noted that the women participate more actively and more persistently than the men--except, of course, in the case of such works as require a large expenditure of means. the dependent pecuniary position of the women disables them for work requiring large expenditure. as regards the general range of ameliorative work, the members of the priesthood or clergy of the less naively devout sects, or the secularized denominations, are associated with the class of women. this is as the theory would have it. in other economic relations, also, this clergy stands in a somewhat equivocal position between the class of women and that of the men engaged in economic pursuits. by tradition and by the prevalent sense of the proprieties, both the clergy and the women of the well-to-do classes are placed in the position of a vicarious leisure class; with both classes the characteristic relation which goes to form the habits of thought of the class is a relation of subservience--that is to say, an economic relation conceived in personal terms; in both classes there is consequently perceptible a special proneness to construe phenomena in terms of personal relation rather than of causal sequence; both classes are so inhibited by the canons of decency from the ceremonially unclean processes of the lucrative or productive occupations as to make participation in the industrial life process of today a moral impossibility for them. the result of this ceremonial exclusion from productive effort of the vulgar sort is to draft a relatively large share of the energies of the modern feminine and priestly classes into the service of other interests than the self-regarding one. the code leaves no alternative direction in which the impulse to purposeful action may find expression. the effect of a consistent inhibition on industrially useful activity in the case of the leisure-class women shows itself in a restless assertion of the impulse to workmanship in other directions than that of business activity. as has been noticed already, the everyday life of the well-to-do women and the clergy contains a larger element of status than that of the average of the men, especially than that of the men engaged in the modern industrial occupations proper. hence the devout attitude survives in a better state of preservation among these classes than among the common run of men in the modern communities. hence an appreciable share of the energy which seeks expression in a non-lucrative employment among these members of the vicarious leisure classes may be expected to eventuate in devout observances and works of piety. hence, in part, the excess of the devout proclivity in women, spoken of in the last chapter. but it is more to the present point to note the effect of this proclivity in shaping the action and coloring the purposes of the non-lucrative movements and organizations here under discussion. where this devout coloring is present it lowers the immediate efficiency of the organizations for any economic end to which their efforts may be directed. many organizations, charitable and ameliorative, divide their attention between the devotional and the secular well-being of the people whose interests they aim to further. it can scarcely be doubted that if they were to give an equally serious attention and effort undividedly to the secular interests of these people, the immediate economic value of their work should be appreciably higher than it is. it might of course similarly be said, if this were the place to say it, that the immediate efficiency of these works of amelioration for the devout might be greater if it were not hampered with the secular motives and aims which are usually present. some deduction is to be made from the economic value of this class of non-invidious enterprise, on account of the intrusion of the devotional interest. but there are also deductions to be made on account of the presence of other alien motives which more or less broadly traverse the economic trend of this non-emulative expression of the instinct of workmanship. to such an extent is this seen to be true on a closer scrutiny, that, when all is told, it may even appear that this general class of enterprises is of an altogether dubious economic value--as measured in terms of the fullness or facility of life of the individuals or classes to whose amelioration the enterprise is directed. for instance, many of the efforts now in reputable vogue for the amelioration of the indigent population of large cities are of the nature, in great part, of a mission of culture. it is by this means sought to accelerate the rate of speed at which given elements of the upper-class culture find acceptance in the everyday scheme of life of the lower classes. the solicitude of "settlements," for example, is in part directed to enhance the industrial efficiency of the poor and to teach them the more adequate utilization of the means at hand; but it is also no less consistently directed to the inculcation, by precept and example, of certain punctilios of upper-class propriety in manners and customs. the economic substance of these proprieties will commonly be found on scrutiny to be a conspicuous waste of time and goods. those good people who go out to humanize the poor are commonly, and advisedly, extremely scrupulous and silently insistent in matters of decorum and the decencies of life. they are commonly persons of an exemplary life and gifted with a tenacious insistence on ceremonial cleanness in the various items of their daily consumption. the cultural or civilizing efficacy of this inculcation of correct habits of thought with respect to the consumption of time and commodities is scarcely to be overrated; nor is its economic value to the individual who acquires these higher and more reputable ideals inconsiderable. under the circumstances of the existing pecuniary culture, the reputability, and consequently the success, of the individual is in great measure dependent on his proficiency in demeanor and methods of consumption that argue habitual waste of time and goods. but as regards the ulterior economic bearing of this training in worthier methods of life, it is to be said that the effect wrought is in large part a substitution of costlier or less efficient methods of accomplishing the same material results, in relations where the material result is the fact of substantial economic value. the propaganda of culture is in great part an inculcation of new tastes, or rather of a new schedule of proprieties, which have been adapted to the upper-class scheme of life under the guidance of the leisure-class formulation of the principles of status and pecuniary decency. this new schedule of proprieties is intruded into the lower-class scheme of life from the code elaborated by an element of the population whose life lies outside the industrial process; and this intrusive schedule can scarcely be expected to fit the exigencies of life for these lower classes more adequately than the schedule already in vogue among them, and especially not more adequately than the schedule which they are themselves working out under the stress of modern industrial life. all this of course does not question the fact that the proprieties of the substituted schedule are more decorous than those which they displace. the doubt which presents itself is simply a doubt as to the economic expediency of this work of regeneration--that is to say, the economic expediency in that immediate and material bearing in which the effects of the change can be ascertained with some degree of confidence, and as viewed from the standpoint not of the individual but of the facility of life of the collectivity. for an appreciation of the economic expediency of these enterprises of amelioration, therefore, their effective work is scarcely to be taken at its face value, even where the aim of the enterprise is primarily an economic one and where the interest on which it proceeds is in no sense self-regarding or invidious. the economic reform wrought is largely of the nature of a permutation in the methods of conspicuous waste. but something further is to be said with respect to the character of the disinterested motives and canons of procedure in all work of this class that is affected by the habits of thought characteristic of the pecuniary culture; and this further consideration may lead to a further qualification of the conclusions already reached. as has been seen in an earlier chapter, the canons of reputability or decency under the pecuniary culture insist on habitual futility of effort as the mark of a pecuniarily blameless life. there results not only a habit of disesteem of useful occupations, but there results also what is of more decisive consequence in guiding the action of any organized body of people that lays claim to social good repute. there is a tradition which requires that one should not be vulgarly familiar with any of the processes or details that have to do with the material necessities of life. one may meritoriously show a quantitative interest in the well-being of the vulgar, through subscriptions or through work on managing committees and the like. one may, perhaps even more meritoriously, show solicitude in general and in detail for the cultural welfare of the vulgar, in the way of contrivances for elevating their tastes and affording them opportunities for spiritual amelioration. but one should not betray an intimate knowledge of the material circumstances of vulgar life, or of the habits of thought of the vulgar classes, such as would effectually direct the efforts of these organizations to a materially useful end. this reluctance to avow an unduly intimate knowledge of the lower-class conditions of life in detail of course prevails in very different degrees in different individuals; but there is commonly enough of it present collectively in any organization of the kind in question profoundly to influence its course of action. by its cumulative action in shaping the usage and precedents of any such body, this shrinking from an imputation of unseemly familiarity with vulgar life tends gradually to set aside the initial motives of the enterprise, in favor of certain guiding principles of good repute, ultimately reducible to terms of pecuniary merit. so that in an organization of long standing the initial motive of furthering the facility of life in these classes comes gradually to be an ostensible motive only, and the vulgarly effective work of the organization tends to obsolescence. what is true of the efficiency of organizations for non-invidious work in this respect is true also as regards the work of individuals proceeding on the same motives; though it perhaps holds true with more qualification for individuals than for organized enterprises. the habit of gauging merit by the leisure-class canons of wasteful expenditure and unfamiliarity with vulgar life, whether on the side of production or of consumption, is necessarily strong in the individuals who aspire to do some work of public utility. and if the individual should forget his station and turn his efforts to vulgar effectiveness, the common sense of the community-the sense of pecuniary decency--would presently reject his work and set him right. an example of this is seen in the administration of bequests made by public-spirited men for the single purpose (at least ostensibly) of furthering the facility of human life in some particular respect. the objects for which bequests of this class are most frequently made at present are are schools, libraries, hospitals, and asylums for the infirm or unfortunate. the avowed purpose of the donor in these cases is the amelioration of human life in the particular respect which is named in the bequest; but it will be found an invariable rule that in the execution of the work not a little of other motives, frequency incompatible with the initial motive, is present and determines the particular disposition eventually made of a good share of the means which have been set apart by the bequest. certain funds, for instance, may have been set apart as a foundation for a foundling asylum or a retreat for invalids. the diversion of expenditure to honorific waste in such cases is not uncommon enough to cause surprise or even to raise a smile. an appreciable share of the funds is spent in the construction of an edifice faced with some aesthetically objectionable but expensive stone, covered with grotesque and incongruous details, and designed, in its battlemented walls and turrets and its massive portals and strategic approaches, to suggest certain barbaric methods of warfare. the interior of the structure shows the same pervasive guidance of the canons of conspicuous waste and predatory exploit. the windows, for instance, to go no farther into detail, are placed with a view to impress their pecuniary excellence upon the chance beholder from the outside, rather than with a view to effectiveness for their ostensible end in the convenience or comfort of the beneficiaries within; and the detail of interior arrangement is required to conform itself as best it may to this alien but imperious requirement of pecuniary beauty. in all this, of course, it is not to be presumed that the donor would have found fault, or that he would have done otherwise if he had taken control in person; it appears that in those cases where such a personal direction is exercised--where the enterprise is conducted by direct expenditure and superintendence instead of by bequest--the aims and methods of management are not different in this respect. nor would the beneficiaries, or the outside observers whose ease or vanity are not immediately touched, be pleased with a different disposition of the funds. it would suit no one to have the enterprise conducted with a view directly to the most economical and effective use of the means at hand for the initial, material end of the foundation. all concerned, whether their interest is immediate and self-regarding, or contemplative only, agree that some considerable share of the expenditure should go to the higher or spiritual needs derived from the habit of an invidious comparison in predatory exploit and pecuniary waste. but this only goes to say that the canons of emulative and pecuniary reputability so far pervade the common sense of the community as to permit no escape or evasion, even in the case of an enterprise which ostensibly proceeds entirely on the basis of a non-invidious interest. it may even be that the enterprise owes its honorific virtue, as a means of enhancing the donor's good repute, to the imputed presence of this non-invidious motive; but that does not hinder the invidious interest from guiding the expenditure. the effectual presence of motives of an emulative or invidious origin in non-emulative works of this kind might be shown at length and with detail, in any one of the classes of enterprise spoken of above. where these honorific details occur, in such cases, they commonly masquerade under designations that belong in the field of the aesthetic, ethical or economic interest. these special motives, derived from the standards and canons of the pecuniary culture, act surreptitiously to divert effort of a non-invidious kind from effective service, without disturbing the agent's sense of good intention or obtruding upon his consciousness the substantial futility of his work. their effect might be traced through the entire range of that schedule of non-invidious, meliorative enterprise that is so considerable a feature, and especially so conspicuous a feature, in the overt scheme of life of the well-to-do. but the theoretical bearing is perhaps clear enough and may require no further illustration; especially as some detailed attention will be given to one of these lines of enterprise--the establishments for the higher learning--in another connection. under the circumstances of the sheltered situation in which the leisure class is placed there seems, therefore, to be something of a reversion to the range of non-invidious impulses that characterizes the ante-predatory savage culture. the reversion comprises both the sense of workmanship and the proclivity to indolence and good-fellowship. but in the modern scheme of life canons of conduct based on pecuniary or invidious merit stand in the way of a free exercise of these impulses; and the dominant presence of these canons of conduct goes far to divert such efforts as are made on the basis of the non-invidious interest to the service of that invidious interest on which the pecuniary culture rests. the canons of pecuniary decency are reducible for the present purpose to the principles of waste, futility, and ferocity. the requirements of decency are imperiously present in meliorative enterprise as in other lines of conduct, and exercise a selective surveillance over the details of conduct and management in any enterprise. by guiding and adapting the method in detail, these canons of decency go far to make all non-invidious aspiration or effort nugatory. the pervasive, impersonal, un-eager principle of futility is at hand from day to day and works obstructively to hinder the effectual expression of so much of the surviving ante-predatory aptitudes as is to be classed under the instinct of workmanship; but its presence does not preclude the transmission of those aptitudes or the continued recurrence of an impulse to find expression for them. in the later and farther development of the pecuniary culture, the requirement of withdrawal from the industrial process in order to avoid social odium is carried so far as to comprise abstention from the emulative employments. at this advanced stage the pecuniary culture negatively favors the assertion of the non-invidious propensities by relaxing the stress laid on the merit of emulative, predatory, or pecuniary occupations, as compared with those of an industrial or productive kind. as was noticed above, the requirement of such withdrawal from all employment that is of human use applies more rigorously to the upper-class women than to any other class, unless the priesthood of certain cults might be cited as an exception, perhaps more apparent than real, to this rule. the reason for the more extreme insistence on a futile life for this class of women than for the men of the same pecuniary and social grade lies in their being not only an upper-grade leisure class but also at the same time a vicarious leisure class. there is in their case a double ground for a consistent withdrawal from useful effort. it has been well and repeatedly said by popular writers and speakers who reflect the common sense of intelligent people on questions of social structure and function that the position of woman in any community is the most striking index of the level of culture attained by the community, and it might be added, by any given class in the community. this remark is perhaps truer as regards the stage of economic development than as regards development in any other respect. at the same time the position assigned to the woman in the accepted scheme of life, in any community or under any culture, is in a very great degree an expression of traditions which have been shaped by the circumstances of an earlier phase of development, and which have been but partially adapted to the existing economic circumstances, or to the existing exigencies of temperament and habits of mind by which the women living under this modern economic situation are actuated. the fact has already been remarked upon incidentally in the course of the discussion of the growth of economic institutions generally, and in particular in speaking of vicarious leisure and of dress, that the position of women in the modern economic scheme is more widely and more consistently at variance with the promptings of the instinct of workmanship than is the position of the men of the same classes. it is also apparently true that the woman's temperament includes a larger share of this instinct that approves peace and disapproves futility. it is therefore not a fortuitous circumstance that the women of modern industrial communities show a livelier sense of the discrepancy between the accepted scheme of life and the exigencies of the economic situation. the several phases of the "woman question" have brought out in intelligible form the extent to which the life of women in modern society, and in the polite circles especially, is regulated by a body of common sense formulated under the economic circumstances of an earlier phase of development. it is still felt that woman's life, in its civil, economic, and social bearing, is essentially and normally a vicarious life, the merit or demerit of which is, in the nature of things, to be imputed to some other individual who stands in some relation of ownership or tutelage to the woman. so, for instance, any action on the part of a woman which traverses an injunction of the accepted schedule of proprieties is felt to reflect immediately upon the honor of the man whose woman she is. there may of course be some sense of incongruity in the mind of any one passing an opinion of this kind on the woman's frailty or perversity; but the common-sense judgment of the community in such matters is, after all, delivered without much hesitation, and few men would question the legitimacy of their sense of an outraged tutelage in any case that might arise. on the other hand, relatively little discredit attaches to a woman through the evil deeds of the man with whom her life is associated. the good and beautiful scheme of life, then--that is to say the scheme to which we are habituated--assigns to the woman a "sphere" ancillary to the activity of the man; and it is felt that any departure from the traditions of her assigned round of duties is unwomanly. if the question is as to civil rights or the suffrage, our common sense in the matter--that is to say the logical deliverance of our general scheme of life upon the point in question--says that the woman should be represented in the body politic and before the law, not immediately in her own person, but through the mediation of the head of the household to which she belongs. it is unfeminine in her to aspire to a self-directing, self-centered life; and our common sense tells us that her direct participation in the affairs of the community, civil or industrial, is a menace to that social order which expresses our habits of thought as they have been formed under the guidance of the traditions of the pecuniary culture. "all this fume and froth of 'emancipating woman from the slavery of man' and so on, is, to use the chaste and expressive language of elizabeth cady stanton inversely, 'utter rot.' the social relations of the sexes are fixed by nature. our entire civilization--that is whatever is good in it--is based on the home." the "home" is the household with a male head. this view, but commonly expressed even more chastely, is the prevailing view of the woman's status, not only among the common run of the men of civilized communities, but among the women as well. women have a very alert sense of what the scheme of proprieties requires, and while it is true that many of them are ill at ease under the details which the code imposes, there are few who do not recognize that the existing moral order, of necessity and by the divine right of prescription, places the woman in a position ancillary to the man. in the last analysis, according to her own sense of what is good and beautiful, the woman's life is, and in theory must be, an expression of the man's life at the second remove. but in spite of this pervading sense of what is the good and natural place for the woman, there is also perceptible an incipient development of sentiment to the effect that this whole arrangement of tutelage and vicarious life and imputation of merit and demerit is somehow a mistake. or, at least, that even if it may be a natural growth and a good arrangement in its time and place, and in spite of its patent aesthetic value, still it does not adequately serve the more everyday ends of life in a modern industrial community. even that large and substantial body of well-bred, upper and middle-class women to whose dispassionate, matronly sense of the traditional proprieties this relation of status commends itself as fundamentally and eternally right-even these, whose attitude is conservative, commonly find some slight discrepancy in detail between things as they are and things as they should be in this respect. but that less manageable body of modern women who, by force of youth, education, or temperament, are in some degree out of touch with the traditions of status received from the barbarian culture, and in whom there is, perhaps, an undue reversion to the impulse of self-expression and workmanship--these are touched with a sense of grievance too vivid to leave them at rest. in this "new-woman" movement--as these blind and incoherent efforts to rehabilitate the woman's pre-glacial standing have been named--there are at least two elements discernible, both of which are of an economic character. these two elements or motives are expressed by the double watchword, "emancipation" and "work." each of these words is recognized to stand for something in the way of a wide-spread sense of grievance. the prevalence of the sentiment is recognized even by people who do not see that there is any real ground for a grievance in the situation as it stands today. it is among the women of the well-to-do classes, in the communities which are farthest advanced in industrial development, that this sense of a grievance to be redressed is most alive and finds most frequent expression. that is to say, in other words, there is a demand, more or less serious, for emancipation from all relation of status, tutelage, or vicarious life; and the revulsion asserts itself especially among the class of women upon whom the scheme of life handed down from the regime of status imposes with least litigation a vicarious life, and in those communities whose economic development has departed farthest from the circumstances to which this traditional scheme is adapted. the demand comes from that portion of womankind which is excluded by the canons of good repute from all effectual work, and which is closely reserved for a life of leisure and conspicuous consumption. more than one critic of this new-woman movement has misapprehended its motive. the case of the american "new woman" has lately been summed up with some warmth by a popular observer of social phenomena: "she is petted by her husband, the most devoted and hard-working of husbands in the world.... she is the superior of her husband in education, and in almost every respect. she is surrounded by the most numerous and delicate attentions. yet she is not satisfied.... the anglo-saxon 'new woman' is the most ridiculous production of modern times, and destined to be the most ghastly failure of the century." apart from the deprecation--perhaps well placed--which is contained in this presentment, it adds nothing but obscurity to the woman question. the grievance of the new woman is made up of those things which this typical characterization of the movement urges as reasons why she should be content. she is petted, and is permitted, or even required, to consume largely and conspicuously--vicariously for her husband or other natural guardian. she is exempted, or debarred, from vulgarly useful employment--in order to perform leisure vicariously for the good repute of her natural (pecuniary) guardian. these offices are the conventional marks of the un-free, at the same time that they are incompatible with the human impulse to purposeful activity. but the woman is endowed with her share-which there is reason to believe is more than an even share--of the instinct of workmanship, to which futility of life or of expenditure is obnoxious. she must unfold her life activity in response to the direct, unmediated stimuli of the economic environment with which she is in contact. the impulse is perhaps stronger upon the woman than upon the man to live her own life in her own way and to enter the industrial process of the community at something nearer than the second remove. so long as the woman's place is consistently that of a drudge, she is, in the average of cases, fairly contented with her lot. she not only has something tangible and purposeful to do, but she has also no time or thought to spare for a rebellious assertion of such human propensity to self-direction as she has inherited. and after the stage of universal female drudgery is passed, and a vicarious leisure without strenuous application becomes the accredited employment of the women of the well-to-do classes, the prescriptive force of the canon of pecuniary decency, which requires the observance of ceremonial futility on their part, will long preserve high-minded women from any sentimental leaning to self-direction and a "sphere of usefulness." this is especially true during the earlier phases of the pecuniary culture, while the leisure of the leisure class is still in great measure a predatory activity, an active assertion of mastery in which there is enough of tangible purpose of an invidious kind to admit of its being taken seriously as an employment to which one may without shame put one's hand. this condition of things has obviously lasted well down into the present in some communities. it continues to hold to a different extent for different individuals, varying with the vividness of the sense of status and with the feebleness of the impulse to workmanship with which the individual is endowed. but where the economic structure of the community has so far outgrown the scheme of life based on status that the relation of personal subservience is no longer felt to be the sole "natural" human relation; there the ancient habit of purposeful activity will begin to assert itself in the less conformable individuals against the more recent, relatively superficial, relatively ephemeral habits and views which the predatory and the pecuniary culture have contributed to our scheme of life. these habits and views begin to lose their coercive force for the community or the class in question so soon as the habit of mind and the views of life due to the predatory and the quasi-peaceable discipline cease to be in fairly close accord with the later-developed economic situation. this is evident in the case of the industrious classes of modern communities; for them the leisure-class scheme of life has lost much of its binding force, especially as regards the element of status. but it is also visibly being verified in the case of the upper classes, though not in the same manner. the habits derived from the predatory and quasi-peaceable culture are relatively ephemeral variants of certain underlying propensities and mental characteristics of the race; which it owes to the protracted discipline of the earlier, proto-anthropoid cultural stage of peaceable, relatively undifferentiated economic life carried on in contact with a relatively simple and invariable material environment. when the habits superinduced by the emulative method of life have ceased to enjoy the section of existing economic exigencies, a process of disintegration sets in whereby the habits of thought of more recent growth and of a less generic character to some extent yield the ground before the more ancient and more pervading spiritual characteristics of the race. in a sense, then, the new-woman movement marks a reversion to a more generic type of human character, or to a less differentiated expression of human nature. it is a type of human nature which is to be characterized as proto-anthropoid, and, as regards the substance if not the form of its dominant traits, it belongs to a cultural stage that may be classed as possibly sub-human. the particular movement or evolutional feature in question of course shares this characterization with the rest of the later social development, in so far as this social development shows evidence of a reversion to the spiritual attitude that characterizes the earlier, undifferentiated stage of economic revolution. such evidence of a general tendency to reversion from the dominance of the invidious interest is not entirely wanting, although it is neither plentiful nor unquestionably convincing. the general decay of the sense of status in modern industrial communities goes some way as evidence in this direction; and the perceptible return to a disapproval of futility in human life, and a disapproval of such activities as serve only the individual gain at the cost of the collectivity or at the cost of other social groups, is evidence to a like effect. there is a perceptible tendency to deprecate the infliction of pain, as well as to discredit all marauding enterprises, even where these expressions of the invidious interest do not tangibly work to the material detriment of the community or of the individual who passes an opinion on them. it may even be said that in the modern industrial communities the average, dispassionate sense of men says that the ideal character is a character which makes for peace, good-will, and economic efficiency, rather than for a life of self-seeking, force, fraud, and mastery. the influence of the leisure class is not consistently for or against the rehabilitation of this proto-anthropoid human nature. so far as concerns the chance of survival of individuals endowed with an exceptionally large share of the primitive traits, the sheltered position of the class favors its members directly by withdrawing them from the pecuniary struggle; but indirectly, through the leisure-class canons of conspicuous waste of goods and effort, the institution of a leisure class lessens the chance of survival of such individuals in the entire body of the population. the decent requirements of waste absorb the surplus energy of the population in an invidious struggle and leave no margin for the non-invidious expression of life. the remoter, less tangible, spiritual effects of the discipline of decency go in the same direction and work perhaps more effectually to the same end. the canons of decent life are an elaboration of the principle of invidious comparison, and they accordingly act consistently to inhibit all non-invidious effort and to inculcate the self-regarding attitude. chapter fourteen ~~ the higher learning as an expression of the pecuniary culture to the end that suitable habits of thought on certain heads may be conserved in the incoming generation, a scholastic discipline is sanctioned by the common sense of the community and incorporated into the accredited scheme of life. the habits of thought which are so formed under the guidance of teachers and scholastic traditions have an economic value--a value as affecting the serviceability of the individual--no less real than the similar economic value of the habits of thought formed without such guidance under the discipline of everyday life. whatever characteristics of the accredited scholastic scheme and discipline are traceable to the predilections of the leisure class or to the guidance of the canons of pecuniary merit are to be set down to the account of that institution, and whatever economic value these features of the educational scheme possess are the expression in detail of the value of that institution. it will be in place, therefore, to point out any peculiar features of the educational system which are traceable to the leisure-class scheme of life, whether as regards the aim and method of the discipline, or as regards the compass and character of the body of knowledge inculcated. it is in learning proper, and more particularly in the higher learning, that the influence of leisure-class ideals is most patent; and since the purpose here is not to make an exhaustive collation of data showing the effect of the pecuniary culture upon education, but rather to illustrate the method and trend of the leisure-class influence in education, a survey of certain salient features of the higher learning, such as may serve this purpose, is all that will be attempted. in point of derivation and early development, learning is somewhat closely related to the devotional function of the community, particularly to the body of observances in which the service rendered the supernatural leisure class expresses itself. the service by which it is sought to conciliate supernatural agencies in the primitive cults is not an industrially profitable employment of the community's time and effort. it is, therefore, in great part, to be classed as a vicarious leisure performed for the supernatural powers with whom negotiations are carried on and whose good-will the service and the professions of subservience are conceived to procure. in great part, the early learning consisted in an acquisition of knowledge and facility in the service of a supernatural agent. it was therefore closely analogous in character to the training required for the domestic service of a temporal master. to a great extent, the knowledge acquired under the priestly teachers of the primitive community was knowledge of ritual and ceremonial; that is to say, a knowledge of the most proper, most effective, or most acceptable manner of approaching and of serving the preternatural agents. what was learned was how to make oneself indispensable to these powers, and so to put oneself in a position to ask, or even to require, their intercession in the course of events or their abstention from interference in any given enterprise. propitiation was the end, and this end was sought, in great part, by acquiring facility in subservience. it appears to have been only gradually that other elements than those of efficient service of the master found their way into the stock of priestly or shamanistic instruction. the priestly servitor of the inscrutable powers that move in the external world came to stand in the position of a mediator between these powers and the common run of unrestricted humanity; for he was possessed of a knowledge of the supernatural etiquette which would admit him into the presence. and as commonly happens with mediators between the vulgar and their masters, whether the masters be natural or preternatural, he found it expedient to have the means at hand tangibly to impress upon the vulgar the fact that these inscrutable powers would do what he might ask of them. hence, presently, a knowledge of certain natural processes which could be turned to account for spectacular effect, together with some sleight of hand, came to be an integral part of priestly lore. knowledge of this kind passes for knowledge of the "unknowable", and it owes its serviceability for the sacerdotal purpose to its recondite character. it appears to have been from this source that learning, as an institution, arose, and its differentiation from this its parent stock of magic ritual and shamanistic fraud has been slow and tedious, and is scarcely yet complete even in the most advanced of the higher seminaries of learning. the recondite element in learning is still, as it has been in all ages, a very attractive and effective element for the purpose of impressing, or even imposing upon, the unlearned; and the standing of the savant in the mind of the altogether unlettered is in great measure rated in terms of intimacy with the occult forces. so, for instance, as a typical case, even so late as the middle of this century, the norwegian peasants have instinctively formulated their sense of the superior erudition of such doctors of divinity as luther, malanchthon, peder dass, and even so late a scholar in divinity as grundtvig, in terms of the black art. these, together with a very comprehensive list of minor celebrities, both living and dead, have been reputed masters in all magical arts; and a high position in the ecclesiastical personnel has carried with it, in the apprehension of these good people, an implication of profound familiarity with magical practice and the occult sciences. there is a parallel fact nearer home, similarly going to show the close relationship, in popular apprehension, between erudition and the unknowable; and it will at the same time serve to illustrate, in somewhat coarse outline, the bent which leisure-class life gives to the cognitive interest. while the belief is by no means confined to the leisure class, that class today comprises a disproportionately large number of believers in occult sciences of all kinds and shades. by those whose habits of thought are not shaped by contact with modern industry, the knowledge of the unknowable is still felt to the ultimate if not the only true knowledge. learning, then, set out by being in some sense a by-product of the priestly vicarious leisure class; and, at least until a recent date, the higher learning has since remained in some sense a by-product or by-occupation of the priestly classes. as the body of systematized knowledge increased, there presently arose a distinction, traceable very far back in the history of education, between esoteric and exoteric knowledge, the former--so far as there is a substantial difference between the two--comprising such knowledge as is primarily of no economic or industrial effect, and the latter comprising chiefly knowledge of industrial processes and of natural phenomena which were habitually turned to account for the material purposes of life. this line of demarcation has in time become, at least in popular apprehension, the normal line between the higher learning and the lower. it is significant, not only as an evidence of their close affiliation with the priestly craft, but also as indicating that their activity to a good extent falls under that category of conspicuous leisure known as manners and breeding, that the learned class in all primitive communities are great sticklers for form, precedent, gradations of rank, ritual, ceremonial vestments, and learned paraphernalia generally. this is of course to be expected, and it goes to say that the higher learning, in its incipient phase, is a leisure-class occupation--more specifically an occupation of the vicarious leisure class employed in the service of the supernatural leisure class. but this predilection for the paraphernalia of learning goes also to indicate a further point of contact or of continuity between the priestly office and the office of the savant. in point of derivation, learning, as well as the priestly office, is largely an outgrowth of sympathetic magic; and this magical apparatus of form and ritual therefore finds its place with the learned class of the primitive community as a matter of course. the ritual and paraphernalia have an occult efficacy for the magical purpose; so that their presence as an integral factor in the earlier phases of the development of magic and science is a matter of expediency, quite as much as of affectionate regard for symbolism simply. this sense of the efficacy of symbolic ritual, and of sympathetic effect to be wrought through dexterous rehearsal of the traditional accessories of the act or end to be compassed, is of course present more obviously and in larger measure in magical practice than in the discipline of the sciences, even of the occult sciences. but there are, i apprehend, few persons with a cultivated sense of scholastic merit to whom the ritualistic accessories of science are altogether an idle matter. the very great tenacity with which these ritualistic paraphernalia persist through the later course of the development is evident to any one who will reflect on what has been the history of learning in our civilization. even today there are such things in the usage of the learned community as the cap and gown, matriculation, initiation, and graduation ceremonies, and the conferring of scholastic degrees, dignities, and prerogatives in a way which suggests some sort of a scholarly apostolic succession. the usage of the priestly orders is no doubt the proximate source of all these features of learned ritual, vestments, sacramental initiation, the transmission of peculiar dignities and virtues by the imposition of hands, and the like; but their derivation is traceable back of this point, to the source from which the specialized priestly class proper came to be distinguished from the sorcerer on the one hand and from the menial servant of a temporal master on the other hand. so far as regards both their derivation and their psychological content, these usages and the conceptions on which they rest belong to a stage in cultural development no later than that of the angekok and the rain-maker. their place in the later phases of devout observance, as well as in the higher educational system, is that of a survival from a very early animistic phase of the development of human nature. these ritualistic features of the educational system of the present and of the recent past, it is quite safe to say, have their place primarily in the higher, liberal, and classic institutions and grades of learning, rather than in the lower, technological, or practical grades, and branches of the system. so far as they possess them, the lower and less reputable branches of the educational scheme have evidently borrowed these things from the higher grades; and their continued persistence among the practical schools, without the sanction of the continued example of the higher and classic grades, would be highly improbable, to say the least. with the lower and practical schools and scholars, the adoption and cultivation of these usages is a case of mimicry--due to a desire to conform as far as may be to the standards of scholastic reputability maintained by the upper grades and classes, who have come by these accessory features legitimately, by the right of lineal devolution. the analysis may even be safely carried a step farther. ritualistic survivals and reversions come out in fullest vigor and with the freest air of spontaneity among those seminaries of learning which have to do primarily with the education of the priestly and leisure classes. accordingly it should appear, and it does pretty plainly appear, on a survey of recent developments in college and university life, that wherever schools founded for the instruction of the lower classes in the immediately useful branches of knowledge grow into institutions of the higher learning, the growth of ritualistic ceremonial and paraphernalia and of elaborate scholastic "functions" goes hand in hand with the transition of the schools in question from the field of homely practicality into the higher, classical sphere. the initial purpose of these schools, and the work with which they have chiefly had to do at the earlier of these two stages of their evolution, has been that of fitting the young of the industrious classes for work. on the higher, classical plane of learning to which they commonly tend, their dominant aim becomes the preparation of the youth of the priestly and the leisure classes--or of an incipient leisure class--for the consumption of goods, material and immaterial, according to a conventionally accepted, reputable scope and method. this happy issue has commonly been the fate of schools founded by "friends of the people" for the aid of struggling young men, and where this transition is made in good form there is commonly, if not invariably, a coincident change to a more ritualistic life in the schools. in the school life of today, learned ritual is in a general way best at home in schools whose chief end is the cultivation of the "humanities". this correlation is shown, perhaps more neatly than anywhere else, in the life-history of the american colleges and universities of recent growth. there may be many exceptions from the rule, especially among those schools which have been founded by the typically reputable and ritualistic churches, and which, therefore, started on the conservative and classical plane or reached the classical position by a short-cut; but the general rule as regards the colleges founded in the newer american communities during the present century has been that so long as the constituency from which the colleges have drawn their pupils has been dominated by habits of industry and thrift, so long the reminiscences of the medicine-man have found but a scant and precarious acceptance in the scheme of college life. but so soon as wealth begins appreciably to accumulate in the community, and so soon as a given school begins to lean on a leisure-class constituency, there comes also a perceptibly increased insistence on scholastic ritual and on conformity to the ancient forms as regards vestments and social and scholastic solemnities. so, for instance, there has been an approximate coincidence between the growth of wealth among the constituency which supports any given college of the middle west and the date of acceptance--first into tolerance and then into imperative vogue--of evening dress for men and of the dã©colletã© for women, as the scholarly vestments proper to occasions of learned solemnity or to the seasons of social amenity within the college circle. apart from the mechanical difficulty of so large a task, it would scarcely be a difficult matter to trace this correlation. the like is true of the vogue of the cap and gown. cap and gown have been adopted as learned insignia by many colleges of this section within the last few years; and it is safe to say that this could scarcely have occurred at a much earlier date, or until there had grown up a leisure-class sentiment of sufficient volume in the community to support a strong movement of reversion towards an archaic view as to the legitimate end of education. this particular item of learned ritual, it may be noted, would not only commend itself to the leisure-class sense of the fitness of things, as appealing to the archaic propensity for spectacular effect and the predilection for antique symbolism; but it at the same time fits into the leisure-class scheme of life as involving a notable element of conspicuous waste. the precise date at which the reversion to cap and gown took place, as well as the fact that it affected so large a number of schools at about the same time, seems to have been due in some measure to a wave of atavistic sense of conformity and reputability that passed over the community at that period. it may not be entirely beside the point to note that in point of time this curious reversion seems to coincide with the culmination of a certain vogue of atavistic sentiment and tradition in other directions also. the wave of reversion seems to have received its initial impulse in the psychologically disintegrating effects of the civil war. habituation to war entails a body of predatory habits of thought, whereby clannishness in some measure replaces the sense of solidarity, and a sense of invidious distinction supplants the impulse to equitable, everyday serviceability. as an outcome of the cumulative action of these factors, the generation which follows a season of war is apt to witness a rehabilitation of the element of status, both in its social life and in its scheme of devout observances and other symbolic or ceremonial forms. throughout the eighties, and less plainly traceable through the seventies also, there was perceptible a gradually advancing wave of sentiment favoring quasi-predatory business habits, insistence on status, anthropomorphism, and conservatism generally. the more direct and unmediated of these expressions of the barbarian temperament, such as the recrudescence of outlawry and the spectacular quasi-predatory careers of fraud run by certain "captains of industry", came to a head earlier and were appreciably on the decline by the close of the seventies. the recrudescence of anthropomorphic sentiment also seems to have passed its most acute stage before the close of the eighties. but the learned ritual and paraphernalia here spoken of are a still remoter and more recondite expression of the barbarian animistic sense; and these, therefore, gained vogue and elaboration more slowly and reached their most effective development at a still later date. there is reason to believe that the culmination is now already past. except for the new impetus given by a new war experience, and except for the support which the growth of a wealthy class affords to all ritual, and especially to whatever ceremonial is wasteful and pointedly suggests gradations of status, it is probable that the late improvements and augmentation of scholastic insignia and ceremonial would gradually decline. but while it may be true that the cap and gown, and the more strenuous observance of scholastic proprieties which came with them, were floated in on this post-bellum tidal wave of reversion to barbarism, it is also no doubt true that such a ritualistic reversion could not have been effected in the college scheme of life until the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a propertied class had gone far enough to afford the requisite pecuniary ground for a movement which should bring the colleges of the country up to the leisure-class requirements in the higher learning. the adoption of the cap and gown is one of the striking atavistic features of modern college life, and at the same time it marks the fact that these colleges have definitely become leisure-class establishments, either in actual achievement or in aspiration. as further evidence of the close relation between the educational system and the cultural standards of the community, it may be remarked that there is some tendency latterly to substitute the captain of industry in place of the priest, as the head of seminaries of the higher learning. the substitution is by no means complete or unequivocal. those heads of institutions are best accepted who combine the sacerdotal office with a high degree of pecuniary efficiency. there is a similar but less pronounced tendency to intrust the work of instruction in the higher learning to men of some pecuniary qualification. administrative ability and skill in advertising the enterprise count for rather more than they once did, as qualifications for the work of teaching. this applies especially in those sciences that have most to do with the everyday facts of life, and it is particularly true of schools in the economically single-minded communities. this partial substitution of pecuniary for sacerdotal efficiency is a concomitant of the modern transition from conspicuous leisure to conspicuous consumption, as the chief means of reputability. the correlation of the two facts is probably clear without further elaboration. the attitude of the schools and of the learned class towards the education of women serves to show in what manner and to what extent learning has departed from its ancient station of priestly and leisure-class prerogatives, and it indicates also what approach has been made by the truly learned to the modern, economic or industrial, matter-of-fact standpoint. the higher schools and the learned professions were until recently tabu to the women. these establishments were from the outset, and have in great measure continued to be, devoted to the education of the priestly and leisure classes. the women, as has been shown elsewhere, were the original subservient class, and to some extent, especially so far as regards their nominal or ceremonial position, they have remained in that relation down to the present. there has prevailed a strong sense that the admission of women to the privileges of the higher learning (as to the eleusianin mysteries) would be derogatory to the dignity of the learned craft. it is therefore only very recently, and almost solely in the industrially most advanced communities, that the higher grades of schools have been freely opened to women. and even under the urgent circumstances prevailing in the modern industrial communities, the highest and most reputable universities show an extreme reluctance in making the move. the sense of class worthiness, that is to say of status, of a honorific differentiation of the sexes according to a distinction between superior and inferior intellectual dignity, survives in a vigorous form in these corporations of the aristocracy of learning. it is felt that the woman should, in all propriety, acquire only such knowledge as may be classed under one or the other of two heads: (1) such knowledge as conduces immediately to a better performance of domestic service--the domestic sphere; (2) such accomplishments and dexterity, quasi-scholarly and quasi-artistic, as plainly come in under the head of a performance of vicarious leisure. knowledge is felt to be unfeminine if it is knowledge which expresses the unfolding of the learner's own life, the acquisition of which proceeds on the learner's own cognitive interest, without prompting from the canons of propriety, and without reference back to a master whose comfort or good repute is to be enhanced by the employment or the exhibition of it. so, also, all knowledge which is useful as evidence of leisure, other than vicarious leisure, is scarcely feminine. for an appreciation of the relation which these higher seminaries of learning bear to the economic life of the community, the phenomena which have been reviewed are of importance rather as indications of a general attitude than as being in themselves facts of first-rate economic consequence. they go to show what is the instinctive attitude and animus of the learned class towards the life process of an industrial community. they serve as an exponent of the stage of development, for the industrial purpose, attained by the higher learning and by the learned class, and so they afford an indication as to what may fairly be looked for from this class at points where the learning and the life of the class bear more immediately upon the economic life and efficiency of the community, and upon the adjustment of its scheme of life to the requirements of the time. what these ritualistic survivals go to indicate is a prevalence of conservatism, if not of reactionary sentiment, especially among the higher schools where the conventional learning is cultivated. to these indications of a conservative attitude is to be added another characteristic which goes in the same direction, but which is a symptom of graver consequence that this playful inclination to trivialities of form and ritual. by far the greater number of american colleges and universities, for instance, are affiliated to some religious denomination and are somewhat given to devout observances. their putative familiarity with scientific methods and the scientific point of view should presumably exempt the faculties of these schools from animistic habits of thought; but there is still a considerable proportion of them who profess an attachment to the anthropomorphic beliefs and observances of an earlier culture. these professions of devotional zeal are, no doubt, to a good extent expedient and perfunctory, both on the part of the schools in their corporate capacity, and on the part of the individual members of the corps of instructors; but it can not be doubted that there is after all a very appreciable element of anthropomorphic sentiment present in the higher schools. so far as this is the case it must be set down as the expression of an archaic, animistic habit of mind. this habit of mind must necessarily assert itself to some extent in the instruction offered, and to this extent its influence in shaping the habits of thought of the student makes for conservatism and reversion; it acts to hinder his development in the direction of matter-of-fact knowledge, such as best serves the ends of industry. the college sports, which have so great a vogue in the reputable seminaries of learning today, tend in a similar direction; and, indeed, sports have much in common with the devout attitude of the colleges, both as regards their psychological basis and as regards their disciplinary effect. but this expression of the barbarian temperament is to be credited primarily to the body of students, rather than to the temper of the schools as such; except in so far as the colleges or the college officials--as sometimes happens--actively countenance and foster the growth of sports. the like is true of college fraternities as of college sports, but with a difference. the latter are chiefly an expression of the predatory impulse simply; the former are more specifically an expression of that heritage of clannishness which is so large a feature in the temperament of the predatory barbarian. it is also noticeable that a close relation subsists between the fraternities and the sporting activity of the schools. after what has already been said in an earlier chapter on the sporting and gambling habit, it is scarcely necessary further to discuss the economic value of this training in sports and in factional organization and activity. but all these features of the scheme of life of the learned class, and of the establishments dedicated to the conservation of the higher learning, are in a great measure incidental only. they are scarcely to be accounted organic elements of the professed work of research and instruction for the ostensible pursuit of which the schools exists. but these symptomatic indications go to establish a presumption as to the character of the work performed--as seen from the economic point of view--and as to the bent which the serious work carried on under their auspices gives to the youth who resort to the schools. the presumption raised by the considerations already offered is that in their work also, as well as in their ceremonial, the higher schools may be expected to take a conservative position; but this presumption must be checked by a comparison of the economic character of the work actually performed, and by something of a survey of the learning whose conservation is intrusted to the higher schools. on this head, it is well known that the accredited seminaries of learning have, until a recent date, held a conservative position. they have taken an attitude of depreciation towards all innovations. as a general rule a new point of view or a new formulation of knowledge have been countenanced and taken up within the schools only after these new things have made their way outside of the schools. as exceptions from this rule are chiefly to be mentioned innovations of an inconspicuous kind and departures which do not bear in any tangible way upon the conventional point of view or upon the conventional scheme of life; as, for instance, details of fact in the mathematico-physical sciences, and new readings and interpretations of the classics, especially such as have a philological or literary bearing only. except within the domain of the "humanities", in the narrow sense, and except so far as the traditional point of view of the humanities has been left intact by the innovators, it has generally held true that the accredited learned class and the seminaries of the higher learning have looked askance at all innovation. new views, new departures in scientific theory, especially in new departures which touch the theory of human relations at any point, have found a place in the scheme of the university tardily and by a reluctant tolerance, rather than by a cordial welcome; and the men who have occupied themselves with such efforts to widen the scope of human knowledge have not commonly been well received by their learned contemporaries. the higher schools have not commonly given their countenance to a serious advance in the methods or the content of knowledge until the innovations have outlived their youth and much of their usefulness--after they have become commonplaces of the intellectual furniture of a new generation which has grown up under, and has had its habits of thought shaped by, the new, extra-scholastic body of knowledge and the new standpoint. this is true of the recent past. how far it may be true of the immediate present it would be hazardous to say, for it is impossible to see present-day facts in such perspective as to get a fair conception of their relative proportions. so far, nothing has been said of the maecenas function of the well-to-do, which is habitually dwelt on at some length by writers and speakers who treat of the development of culture and of social structure. this leisure-class function is not without an important bearing on the higher and on the spread of knowledge and culture. the manner and the degree in which the class furthers learning through patronage of this kind is sufficiently familiar. it has been frequently presented in affectionate and effective terms by spokesmen whose familiarity with the topic fits them to bring home to their hearers the profound significance of this cultural factor. these spokesmen, however, have presented the matter from the point of view of the cultural interest, or of the interest of reputability, rather than from that of the economic interest. as apprehended from the economic point of view, and valued for the purpose of industrial serviceability, this function of the well-to-do, as well as the intellectual attitude of members of the well-to-do class, merits some attention and will bear illustration. by way of characterization of the maecenas relation, it is to be noted that, considered externally, as an economic or industrial relation simply, it is a relation of status. the scholar under the patronage performs the duties of a learned life vicariously for his patron, to whom a certain repute inures after the manner of the good repute imputed to a master for whom any form of vicarious leisure is performed. it is also to be noted that, in point of historical fact, the furtherance of learning or the maintenance of scholarly activity through the maecenas relation has most commonly been a furtherance of proficiency in classical lore or in the humanities. the knowledge tends to lower rather than to heighten the industrial efficiency of the community. further, as regards the direct participation of the members of the leisure class in the furtherance of knowledge, the canons of reputable living act to throw such intellectual interest as seeks expression among the class on the side of classical and formal erudition, rather than on the side of the sciences that bear some relation to the community's industrial life. the most frequent excursions into other than classical fields of knowledge on the part of members of the leisure class are made into the discipline of law and the political, and more especially the administrative, sciences. these so-called sciences are substantially bodies of maxims of expediency for guidance in the leisure-class office of government, as conducted on a proprietary basis. the interest with which this discipline is approached is therefore not commonly the intellectual or cognitive interest simply. it is largely the practical interest of the exigencies of that relation of mastery in which the members of the class are placed. in point of derivation, the office of government is a predatory function, pertaining integrally to the archaic leisure-class scheme of life. it is an exercise of control and coercion over the population from which the class draws its sustenance. this discipline, as well as the incidents of practice which give it its content, therefore has some attraction for the class apart from all questions of cognition. all this holds true wherever and so long as the governmental office continues, in form or in substance, to be a proprietary office; and it holds true beyond that limit, in so far as the tradition of the more archaic phase of governmental evolution has lasted on into the later life of those modern communities for whom proprietary government by a leisure class is now beginning to pass away. for that field of learning within which the cognitive or intellectual interest is dominant--the sciences properly so called--the case is somewhat different, not only as regards the attitude of the leisure class, but as regards the whole drift of the pecuniary culture. knowledge for its own sake, the exercise of the faculty of comprehensive without ulterior purpose, should, it might be expected, be sought by men whom no urgent material interest diverts from such a quest. the sheltered industrial position of the leisure class should give free play to the cognitive interest in members of this class, and we should consequently have, as many writers confidently find that we do have, a very large proportion of scholars, scientists, savants derived from this class and deriving their incentive to scientific investigation and speculation from the discipline of a life of leisure. some such result is to be looked for, but there are features of the leisure-class scheme of life, already sufficiently dwelt upon, which go to divert the intellectual interest of this class to other subjects than that causal sequence in phenomena which makes the content of the sciences. the habits of thought which characterize the life of the class run on the personal relation of dominance, and on the derivative, invidious concepts of honor, worth, merit, character, and the like. the casual sequence which makes up the subject matter of science is not visible from this point of view. neither does good repute attach to knowledge of facts that are vulgarly useful. hence it should appear probable that the interest of the invidious comparison with respect to pecuniary or other honorific merit should occupy the attention of the leisure class, to the neglect of the cognitive interest. where this latter interest asserts itself it should commonly be diverted to fields of speculation or investigation which are reputable and futile, rather than to the quest of scientific knowledge. such indeed has been the history of priestly and leisure-class learning so long as no considerable body of systematized knowledge had been intruded into the scholastic discipline from an extra-scholastic source. but since the relation of mastery and subservience is ceasing to be the dominant and formative factor in the community's life process, other features of the life process and other points of view are forcing themselves upon the scholars. the true-bred gentleman of leisure should, and does, see the world from the point of view of the personal relation; and the cognitive interest, so far as it asserts itself in him, should seek to systematize phenomena on this basis. such indeed is the case with the gentleman of the old school, in whom the leisure-class ideals have suffered no disintegration; and such is the attitude of his latter-day descendant, in so far as he has fallen heir to the full complement of upper-class virtues. but the ways of heredity are devious, and not every gentleman's son is to the manor born. especially is the transmission of the habits of thought which characterize the predatory master somewhat precarious in the case of a line of descent in which but one or two of the latest steps have lain within the leisure-class discipline. the chances of occurrence of a strong congenital or acquired bent towards the exercise of the cognitive aptitudes are apparently best in those members of the leisure class who are of lower class or middle class antecedents--that is to say, those who have inherited the complement of aptitudes proper to the industrious classes, and who owe their place in the leisure class to the possession of qualities which count for more today than they did in the times when the leisure-class scheme of life took shape. but even outside the range of these later accessions to the leisure class there are an appreciable number of individuals in whom the invidious interest is not sufficiently dominant to shape their theoretical views, and in whom the proclivity to theory is sufficiently strong to lead them into the scientific quest. the higher learning owes the intrusion of the sciences in part to these aberrant scions of the leisure class, who have come under the dominant influence of the latter-day tradition of impersonal relation and who have inherited a complement of human aptitudes differing in certain salient features from the temperament which is characteristic of the regime of status. but it owes the presence of this alien body of scientific knowledge also in part, and in a higher degree, to members of the industrious classes who have been in sufficiently easy circumstances to turn their attention to other interests than that of finding daily sustenance, and whose inherited aptitudes and anthropomorphic point of view does not dominate their intellectual processes. as between these two groups, which approximately comprise the effective force of scientific progress, it is the latter that has contributed the most. and with respect to both it seems to be true that they are not so much the source as the vehicle, or at the most they are the instrument of commutation, by which the habits of thought enforced upon the community, through contact with its environment under the exigencies of modern associated life and the mechanical industries, are turned to account for theoretical knowledge. science, in the sense of an articulate recognition of causal sequence in phenomena, whether physical or social, has been a feature of the western culture only since the industrial process in the western communities has come to be substantially a process of mechanical contrivances in which man's office is that of discrimination and valuation of material forces. science has flourished somewhat in the same degree as the industrial life of the community has conformed to this pattern, and somewhat in the same degree as the industrial interest has dominated the community's life. and science, and scientific theory especially, has made headway in the several departments of human life and knowledge in proportion as each of these several departments has successively come into closer contact with the industrial process and the economic interest; or perhaps it is truer to say, in proportion as each of them has successively escaped from the dominance of the conceptions of personal relation or status, and of the derivative canons of anthropomorphic fitness and honorific worth. it is only as the exigencies of modern industrial life have enforced the recognition of causal sequence in the practical contact of mankind with their environment, that men have come to systematize the phenomena of this environment and the facts of their own contact with it in terms of causal sequence. so that while the higher learning in its best development, as the perfect flower of scholasticism and classicism, was a by-product of the priestly office and the life of leisure, so modern science may be said to be a by-product of the industrial process. through these groups of men, then--investigators, savants, scientists, inventors, speculators--most of whom have done their most telling work outside the shelter of the schools, the habits of thought enforced by the modern industrial life have found coherent expression and elaboration as a body of theoretical science having to do with the causal sequence of phenomena. and from this extra-scholastic field of scientific speculation, changes of method and purpose have from time to time been intruded into the scholastic discipline. in this connection it is to be remarked that there is a very perceptible difference of substance and purpose between the instruction offered in the primary and secondary schools, on the one hand, and in the higher seminaries of learning, on the other hand. the difference in point of immediate practicality of the information imparted and of the proficiency acquired may be of some consequence and may merit the attention which it has from time to time received; but there is more substantial difference in the mental and spiritual bent which is favored by the one and the other discipline. this divergent trend in discipline between the higher and the lower learning is especially noticeable as regards the primary education in its latest development in the advanced industrial communities. here the instruction is directed chiefly to proficiency or dexterity, intellectual and manual, in the apprehension and employment of impersonal facts, in their casual rather than in their honorific incidence. it is true, under the traditions of the earlier days, when the primary education was also predominantly a leisure-class commodity, a free use is still made of emulation as a spur to diligence in the common run of primary schools; but even this use of emulation as an expedient is visibly declining in the primary grades of instruction in communities where the lower education is not under the guidance of the ecclesiastical or military tradition. all this holds true in a peculiar degree, and more especially on the spiritual side, of such portions of the educational system as have been immediately affected by kindergarten methods and ideals. the peculiarly non-invidious trend of the kindergarten discipline, and the similar character of the kindergarten influence in primary education beyond the limits of the kindergarten proper, should be taken in connection with what has already been said of the peculiar spiritual attitude of leisure-class womankind under the circumstances of the modern economic situation. the kindergarten discipline is at its best--or at its farthest remove from ancient patriarchal and pedagogical ideals--in the advanced industrial communities, where there is a considerable body of intelligent and idle women, and where the system of status has somewhat abated in rigor under the disintegrating influence of industrial life and in the absence of a consistent body of military and ecclesiastical traditions. it is from these women in easy circumstances that it gets its moral support. the aims and methods of the kindergarten commend themselves with especial effect to this class of women who are ill at ease under the pecuniary code of reputable life. the kindergarten, and whatever the kindergarten spirit counts for in modern education, therefore, is to be set down, along with the "new-woman movement," to the account of that revulsion against futility and invidious comparison which the leisure-class life under modern circumstances induces in the women most immediately exposed to its discipline. in this way it appears that, by indirection, the institution of a leisure class here again favors the growth of a non-invidious attitude, which may, in the long run, prove a menace to the stability of the institution itself, and even to the institution of individual ownership on which it rests. during the recent past some tangible changes have taken place in the scope of college and university teaching. these changes have in the main consisted in a partial displacement of the humanities--those branches of learning which are conceived to make for the traditional "culture", character, tastes, and ideals--by those more matter-of-fact branches which make for civic and industrial efficiency. to put the same thing in other words, those branches of knowledge which make for efficiency (ultimately productive efficiency) have gradually been gaining ground against those branches which make for a heightened consumption or a lowered industrial efficiency and for a type of character suited to the regime of status. in this adaptation of the scheme of instruction the higher schools have commonly been found on the conservative side; each step which they have taken in advance has been to some extent of the nature of a concession. the sciences have been intruded into the scholar's discipline from without, not to say from below. it is noticeable that the humanities which have so reluctantly yielded ground to the sciences are pretty uniformly adapted to shape the character of the student in accordance with a traditional self-centred scheme of consumption; a scheme of contemplation and enjoyment of the true, the beautiful, and the good, according to a conventional standard of propriety and excellence, the salient feature of which is leisure--otium cum dignitate. in language veiled by their own habituation to the archaic, decorous point of view, the spokesmen of the humanities have insisted upon the ideal embodied in the maxim, fruges consumere nati. this attitude should occasion no surprise in the case of schools which are shaped by and rest upon a leisure-class culture. the professed grounds on which it has been sought, as far as might be, to maintain the received standards and methods of culture intact are likewise characteristic of the archaic temperament and of the leisure-class theory of life. the enjoyment and the bent derived from habitual contemplation of the life, ideals, speculations, and methods of consuming time and goods, in vogue among the leisure class of classical antiquity, for instance, is felt to be "higher", "nobler", "worthier", than what results in these respects from a like familiarity with the everyday life and the knowledge and aspirations of commonplace humanity in a modern community, that learning the content of which is an unmitigated knowledge of latter-day men and things is by comparison "lower", "base", "ignoble"--one even hears the epithet "sub-human" applied to this matter-of-fact knowledge of mankind and of everyday life. this contention of the leisure-class spokesmen of the humanities seems to be substantially sound. in point of substantial fact, the gratification and the culture, or the spiritual attitude or habit of mind, resulting from an habitual contemplation of the anthropomorphism, clannishness, and leisurely self-complacency of the gentleman of an early day, or from a familiarity with the animistic superstitions and the exuberant truculence of the homeric heroes, for instance, is, aesthetically considered, more legitimate than the corresponding results derived from a matter-of-fact knowledge of things and a contemplation of latter-day civic or workmanlike efficiency. there can be but little question that the first-named habits have the advantage in respect of aesthetic or honorific value, and therefore in respect of the "worth" which is made the basis of award in the comparison. the content of the canons of taste, and more particularly of the canons of honor, is in the nature of things a resultant of the past life and circumstances of the race, transmitted to the later generation by inheritance or by tradition; and the fact that the protracted dominance of a predatory, leisure-class scheme of life has profoundly shaped the habit of mind and the point of view of the race in the past, is a sufficient basis for an aesthetically legitimate dominance of such a scheme of life in very much of what concerns matters of taste in the present. for the purpose in hand, canons of taste are race habits, acquired through a more or less protracted habituation to the approval or disapproval of the kind of things upon which a favorable or unfavorable judgment of taste is passed. other things being equal, the longer and more unbroken the habituation, the more legitimate is the canon of taste in question. all this seems to be even truer of judgments regarding worth or honor than of judgments of taste generally. but whatever may be the aesthetic legitimacy of the derogatory judgment passed on the newer learning by the spokesmen of the humanities, and however substantial may be the merits of the contention that the classic lore is worthier and results in a more truly human culture and character, it does not concern the question in hand. the question in hand is as to how far these branches of learning, and the point of view for which they stand in the educational system, help or hinder an efficient collective life under modern industrial circumstances--how far they further a more facile adaptation to the economic situation of today. the question is an economic, not an aesthetic one; and the leisure-class standards of learning which find expression in the deprecatory attitude of the higher schools towards matter-of-fact knowledge are, for the present purpose, to be valued from this point of view only. for this purpose the use of such epithets as "noble", "base", "higher", "lower", etc., is significant only as showing the animus and the point of view of the disputants; whether they contend for the worthiness of the new or of the old. all these epithets are honorific or humilific terms; that is to say, they are terms of invidious comparison, which in the last analysis fall under the category of the reputable or the disreputable; that is, they belong within the range of ideas that characterizes the scheme of life of the regime of status; that is, they are in substance an expression of sportsmanship--of the predatory and animistic habit of mind; that is, they indicate an archaic point of view and theory of life, which may fit the predatory stage of culture and of economic organization from which they have sprung, but which are, from the point of view of economic efficiency in the broader sense, disserviceable anachronisms. the classics, and their position of prerogative in the scheme of education to which the higher seminaries of learning cling with such a fond predilection, serve to shape the intellectual attitude and lower the economic efficiency of the new learned generation. they do this not only by holding up an archaic ideal of manhood, but also by the discrimination which they inculcate with respect to the reputable and the disreputable in knowledge. this result is accomplished in two ways: (1) by inspiring an habitual aversion to what is merely useful, as contrasted with what is merely honorific in learning, and so shaping the tastes of the novice that he comes in good faith to find gratification of his tastes solely, or almost solely, in such exercise of the intellect as normally results in no industrial or social gain; and (2) by consuming the learner's time and effort in acquiring knowledge which is of no use except in so far as this learning has by convention become incorporated into the sum of learning required of the scholar, and has thereby affected the terminology and diction employed in the useful branches of knowledge. except for this terminological difficulty--which is itself a consequence of the vogue of the classics of the past--a knowledge of the ancient languages, for instance, would have no practical bearing for any scientist or any scholar not engaged on work primarily of a linguistic character. of course, all this has nothing to say as to the cultural value of the classics, nor is there any intention to disparage the discipline of the classics or the bent which their study gives to the student. that bent seems to be of an economically disserviceable kind, but this fact--somewhat notorious indeed--need disturb no one who has the good fortune to find comfort and strength in the classical lore. the fact that classical learning acts to derange the learner's workmanlike attitudes should fall lightly upon the apprehension of those who hold workmanship of small account in comparison with the cultivation of decorous ideals: iam fides et pax et honos pudorque priscus et neglecta redire virtus audet. owing to the circumstance that this knowledge has become part of the elementary requirements in our system of education, the ability to use and to understand certain of the dead languages of southern europe is not only gratifying to the person who finds occasion to parade his accomplishments in this respect, but the evidence of such knowledge serves at the same time to recommend any savant to his audience, both lay and learned. it is currently expected that a certain number of years shall have been spent in acquiring this substantially useless information, and its absence creates a presumption of hasty and precarious learning, as well as of a vulgar practicality that is equally obnoxious to the conventional standards of sound scholarship and intellectual force. the case is analogous to what happens in the purchase of any article of consumption by a purchaser who is not an expert judge of materials or of workmanship. he makes his estimate of value of the article chiefly on the ground of the apparent expensiveness of the finish of those decorative parts and features which have no immediate relation to the intrinsic usefulness of the article; the presumption being that some sort of ill-defined proportion subsists between the substantial value of an article and the expense of adornment added in order to sell it. the presumption that there can ordinarily be no sound scholarship where a knowledge of the classics and humanities is wanting leads to a conspicuous waste of time and labor on the part of the general body of students in acquiring such knowledge. the conventional insistence on a modicum of conspicuous waste as an incident of all reputable scholarship has affected our canons of taste and of serviceability in matters of scholarship in much the same way as the same principle has influenced our judgment of the serviceability of manufactured goods. it is true, since conspicuous consumption has gained more and more on conspicuous leisure as a means of repute, the acquisition of the dead languages is no longer so imperative a requirement as it once was, and its talismanic virtue as a voucher of scholarship has suffered a concomitant impairment. but while this is true, it is also true that the classics have scarcely lost in absolute value as a voucher of scholastic respectability, since for this purpose it is only necessary that the scholar should be able to put in evidence some learning which is conventionally recognized as evidence of wasted time; and the classics lend themselves with great facility to this use. indeed, there can be little doubt that it is their utility as evidence of wasted time and effort, and hence of the pecuniary strength necessary in order to afford this waste, that has secured to the classics their position of prerogative in the scheme of higher learning, and has led to their being esteemed the most honorific of all learning. they serve the decorative ends of leisure-class learning better than any other body of knowledge, and hence they are an effective means of reputability. in this respect the classics have until lately had scarcely a rival. they still have no dangerous rival on the continent of europe, but lately, since college athletics have won their way into a recognized standing as an accredited field of scholarly accomplishment, this latter branch of learning--if athletics may be freely classed as learning--has become a rival of the classics for the primacy in leisure-class education in american and english schools. athletics have an obvious advantage over the classics for the purpose of leisure-class learning, since success as an athlete presumes, not only waste of time, but also waste of money, as well as the possession of certain highly unindustrial archaic traits of character and temperament. in the german universities the place of athletics and greek-letter fraternities, as a leisure-class scholarly occupation, has in some measure been supplied by a skilled and graded inebriety and a perfunctory duelling. the leisure class and its standard of virtue--archaism and waste--can scarcely have been concerned in the introduction of the classics into the scheme of the higher learning; but the tenacious retention of the classics by the higher schools, and the high degree of reputability which still attaches to them, are no doubt due to their conforming so closely to the requirements of archaism and waste. "classic" always carries this connotation of wasteful and archaic, whether it is used to denote the dead languages or the obsolete or obsolescent forms of thought and diction in the living language, or to denote other items of scholarly activity or apparatus to which it is applied with less aptness. so the archaic idiom of the english language is spoken of as "classic" english. its use is imperative in all speaking and writing upon serious topics, and a facile use of it lends dignity to even the most commonplace and trivial string of talk. the newest form of english diction is of course never written; the sense of that leisure-class propriety which requires archaism in speech is present even in the most illiterate or sensational writers in sufficient force to prevent such a lapse. on the other hand, the highest and most conventionalized style of archaic diction is--quite characteristically--properly employed only in communications between an anthropomorphic divinity and his subjects. midway between these extremes lies the everyday speech of leisure-class conversation and literature. elegant diction, whether in writing or speaking, is an effective means of reputability. it is of moment to know with some precision what is the degree of archaism conventionally required in speaking on any given topic. usage differs appreciably from the pulpit to the market-place; the latter, as might be expected, admits the use of relatively new and effective words and turns of expression, even by fastidious persons. a discriminative avoidance of neologisms is honorific, not only because it argues that time has been wasted in acquiring the obsolescent habit of speech, but also as showing that the speaker has from infancy habitually associated with persons who have been familiar with the obsolescent idiom. it thereby goes to show his leisure-class antecedents. great purity of speech is presumptive evidence of several lives spent in other than vulgarly useful occupations; although its evidence is by no means entirely conclusive to this point. as felicitous an instance of futile classicism as can well be found, outside of the far east, is the conventional spelling of the english language. a breach of the proprieties in spelling is extremely annoying and will discredit any writer in the eyes of all persons who are possessed of a developed sense of the true and beautiful. english orthography satisfies all the requirements of the canons of reputability under the law of conspicuous waste. it is archaic, cumbrous, and ineffective; its acquisition consumes much time and effort; failure to acquire it is easy of detection. therefore it is the first and readiest test of reputability in learning, and conformity to its ritual is indispensable to a blameless scholastic life. on this head of purity of speech, as at other points where a conventional usage rests on the canons of archaism and waste, the spokesmen for the usage instinctively take an apologetic attitude. it is contended, in substance, that a punctilious use of ancient and accredited locutions will serve to convey thought more adequately and more precisely than would be the straightforward use of the latest form of spoken english; whereas it is notorious that the ideas of today are effectively expressed in the slang of today. classic speech has the honorific virtue of dignity; it commands attention and respect as being the accredited method of communication under the leisure-class scheme of life, because it carries a pointed suggestion of the industrial exemption of the speaker. the advantage of the accredited locutions lies in their reputability; they are reputable because they are cumbrous and out of date, and therefore argue waste of time and exemption from the use and the need of direct and forcible speech. society its origin and development by henry kalloch rowe, ph.d. associate professor of history and sociology in newton theological institution charles scribner's sons new york chicago boston copyright, 1916, by charles scribner's sons preface in studying biology it is convenient to make cross-sections of laboratory specimens in order to determine structure, and to watch plants and animals grow in order to determine function. there seems to be no good reason why social life should not be studied in the same way. to take a child in the home and watch it grow in the midst of the life of the family, the community, and the larger world, and to cut across group life so as to see its characteristics, its interests, and its organization, is to study sociology in the most natural way and to obtain the necessary data for generalization. to attempt to study sociological principles without this preliminary investigation is to confuse the student and leave him in a sea of vague abstractions. it is not because of a lack of appreciation of the abstract that the emphasis of this book is on the concrete. it is written as an introduction to the study of the principles of sociology, and it may well be used as a prelude to the various social sciences. it is natural that trained sociologists should prefer to discuss the profound problems of their science, and should plunge their pupils into material for study where they are soon beyond their depth; much of current life seems so obvious and so simple that it is easy to forget that the college man or woman has never looked upon it with a discriminating eye or with any attempt to understand its meaning. if this is true of the college student, it is unquestionably true of the men and women of the world. the writer believes that there is need of a simple, untechnical treatment of human society, and offers this book as a contribution to the practical side of social science. he writes with the undergraduate continually in mind, trying to see through his eyes and to think with his mind, and the references are to books that will best meet his needs and that are most readily accessible. it is expected that the pupil will read widely, and that the instructor will show how principles and laws are formulated from the multitude of observations of social phenomena. the last section of the book sums up briefly some of the scientific conclusions that are drawn from the concrete data, and prepares the way for a more detailed and technical study. if sociology is to have its rightful place in the world it must become a science for the people. it must not be permitted to remain the possession of an aristocracy of intellect. the heart of thousands of social workers who are trying to reform society and cure its ills is throbbing with sympathy and hope, but there is much waste of energy and misdirection of zeal because of a lack of understanding of the social life that they try to cure. they and the people to whom they minister need an interpretation of life in social terms that they can understand. professional persons of all kinds need it. a world that is on the verge of despair because of the breakdown of harmonious human relations needs it to reassure itself of the value and the possibility of normal human relations. doubtless the presentation of the subject is imperfect, but if it meets the need of those who find difficulty in using more technical discussions and opens up a new field of interest to many who hitherto have not known the difference between sociology and socialism, the effort at interpretation will have been worth while. henry k. rowe newton centre, massachusetts. contents part one--introductory chapter page i. characteristics of social life 1 ii. unorganized group life 16 part two--life in the family group iii. foundations of the family 24 iv. the history of the family 29 v. the making of the home 37 vi. children in the home 42 vii. work, play, and education 51 viii. home economics 60 ix. changes in the family 67 x. divorce 74 xi. the social evil 81 xii. characteristics and principles 88 part three--social life in the rural community xiii. the community and its history 91 xiv. the land and the people 99 xv. occupations 104 xvi. recreation 108 xvii. rural institutions 115 xviii. rural education 120 xix. the new rural school 127 xx. rural government 136 xxi. health and beauty 144 xxii. morals in the rural community 151 xxiii. the rural church 156 xxiv. a new type of rural institution 162 part four--social life in the city xxv. from country to city 169 xxvi. the manufacturing enterprise 180 xxvii. the industrial problem 186 xxviii. exchange and transportation 201 xxix. the people who work 212 xxx. the immigrant 221 xxxi. how the working people live 230 xxxii. the diversions of the working people 238 xxxiii. crime and its cure 248 xxxiv. agencies of control 256 xxxv. difficulties of the people who work 263 xxxvi. charity and the settlements 271 xxxvii. educational agencies 280 xxxviii. the church 287 xxxix. the city in the making 294 part five--social life in the nation xl. the building of a nation 300 xli. economic and social functions of the people as a nation 305 xlii. the state 313 xliii. problems of the nation 324 xliv. internationalism 333 part six--social analysis xlv. physical and personal factors in the life of society 340 xlvi. social psychic factors 348 xlvii. social theories 357 xlviii. the science of sociology 364 index 373 society: its origin and development part i--introductory chapter i characteristics of social life 1. =man and his social relations.=--a study of society starts with the obvious fact that human beings live together. the hermit is abnormal. however far back we go in the process of human evolution we find the existence of social relations, and sociability seems a quality ingrained in human nature. every individual has his own personality that belongs to him apart from every other individual, but the perpetuation and development of that personality is dependent on relations with other personalities and with the physical environment which limits his activity. as an individual his primary interest is in self, but he finds by experience that he cannot be independent of others. his impulses, his feelings, and his ideas are due to the relations that he has with that which is outside of himself. he may exercise choice, but it is within the limits set by these outside relations. he may make use of what they can do for him or he may antagonize them, at least he cannot ignore them. experience determines how the individual may best adapt himself to his environment and adapt the environment to his own needs, and he thus establishes certain definite relationships. any group of individuals, who have thus consciously established relationships with one another and with their social environment is a society. the relations through whose channels the interplay of social forces is constantly going on make up the social organization. the readjustments of these relations for the better adaptation of one individual to another, or of either to their environment, make up the process of social development. a society which remains in equilibrium is termed static, that which is changing is called dynamic. 2. =the field and the purpose of sociology.=--life in society is the subject matter of sociological study. sociology is concerned with the origin and development of that life, with its present forms and activities, and with their future development. it finds its material in the every-day experiences of men, women, and children in whatever stage of progress they may be; but for practical purposes its chief interest is in the normal life of civilized communities, together with the past developments and future prospects of that life. the purpose of sociological study is to discover the active workings and controlling principles of life, its essential meaning, and its ultimate goal; then to apply the principles, laws, and ideals discovered to the imperfect social process that is now going on in the hope of social betterment. 3. =source material for study.=--the source material of social life lies all about us. for its past history we must explore the primitive conduct of human beings as we learn it from anthropology and archæology, or as we infer it from the lowest human races or from animal groups that bear the nearest physical and mental resemblance to mankind. for present phenomena we have only to look about us, and having seen to attempt their interpretation. life is mirrored in the daily press. pick up any newspaper and examine its contents. it reveals social characteristics both local and wide-spread. 4. =social characteristics--activity.=--the first fact that stands out clearly as a characteristic of social life is _activity_. everybody seems to be doing something. there are a few among the population, like vagrants and the idle rich, who are parasites, but even they sustain relations to others that require a certain sort of effort. activity seems fundamental. it needs but a hasty survey to show how general it is. farmers are cultivating their broad acres, woodsmen are chopping and hewing in the forest, miners are drilling in underground chambers, and the products of farm, forest, and mine are finding their way by river, road, and rail to the great distributing centres. in the town the machinery of mill and factory keeps busy thousands of operatives, and turns out manufactured products to compete with the products of the soil for right of way to the cities of the new world and the old. busiest of all are the throngs that thread the streets of the great centres, and pour in and out of stores and offices. men rush from one person to another, and interview one after another the business houses with which they maintain connection; women swarm about the counters of the department stores and find at the same time social satisfaction and pecuniary reward; children in hundreds pour into the intellectual hopper of the schoolroom and from there to the playground. everybody is busy, and everybody is seeking personal profit and satisfaction. 5. =mental activity.=--there is another kind of activity of which these economic and social phases are only the outward expression, an activity of the mind which is busy continually adjusting the needs of the individual or social organism and the environment to each other. some acts are so instinctive or habitual that they do not require conscious mental effort; others are the result of reasoning as to this or that course of action. the impulse of the farmer may be to remain inactive, or the schoolboy may feel like going fishing; the call of nature stimulates the desire; but reason reaches out and takes control and directs outward activity into proper channels. on the other hand, reason fortifies worthy inclinations. the youth feels an inclination to stretch his muscles or to use his brains, and reason re-enforces feeling. the physical need of food, clothing, and shelter acts as a goad to drive a man to work, and reason sanctions his natural response. this mental activity guides not only individual human conduct but also that of the group. instinct impels the man to defend his family from hardship or his clan from defeat, and reason confirms the impulse. his sociable disposition urges him to co-operate in industry, and reason sanctions his inclination. the history of society reveals an increasing influence of the intellect in thus directing instinct and feeling. it is a law of social activity that it tends to become more rational with the increase of education and experience. but it is never possible to determine the quantitative influence of the various factors that enter into a decision, or to estimate the relative pressure of the forces that urge to activity. alike in mental and in physical activity there is a union of all the causative factors. in an act of the will impulse, feeling, and reflection all have their part; in physical activity it is difficult to determine how compelling is any one of the various forces, such as heredity and environment, that enter into the decision. 6. =the valuation of social activities.=--the importance to society of all these activities is not to be measured by their scope or by their vigor or volume, but by the efficiency with which they perform their function, and the value of the end they serve. domestic activities, such as the care of children, may be restricted to the home, and a woman's career may seem to be blighted thereby, but no more important work can be accomplished than the proper training of the child. political activity may be national in scope, but if it is vitiated by corrupt practices its value is greatly diminished. certain activities carry with them no important results, because they have no definite function, but are sporadic and temporary, like the coming together of groups in the city streets, mingling in momentary excitement and dissolving as quickly. the true valuation of activities is to be determined by their social utility. the employment of working men in the brewing of beer or the manufacture of chewing-gum may give large returns to an individual or a corporation, but the social utility of such activity is small. business enterprise is naturally self-centred; the first interest of every individual or group is self-preservation, and business must pay for itself and produce a surplus for its owner or it is not worth continuing from the economic standpoint; but a business enterprise has no right selfishly to disregard the interests of its employees and of the public. its social value must be reckoned as small or great, not by the amount of business carried on, but by its contribution to human welfare. take a department store as an illustration. it may be highly profitable to its owners, giving large returns on the investment, while distributing cheap and defective goods and paying its employees less than a decent living wage. its value is to be determined as small because its social utility is of little worth. when the value of activity is estimated on this basis, it will be seen that among the noblest activities are those of the philanthropist who gives his time and interest without stint to the welfare of other folk; of the minister who lends himself to spiritual ministry, and the physician who gives up his own comfort and sometimes his own life to save those who are physically ill; of the housewife who bears and rears children and keeps the home as her willing contribution to the life of the world; and of the nurses, companions, and teachers who are mothers, sisters, and wives to those who need their help. 7. =results of activity.=--the product of activity is achievement. the workers of the world are continually transforming energy into material products. to clear away a forest, to raise a thousand bushels of grain, to market a herd of cattle or a car-load of shoes, to build a sky-scraper or an ocean liner, is an achievement. but it is a greater achievement to take a child mind and educate it until it learns how to cultivate the soil profitably, how to make a machine or a building of practical value, and how to save and enrich life. the history of human folk shows that achievement has been gradual, and much of it without conscious planning, but the great inventors, the great architects, the great statesmen have been men of vision, and definite purpose is sure to fill a larger place in the story of achievement. purposive progress rather than unconscious, telic rather than genetic, is the order of the evolution of society. the highest achievement of the race is its moral uplift. the man or woman who has a noble or kindly thought, who has consecrated life to unselfish ends and has spent constructive effort for the common good, is the true prince among men. he may be a leader upon whom the common people rely in time of stress, or only a private in the ranks--he is a hero, for his achievement is spiritual, and his mastery of the inner life is his supreme victory. 8. =association.=--a second characteristic of social life is that activity is not the activity of isolated individuals, but it is _activity in association_. human beings work together, play together, talk together, worship together, fight together. if they happen to act alone, they are still closely related to one another. examine the daily newspaper record and see how few items have to do with individuals acting in isolation. even if a person sits down alone to think, his mind is working along the line on which it received the push of another mind shortly before. a large part of the work of the world is done in concert. the ship and the train have their crew, the factory its hands, the city police and fire departments their force. men shout together on the ball field, and sing folk-songs in chorus. as an audience they listen to the play or the sermon, as a mob they rush the jail to lynch a prisoner, or as a crowd they riot in high carnival on mardi gras. the normal individual belongs to a family, a community, a political party, a nation; he may belong, besides, to a church, a few learned societies, a trade-union, or any number of clubs or fraternities. human beings associate because they possess common interests and means of intercourse. they are affected by the same needs. they have the power to think in the same grooves and to feel a common sympathy. members of the same race or community have a common fund of custom or tradition; they are conscious of like-mindedness in morals and religion; they are subject to the same kind of mental suggestion; they have their own peculiar language and literature. as communication between different parts of the world improves and ability to speak in different languages increases, there comes a better understanding among the world's peoples and an increase of mutual sympathy. experience has taught the value of association. by it the individual makes friends, gains in knowledge, enlarges interests. knowing this, he seeks acquaintances, friends, and companions. he finds the world richer because of family, community, and national life, and if necessary he is willing to sacrifice something of his own comfort and peace for the advantages that these associations will bring. 9. =causes of association.=--it is the nature of human beings to enjoy company, to be curious about what they see and hear, to talk together, and to imitate one another. these traits appear in savages and even in animals, and they are not outgrown with advance in civilization. these inborn instincts are modified or re-enforced by the conscious workings of the mind, and are aided or restricted by external circumstances. it is a natural instinct for men to seek associates. they feel a liking for one and a dislike for another, and select their friends accordingly. but the choice of most men is within a restricted field, for their acquaintance is narrow. college men are thrown with a certain set or join a certain fraternity. they play on the same team or belong to the same class. they may have chosen their college, but within that institution their environment is limited. it is similar in the world at large. individuals do not choose the environment in which at first they find themselves, and the majority cannot readily change their environment. within its natural limits and the barriers which caste or custom have fixed, children form their play groups according to their liking for each other, and adults organize their societies according to their mutual interests or common beliefs. with increasing acquaintance and ease of communication and transportation there comes a wider range of choice, and environment is less controlling. the will of the individual becomes freer to choose friends and associates wherever he finds them. he may have widely scattered business and political connections. he may be a member of an international association. he may even take a wife from another city or a distant nation. mental interaction flows in international channels. 10. =forms of association.=--it is possible to classify all forms of association in two groups as natural, like a gang of boys, or artificial, like a political party. or it is possible to arrange them according to the interests they serve, as economic, scientific, and the like. again they may be classified according to thoroughness of organization, ranging from the crowd to the closely knit corporation. but whatever the form may be, the value of the association is to be judged according to the degree of social worth, as in the case of activities. on that basis a company of gladiators or a pugilist's club ranks below a village improvement society; that in turn yields in importance to a learned association of physicians discussing the best means of relieving human suffering. in the slow process of social evolution those forms that do not contribute to the welfare of the race will lose their place in society. 11. =results of association.=--the results of association are among the permanent assets of the race. man has become what he is because of his social relations, and further progress is dependent upon them. the arts that distinguish man from his inferiors are the products of inter-communication and co-operation. the art of conversation and the accompanying interchange of ideas and thought stimulus are to be numbered among the benefits. the art of conciliation that calms ruffled tempers and softens conflict belongs here. the art of co-operation, that great engine of achievement, depends on learning through social contact how to think and feel sympathetically. finally, there is the product of social organization. chance meetings and temporary assemblies are of small value, though they must be noted as phenomena of association. more important are the fixed institutions that have grown out of relations continually tested by experience until they have become sanctioned by society as indispensable. such are the organized forms of business, education, government, and religion. but all groups require organization of a sort. the gang has its recognized leader, the club its officers and by-laws. even such antisocial persons as outlaws frequently move in bands and have their chiefs. organization goes far to determine success in war or politics, in work or play. like achievement, organization is the result of a gradual growth in collective experience, and must be continually adapted to the changing requirements of successive periods by the wisdom of master minds. it must also gradually include larger groups within its scope until, like the international young men's christian association or the universal postal union, it reaches out to the ends of the earth. 12. =control.=--the public mirror of the press reveals a third characteristic of social life. activity and association are both under _control_. activity would result in exploitation of the weak by the strong, and finally in anarchy, if there were no exercise of control. under control activities are co-ordinated, individuals and classes are brought to work in co-operation and not in antagonism, and under an enlightened and sanctioned authority life becomes richer, fuller, and more truly free. social control begins in the individual mind. instincts and feelings are held in the leash of rational thought. intelligence is the guide to action. control is exerted externally upon the individual from early childhood. parental authority checks the independence of the child and compels conformity to the will of his elders. family tradition makes its power felt in many homes, and family pride is a compelling reason for moral rectitude. every member of the family is restrained by the rights of the others, and often yields his own preferences for the common good. when the child goes out from the home he is still under restraint, and rigid regulations become even more pronounced. the rules of the schoolroom permit little freedom. the teacher's authority is absolute during the hours when school is in session. in the city when school hours are over there are municipal regulations enforced by watchful police that restrict the activity of a boy in the streets, and if he visits the playground he is still under the reign of law. similarly the adult is hedged about by social control. custom decrees that he must dress appropriately for the street, that he must pass to the right when he meets another person, and that he must raise his hat to an acquaintance of the opposite sex. the college youth finds it necessary to acquaint himself with the customs and traditions that have been handed down from class to class, and these must be observed under pain of ostracism. faculty and trustees stand in the way of his unlimited enjoyment. his moral standards are affected by the atmosphere of the chapter house, the athletic field, and the examination hall. in business and civil relations men find themselves compelled to recognize laws that have been formulated for the public good. state and national governments have been able to assert successfully their right to control corporate action, however large and powerful the corporation might be. but government itself is subject to the will of the people in a democratic nation, and public opinion sways officials and determines local and national policies. religious beliefs have the force of law upon whole peoples like the mohammedans. social control is exercised in large measure without the mailed fist. moral suasion tends to supersede the birch stick and the policeman's billy. within limits there is freedom of action, and the tacit appeal of society is to a man's self-control. but the newspaper with its sensation and police-court gossip never lets us forget that back of self-control is the court of judicial authority and the bar of public opinion. the result of the constant exercise of control is the existence of order. the normal individual becomes accustomed to restraint from his earliest years, and it is only the few who are disorderly in the schoolroom, on the streets, or in the broader relations of life. criminals make up a small part of the population; anarchy never has appealed to many as a social philosophy; unconventional people are rare enough to attract special attention. 13. =change.=--a fourth characteristic of social life is _change_. control tends to keep society static, but there are powerful dynamic forces that are continually upsetting the equilibrium. in spite of the natural conservatism of institutions and agencies of control, group life is as continually changing as the physical elements in nature. continued observation recorded over a considerable period of time reveals changing habits, changing occupations, changing interests, even changing laws and governments. inside the group individuals are continually readjusting their modes of thought and activity to one another, and between groups there is a similar adjustment of social habits. without such change there can be no progress. war or other catastrophe suddenly alters wide human relations. external influences are constantly making their impression upon us, stimulating us to higher attainment or dragging us down to individual and group degeneration. 14. =causes of change.=--the factors that enter into social life to produce change are numerous. conflict of ideas among individuals and groups compels frequent readjustment of thought. the free expression of opinion in public debate and through the press is a powerful factor. travel alters modes of conduct, and wholesale migration changes the characteristics of large groups of population. family habits change with accumulation of wealth or removal from the farm to the city. the introduction of the telephone and the free mail delivery with its magazines and daily newspapers has altered currents of thought in the country. summer visitors have introduced country and city to each other; the automobile has enlarged the horizon of thousands. new modes of agriculture have been adopted through the influence of a state agricultural college, new methods of education through a normal school, new methods of church work through a theological seminary. whole peoples, as in china and turkey, have been profoundly affected by forces that compelled change. growth in population beyond comfortable means of subsistence has set tribes in motion; the need of wider markets has compelled nations to try forcible expansion into disputed areas. the desire for larger opportunities has sent millions of emigrants from europe to america, and has been changing rapidly the complexion of the crowds that walk the city streets and enter the polling booths. certain outstanding personalities have moulded life and thought through the centuries, and have profoundly changed whole regions of country. mohammed and confucius put their personal stamp upon the orient; cæsar and napoleon made and remade western europe; adam smith and darwin swayed economic and scientific england; washington and lincoln were makers of america. through such social processes as these--through unconscious suggestion, through communication and discussion that mould public opinion, through changes in environment and the influence of new leaders of thought and action--the evolution of folk life has carried whole races, sometimes to oblivion, but generally out of savagery and barbarism into a material and cultural civilization. 15. =results of the process.=--the results of the process of social change are so far-reaching as to be almost incalculable. particularly marked are the changes of the last hundred years. the best way to appreciate them is by a comparison of periods. take college life in america as an example. scores of colleges now large and prosperous were not then in existence, and even in the older colleges conditions were far inferior to what they are in the newer and smaller colleges to-day. there were few preparatory schools, and the young man--of course there were no college women--fitted himself as best he could by private instruction. to reach the college it was necessary to drive by stage or private conveyance to the college town, to find rooms in an ill-equipped dormitory or private house, to be content with plain food for the body and a narrow course of study for the mind. the method of instruction was tedious and uninspiring; text-books were unattractive and dull. there were no libraries worthy of the name, no laboratories or observatories for research. scientific instruction was conspicuous by its absence; the social sciences were unknown. gymnasiums had not been evolved from the college wood-pile; intercollegiate sports were unknown. glee clubs, dramatic societies, college journalism, and the other arts and pastimes that give color and variety to modern university life were unknown. in the same period modes of thinking have changed. scientific discoveries and the principles that have been based on them have wrought a revolution. evolution has become a word to conjure with. scholars think in terms of process. biological investigation has opened wide the whole realm of life and emphasized the place of development in the physical organism. psychological study has changed the basis of philosophy. sociology has come with new interpretations of human life. rapid changes are taking place at the present time in education, in religion, and in social adjustments. the rate of progress varies in different parts of the world; there are handicaps in the form of race conservatism, local and individual self-satisfaction and independence, maladjustments and isolation; sometimes the process leads along a downward path. on the whole, however, the history is a story of progress. 16. =weaknesses.=--in the thinking of not a few persons the handicaps that lie in the path of social development bulk larger than the engines of progress. they are pessimistic over the _weaknesses_ that constitute a fifth characteristic of social life. these are certainly not to be overlooked, but they are an inevitable result of incomplete adaptations during a constant process of change. there are numerous illustrations of weakness. social activity is not always wisely directed. association frequently develops antagonism instead of co-operation. in trade and industry individuals do not "play fair." corporations are sometimes unjust. politics are liable to become corrupt. in the various associations of home and community life indifference, cruelty, unchastity, and crime add to the burdens of poverty, disease, and wretchedness. a yellow press mirrors a scandalous amount of intrigue, immorality, and misdemeanor. government abuses its power; public opinion is intolerant and unjust; fashion is tyrannical; law is uncompromising. in times like our own economic interests frequently overshadow cultural interests. in college estimation athletics appear to bulk larger than the curriculum. in the public mind prejudice and hasty judgments take precedence over carefully weighed opinions and judicial decisions. conservatism blocks the wheels of progress, or radicalism, in its unbalanced enthusiasm, destroys by injudiciousness the good that has been gradually accumulating. the social machinery gets out of gear, or proves inefficient for the new burdens that frequently are imposed upon it. the social order is not perfect and needs occasional amendment. 17. =resultant problems.=--these weaknesses precipitate specific social problems. some of them are bound up in the family relationships, like the better regulation of marriage and divorce, the prevention of desertion, and the rights of women and children. others are questions that relate to industry, such as the rights of employees with reference to wages and hours of labor, or the unhealthy conditions in which working people live and toil. certain matters are issues in every community. it is not easy to decide what shall be done with the poor, the unfortunate, and the weak-willed members of society. some problems are peculiar to the country, the city, or the nation, like the need of rural co-operation, the improvement of municipal efficiency, or the regulation of immigration. a few are international, like the scourge of war. besides such specific problems there are always general issues demanding the attention of social thinkers and reformers, such as the adjustment of individual rights to social duties, and the improvement of moral and religious efficiency. 18. =the social groups.=--a broad survey of the current life of society leads naturally to the questions: how is this social life organized? and how did it come to be? the answers to these questions appear in certain social groupings, each of which has a history and life of its own, but is only a segment of the whole circle of active association. these groupings include the family, the rural community, the city, and the nation. in the natural environment of the home social life finds its apprenticeship. when the child has become in a measure socialized, he enters into the larger relations of the neighborhood. half the people of the united states live in country communities, but an increasing proportion of the population is found in the midst of the associations and activities of the larger civic community. all are citizens or wards of the nation, and have a part in the social life of america. consciously or not they have still wider relations in a world life that is continually growing in social content. each of these groups reveals the same fundamental characteristics, but each has its peculiar forms and its dominant energies; each has its perplexing problems and each its possibilities of greater good. through the environment the forces of the mind are moulding a life that is gradually becoming more nearly like the social ideal. reading references giddings: _principles of sociology_, pages 363-399. small and vincent: _introduction to the study of society_, pages 237-240. dealey: _sociology_, pages 58-73. ross: _social control_, pages 49-61. ross: _foundations of sociology_, pages 182-255. blackmar and gillin: _outlines of sociology_, pages 271-282. chapter ii unorganized group life 19. =temporary groups.=--a study of the organization and development of social life is mainly a study of the mental and physical activities of individuals associated in permanent groups. conditions change and there is a continual shifting of contacts as in a kaleidoscope, but the group is a fixed institution in the life of society. but besides the permanent groups there are temporary unorganized associations that have a place in social life too important to be overlooked. they vary in size from a chance meeting of two or three friends who stop on the street corner and separate after a few minutes of conversation, to the great mass-meeting, that is called for a special purpose and interests a whole neighborhood, but adjourns _sine die_. such groups are subject to the same physical and psychic forces that affect the family, the community, and the nation, but they tend to act more on impulse, because there is no habitual subordination to an established rule or order. a simple illustration will show the influences that work to produce these temporary groupings and that govern conduct. 20. =how the group forms.=--imagine a working man on the morning of a holiday. without a fixed purpose how he will spend the day, his mind works along the line of least resistance, inviting physical or mental stimulus, and sensitive to respond. he is not accustomed to remain at home, nor does he wish to be alone. he is used to the companionship of the factory, and instinctively he longs for the association of his kind. he is most likely to meet his acquaintances on the street, and he feels the pull of the out-of-doors. the influences of instinct and habit impel him to activity, and he makes a definite choice to leave the house. once on the street he feels the zest of motion and the anticipation of the pleasure that he will find in the companionship of his fellows. reason assures him from past experience that he has made a good choice, and on general principles asserts that exercise is good for him, whatever may be the social result of his stroll. thus the various factors that produce individual activity are at work in him. they are similarly at work in others of his kind. presently these factors will bring them together. unconsciously the working man and his friend are moving toward each other. the attention and discrimination of each man is brought into play with every person that he meets, but there is no recognition of acquaintance until each comes within the range of vision of the other. they greet each other with a hail of good-fellowship and a cordial hand-shake and stop for conversation. an analysis of the psychological elements that enter into such an incident would make plain the part of sense-perception and memory, of feeling and volition in the act of each, but the significant fact in the incident is that these mental factors are set to work because of the contact of one mind upon the other. it is the mental interaction arising from the moment's association that produces the social phenomenon. what are the social phenomena of this particular occasion? they are the acts that have taken place because of association. the individual would not greet himself or shake hands with himself, or stop to talk with himself. they are dependent upon the presence of more than one person; they are phenomena of the group. why do they shake hands and talk? first, because they feel alike and think alike, and sympathy and like-mindedness seek expression in gesture and language, and, secondly, because their mode of action is under the control of a social custom that directs specific acts. if the meeting was on the continent of europe the men might embrace, if it was in the jungle of africa they might raise a yell at sight of each other, but american custom limits the greeting to a hand-clasp, supplemented on occasion by a slap on the shoulder. in italy the language used is peculiar to the race and is helped out by many gestures; in new england of the puritans the language used would be of a type peculiar to itself, and would hardly have the assistance of a changing facial expression. to-day two men have formed a temporary group, group action has taken place, and the action, while impulsive, is under the constraint of present custom. what happens next? 21. =the working of the social mind.=--conversation in the group develops a common purpose. the two men are conscious of common desires and interests, or through a conflict of ideas the will of one subordinates the will of the other, and under the control of the joint purpose, which is now the social mind, they move toward one goal. this goal soon appears to be the objective point of a larger social mind, for other men and boys are converging in the same direction. at the corner of another street the two companions meet other friends, and after a mutual greeting the augmented party finds its way to the entrance of a ball park. the same instincts and habits and the same feelings and thoughts have stirred in every member of the group; they have felt the pull of the same desires and interests; they have put themselves in motion toward the same goal; they have greeted one another in similar fashion, and they find satisfaction in talking together on a common topic; but they do not constitute a permanent or organized group, and once separated they may never repeat this chance meeting. 22. =the impulse of the crowd.=--once within the ball park and seated on the long benches they are part of a far larger group of like-minded human beings, and they feel a common thrill in anticipation of the pleasure of the sport. they feel the stimulus that comes from obedience to a common impulse. a shout or a joke arouses a sympathetic outburst from hundreds. when they came together at first most of them were strangers, but common interests and emotions have produced a group consciousness. the game is called, and hundreds in unison fix their attention on the men in action. a hit is made, in breathless suspense the crowd watches to see the result, and with a common impulse cries out simultaneously in approbation or disgust over the play. as the game proceeds primitive passions play over the crowd and emotions find free expression in the language that habit and custom provide. the crowd is in a state of high suggestibility; it responds to the stimulus of a chance remark, the misplay of a player, or the misjudgment of an umpire; one moment it is thrown into panic by the prospect of defeat, and the next into paroxysms of delight as the tide of victory turns. on sufficient provocation the crowd gets into motion, impelled by a common excitement to unreasoning action; it pours upon the field, and, unless prevented, wreaks its anger upon team or umpire that has aroused it to fury, but met with superior force the crowd melts away, dissolving into its smaller groups and then into its individual elements. a crowd of the sort described constitutes one type of the incomplete group. it is a chance assembly, moved by a common purpose but coalescing only temporarily, guided by elemental impulses, and readily breaking up without permanent achievement other than obtaining the recreation sought. 23. =the mass-meeting.=--another and more orderly type appears in a meeting of american residents in a foreign city to protest against an outrage to their flag or an injustice to one of their number. those who assemble are not members of a definite organization with a regular machinery for action. they are, however, moved by common emotion and purpose, because they are conscious of a permanent bond that creates mutual sympathy. they are citizens of the same country. they are mindful of a national history that is their common heritage. they are proud of the position of eminence that belongs to the western republic. there is a peculiar quality to the patriotism that they all feel and that calls out a unanimous expression. their minds work alike, and they come together to give expression to their feelings and convictions. they are under the direction of a presiding officer and the procedure of the meeting is according to the parliamentary rules that guide civilized assemblies. however urgent of purpose, the speakers hold themselves in leash, and the listeners content themselves with conventional applause when their enthusiasm is aroused. after a reasonable amount of discussion has taken place, the assembly crystallizes its opinions in the form of resolutions couched in earnest but dignified language and disperses to await the action of those in authority. 24. =international association.=--still another type is the incomplete group that is composed of men and women of similar moral or religious convictions who never assemble in one place, but constitute a certain kind of association. kipling could sing, "the east is east and the west is west and never the twain shall meet," yet through missionary efforts people of very different races and habits of living and thinking have been brought to cherish the same beliefs and to adopt similar customs. thousands of such people in all parts of the world constitute a unified group because of their mental interaction, though they may never meet and are not organized in common. the only medium through which one section has influenced another may be a single missionary or book, but the electric current of sympathy passes from one to another as effectively as the wireless carries a message across leagues of space. in the same way sentiment and opinion spread and reproduce themselves, even through long periods of time. before the middle of the nineteenth century chinese sentiment was so strong against the importation of opium from india that war broke out with england, with the result that the curse was fastened upon the orient. the evil increased, spreading through many countries. meantime international fortunes brought the united states to the philippines and trade carried opium to the united states. foreigners in china combated the evil. the nation took a determined stand, and finally, through international agreement under american leadership, the trade and the consumption of opium were checked. similarly slavery was put under the opprobrium of christendom, public opinion in one nation after another was formed against it, laws were passed condemning it, and at last it received an international ban. at the present time, through agitation and conference, a world sentiment against war is increasing, and pacifists in every land constitute an expanding group of like-minded men and women who are determined that wars shall cease in the future. these are all examples of unorganized associations or incomplete groups. 25. =experiments in association.=--in the history of human kind numerous experiments in association have been made; those which have served well in the competition between groups have survived, and have tended to become permanent types of association, receiving the sanction of society, and so to be reckoned as social institutions; others have been thrown on the rubbish heap as worthless. it is generally believed, for example, that many related families in primitive times associated in a loosely connected horde, but the horde could not compete successfully with an organized state and gave way before it. the local community in new england once carried on its affairs satisfactorily in yearly mass-meeting, where every citizen had an equal privilege of speaking and voting directly upon a proposed measure, but there proved to be a limit to the efficiency of such government when the population increased, so that a meeting of all the citizens was impossible, and a constitutional assembly of representative citizens was devised. similarly national governments have been organized for greater efficiency and machinery is being invented frequently to increase their value. 26. =kinds of unorganized groups.=--unorganized groups are of three kinds: there are first the normal groups that are continually being formed and dissolved, but that perform a useful function while they exist. such are the chance meetings and conversations of friends in all walks of life, and the crowds that gather occasionally to help forward a good cause. they promote general intelligence, provide a free exchange of ideas, and help to form a body of public opinion for social guidance. there is often an open-mindedness among the common people that is not vitiated by the grip of vested interests upon their unwarped judgments, and the people can be trusted in the long run to make good. democracy is based upon the reliability of public opinion. the second kind of unorganized group is one that is on the way to becoming a permanent group sanctioned by society. a group of this type is the boy's gang. by most persons the spontaneous association of a dozen boys who live near together and range over a certain district has been condemned as a social evil; recently it has become recognized as a normal group, forming naturally at a certain period of boy life and falling to pieces of its own accord a few years later. the tendency of boy leaders is not only to give it recognition as legitimate, but to use the gang instinct to promote definite organizations of greater value to their members and to the community. another group of the same type is a so-called "movement," composed of a few individuals who associate themselves in a loose way to further a definite purpose, like the promotion of temperance, hold mass-meetings, and create public opinion, but do not at once proceed to a permanent organization. eventually, when the movement has gathered sufficient headway or has shown that it is permanently valuable, a fixed organization may be accomplished. the third kind of unorganized group is an abnormality in the midst of civilization, a relic of the primitive days when impulse rather than reason swayed the mind of a group. such is the crowd that gathers in a moment of excitement and yields to a momentary passion to lynch a prisoner, or a revolutionary mob that loots and burns out of a sheer desire for destruction. such a group has not even the value of a safety-valve, for its passion gathers momentum as it goes, and, like a conflagration, it cannot be stopped until it has burned itself out or met a solid wall of military authority. 27. =the popular crowd vs. the organized group.=--in the routine life of a disciplined society there is always to be found at least one of these types. even the abnormal type of the passionate crowd is not unusual in its milder form. any unusual event like a fire or a circus will draw scores and hundreds together, and the crowd is always liable to fall into disorder unless officers of the law are in attendance. this is so well understood that the police are always in evidence where there are large congregations of people at church or theatre, where a prominent man is to be seen or a procession is to pass. but the popular mass is a volatile thing, and in proportion to its size it expends little useful energy. it is never to be reckoned as equal in importance to the organized company, however small it may be, that has a definite purpose guiding its regular action, and that persists in its purpose for years together. it is the fixed group, the social institution, that does the work of the world and carries society forward from lower to higher levels of civilization. social efficiency belongs to the organized type. reading references cooley: _social organization_, pages 149-156. giddings: _elements of sociology_, pages 129-140. ross: _foundations of sociology_, pages 120-138. ross: _social psychology_, pages 43-82. münsterberg: _psychology, general and applied_, pages 269-273. davenport: _primitive traits in religious revivals_, pages 25-31. part ii--life in the family group chapter iii foundations of the family 28. =the fundamental importance of the family.=--social life can be understood best by taking the simplest organized group of human beings and analyzing its activities, its organization, and its development. the family is such a group and is, therefore, a natural basis for study. it illustrates most of the phases of social activity, it is simple in its organization, its history goes back to primitive times, and it is rapidly changing in the present. family life is made up of the interactions of individual life, and, therefore, the individual in his social relations and not the family is the unit of sociological investigation, but until recent years the family group has been regarded as of greater importance than the individual, and in the orient the family still occupies the place of importance. out of the family have developed such institutions as property, law, and government, and on the maintenance of the family rests the future welfare of society. it has been claimed that "the study of the single family on its homestead would yield richer scientific knowledge and more practical results in the great social sciences than almost any other single object in the social world. pursued historically, the student would find himself at the roots of property, separate ownership of land, inheritance, taxation, free trade and tariff, and discover the germs of international law and the state. the great questions of the day, as we call them, are little more than incidents to the working out of the great social institutions, and these are the expansions and modified forms of the family amid its unceasing support and activity." 29. =the family on the farm.=--the best environment in which to study the family is the farm. there the relations and activities of the larger world appear in miniature, but with a greater simplicity and unity than elsewhere. there the family gets closer to the soil, and its members feel their relation to nature and the restrictions that nature imposes upon human activity. there appear the occupations of the successive stages of history--hunting, the care of domesticated animals, agriculture, and manufacturing; there are the activities of production, distribution, and consumption of economic goods. there a consciousness of mutual dependence is developed, and the value of co-operation is illustrated. there the mind ranges less fettered than in the town, yet is less inclined toward radical changes. there the family preserves and hands down from one generation to another the heritage of the past, and stimulates its members to further progress. in the family on the farm children learn how to live in association with their kin and with hired employees; there much of the mental, moral, and religious training is begun; and there is found most of the sympathy and encouragement that nerves the boy to go out from home for the struggle of life in the larger community and the world. 30. =physical conditions of farm life.=--every group, like every individual, is dependent in a measure on its physical environment. the prosperity of the family on the farm and the daily activities of its members wait often upon the quality of climate and soil and the temper of the weather. the rocky hillsides of mountain lands like switzerland breed a hardy, self-reliant people, who make the most of small opportunities for agriculture. a well-watered, rolling country pours its riches into the lap of the husbandman; in such surroundings he is likely to be more cheerful but less gritty than the scottish highlander. the pioneer settlers of america, in their trek into the ulterior, faced the forest and its terrors, and every member of the family who was old enough added his ounce of effort to the struggle to subdue it. their descendants enjoy the fruits of the earlier victory. the well-trimmed woodland and fertile field are attractive to him; nature in varying moods interests him. even on the edge of the western desert the farmer is the master of a process of dry farming or irrigation, so that he can smile at nature's effort to drive him out. science and education have helped to make man more independent of natural forces and natural moods, but still it is nature that provides the raw materials, that supplies the energy of wind and water and sunshine, and that hastens prosperity if man learns to co-operate with it. success in the economic struggle of the family has always been conditioned upon the physical environment, and it will always remain one of the factors that shape human destiny. 31. =inheritance of family traits.=--another factor that enters into family life is the physical nature of its members, the quality of the stock from which the family is descended. heredity is as important in sociological study as environment. it is well known that a child inherits racial and family traits from his ancestors, and these he cannot shake off altogether as he grows older. families have their peculiarities that continue from one generation to another. the family endowment is often the foundation of individual success. without physical sturdiness the man and woman on the farm are seriously handicapped and are liable to succumb in the struggle for existence; without mental ability and moral stamina members of the family fail to make a broad mark on the community, and the family influence declines. mere acquisition or transmission of wealth does not constitute good fortune. this fact of heredity must therefore be reckoned with in all the activities of the family, and cannot be overlooked in a study of the psychic factors which are the real social forces. 32. =the domestic function of the family.=--the farm family for the purpose of study may be thought of as composed of husband and wife, children and servants, but the makers of the family are of first importance for its understanding. the family has a long history, but it exists, not because it is a long-established institution, but because it satisfies present human needs, as all institutions must if they are to survive. the family serves many ends, but as the primary social instincts are to mate and to eat, so the principal functions of the family are the _domestic_ and the _economic_. the normal adult desires to mate, to have and rear children, and to make a home. to this his sexual and parental instincts impel him; they are nature's provision for the perpetuation of the race. the sex instinct attracts the man and the woman to each other, and marriage is the sanction of society to their union; the parental instinct gives birth to children and leads the father and mother to protect the child through the long years of dependence. marriage and parenthood are twin obligations that the individual owes to the race. celibacy makes no contribution to the perpetuation of the race, and unregulated sexual intercourse is a blight upon society. marriage lays the foundation of the home and makes possible the values that belong to that institution. children hold the family together; separation and divorce are most common in childless homes. personal service and sacrifice are engendered in the care of children; therefore it is that the family without children is not a perfect family, but an abnormality as a social institution. for these reasons custom and law protect the home, and religion declares marriage a sacred bond and reproduction a sacred function. it is the long experience of the race that has made plain the fundamental importance of the marriage relation, and history shows how step by step man and woman have struggled toward higher standards of mutual appreciation and co-operation. from past history and present tendencies it is possible to determine values and weaknesses and to point out dangers and possibilities. as the family group is fundamental to an understanding of the community, so the relation of man and woman are essential to a comprehension of the complete family, and investigation of their relations must precede a study of the social development of the child in the home, or of the economic relations of the farmer and his assistants. nothing more clearly illustrates the factors that enter into all human relations than the story of how the family came to be. reading references henderson: _social elements_, pages 62-70. ellwood: _sociology and modern social problems_, 1913 edition, pages 74-82. bosanquet: _the family_, pages 241-259. dealey: _the family in its sociological aspects_, pages 1-11. butterfield: "rural life and the family," _american journal of sociology_, vol. 14, pages 721-725. henderson: "are modern industry and city life unfavorable to the family?" _american journal of sociology_, vol. 14, pages 668-675. chapter iv the history of the family 33. =how the family came to be.=--the modern family among civilized peoples is based almost universally on the union of one man and one woman. there is good reason to believe that this practice of monogamy was in vogue among primitive human beings, but marriage was unstable and it was only through long experimentation that monogamy proved itself best fitted to survive. at first conjugal affection, which has become intelligent and moral, was merely a sexual desire that led the man to seek a mate and the maid to choose among her suitors. unbound by long-continued custom or legal and ceremonial restriction, the primitive couple were free to separate if they pleased, but the instinctive feeling that they belonged to each other, the habits of association, adaptation, and co-operation, and jealousy at any attention shown by another tended to preserve the relationship. the presence of offspring sealed the bond as long as the children were dependent, and strengthened the sense of mutual responsibility. the children were peculiarly the mother's children since she gave them birth, but the father instinctively protected the family that was growing up around him, and procured food and shelter for its members, though it is doubtful if he had any realization of his part in giving life to a new generation. during this period of social development, when the mother's presence constituted the home and the children were regarded as belonging primarily to her, descent was reckoned in the female line, the children were attached to the maternal clan of blood relatives, and such relatives began to move in bands, for the same reason that animals move in packs and herds. some writers speak of it as a matriarchal period, but it does not appear that women governed; it is more proper to speak of the family as metronymic, for the children bore the mother's name and maternity outweighed paternity in social estimate. 34. =the patriarchal household.=--when population increased and food consequently became more difficult to obtain, the domestication of animals was achieved, and nomadic habits carried the family from pasture to pasture; rival clans wanted the same regions, wars broke out, and physical superiority asserted its claims. the man supplanted the woman as the important member of the household, reduced the others to submission, added to his wives and servants by capture or purchase, and established the patriarchal system. descent henceforth was reckoned in the paternal line, and society had become patronymic instead of metronymic. it must not be supposed that this change occurred very suddenly. it may have taken many centuries to bring it about, but as the man learned his part in procreation and his power in society, he delighted in his self-importance to lord it over the woman and her children. the marriage relation ceased to be free and reciprocal. the wife no longer had a choice in marriage. bought or captured, she was no longer wooed for a companion, but was valued according to her economic worth. as population pressed, the domestication of plants followed the taming of animals, but the agricultural settlement of the family only made the woman's lot harder, for she was the burden bearer on the farm. 35. =polygyny.=--a better term than polygamy--was the inevitable result of the patriarchal system. man made the law and the law recognized no restraint upon his sexual and parental instincts. improvements in living added to the resources of the family and made it possible to maintain large households of wives, children, and slaves. polygyny had some social utility, because it increased the number of children, and this gave added prestige and power to the family, as slavery had utility because it provided a labor force; but both were weaknesses in ancient society, because they did not tend in the long run to human welfare. polygyny brutalized men, degraded women, and destroyed that affection and comradeship between parents and their offspring that are the proper heritage of children. wherever it has survived as a system, polygyny has hindered progress, and wherever it exists in the midst of monogamy it tends to break down civilization. another variety of marriage that has been less common than polygyny is polyandry. it is a term that signifies the marriage of one woman to several husbands, and seems to have occurred, as in the interior of asia, only where subsistence was especially difficult or women comparatively few. neither polygyny nor polyandry were universal, even where they were a frequent practice. only the few could afford the indulgence, much the largest percentage of the people remained monogamous. 36. =conflict and social selection.=--the supreme business of the social group is to adapt itself to the conditions that affect its life. it must learn to get on with its physical environment and with other social groups with which it comes into relation. the methods of adaptation are conflict and co-operation. the primitive savage and his wife learned to work together, and his family and hers very likely kept the peace, until through the increase of population they felt the pinch of hunger when the supply did not equal the demand. then came conflict. conflict is an essential element in all progress. there is conflict between the lower and higher impulses in the human mind, conflict between selfish ambition and the welfare of the group, conflict among individuals and races for a place in the sun. it is conceivable that the baser impulses that provoke much social conflict may give way to more rational and altruistic purpose, but it is difficult to see how all friction can be avoided in social relations. it is certainly to be reckoned with in the history of group life. the story of human progress shows that in the social conflict those groups survive which have become best adapted to life conditions and so are fitted to cope with their enemies. in the story of the family male leadership proved most useful and was perpetuated, but the practice of polygyny and polyandry proved in the long run to be hurtful to success in the sturdy struggle for existence. 37. =ancestor-worship.=--when a practice or institution is seen to work well it soon becomes indorsed by social custom, law, or religion. the patriarchal system became fortified by ancestor-worship, which helped to keep the family subordinate to its male head. even the dead hand of the patriarch ruled. the paternal ancestors of the family were believed to have the power to bless or curse their descendants, and they were faithfully placated with gifts and veneration, as has continued to be the custom in china. among the romans the household gods were cherished at the hearth long before jupiter became king of heaven; æneas must save his ancestral-images if he lost all else in the fall of troy. at rome the worship of a common ancestor was the strongest family bond. the marriage ceremony consisted of a solemn transfer of the bride from her duties to her own ancestors over to the adoption of her husband's gods. this transfer of allegiance helped to perpetuate the patriarchal system, and the sanction of religion greatly strengthened the wedded relation, so that divorce and polygyny were unknown in the old roman period. but the absolute patriarchal control of wife and children made the man selfish and arbitrary and weakened the bond of affection and mutual interests, while roman political conquest strengthened the pride and power of the imperial masters. religion lost its prestige and the family bond loosened, until from being one of the purest of social institutions in the early days of the republic, the roman family became one of the most degenerate. this boded ill for the future of the race and empire. 38. =the mediæval family.=--the roman family seemed in danger of disintegrating, for the matron claimed rights that ran counter to the rights of the man, when two new forces entered roman society and checked this tendency toward disintegration. the first was christianity, the second was teutonic conquest. christianity taught consideration for women and children, but it taught submission to the man in the home, and so was a constructive force in the conservation of the family. teutonic custom was similar to the early roman. when teutonic enterprise pushed a new race over the goal of race conflict and took in charge the administration of affairs in roman society, there was a restoration of the rule of force and so of masculine supremacy. in the lord's castle and the peasant's hut the authority of the man continued unquestioned through the middle ages, and the church made monogamous marriage a binding sacrament; but sexual infidelity was common, especially of the husband, and divorce was not unknown. in the civilized lands of christendom monogamy was the only form of marriage recognized by civil law, and with the slow growth toward higher standards of civilization the harshness of patriarchal custom has become softened and the rights of women and children have been increased by law, though not without endangering the solidarity of the family. similarly, the standards of sex conduct have improved. 39. =advantages of monogamy.=--the advantages of monogamy are so many that in spite of the present restiveness under restraint it seems certain to become the permanent and universal type as reason asserts its right and controls impulse. nature seems to have predetermined it by maintaining approximately an equal number of the sexes, and nature frowns upon promiscuity by penalizing it with sterility and neglect of the few children that are born, so that in the struggle for existence the fittest survive by a process of natural selection. a study of biology and anthropology gives added evidence that nature favors monogamy, for in the highest grade of animals below man the monogamic relation holds almost without exception, and low-grade human races follow the same practice. there are moral advantages in monogamy that alone are sufficient to insure its permanence. it is to the advantage of society that altruistic and kindly feelings should outweigh jealousy, anger, and selfishness. monogamy encourages affection and mutual consideration, and in that atmosphere children learn the graces and virtues that make social life wholesome and attractive. welcomed in the home, they receive the care and instruction of both parents and become socialized for the larger and later responsibilities of the social order. in the altruism thus developed lie the roots of morals and religion. it is well agreed that the essence of each is the right motive to conduct. love to men and to god is an accepted definition of religion, and ethics is grounded on that principle. love is the ruling principle of the monogamic family; from the narrower domestic circle it extends to the community and to all mankind. 40. =marriage laws.=--in spite of the general practice of monogamy as a form of marriage and the noble principles that underlie the monogamic type of family, sex relations need the restraint of law. human desires are selfish and ideals too often give way before them unless there is some kind of external control. there have been times when the church had such control, and in certain countries individual rulers have determined the law; but since the eighteenth century there has been a steady trend in the direction of popular control of all social relations. this tendency has been carried farthest in the united states, where public opinion voices its convictions and compels legislative action. it is natural that the people of certain states should be more progressive or radical than others, and therefore in the absence of a national law, there is considerable variety in the marriage and divorce laws, but no other country has higher ideals of the married relation and at the same time as large a measure of freedom. at present marriage laws in the united states agree generally on the following provisions: (1) every marriage must be licensed by the state and the act of marriage must be reported to the state and registered. (2) marriage is not legal below a certain age, and consent of parents must be obtained usually until the man is twenty-one and the woman eighteen. (3) certain persons are forbidden marriage because of near relationship or personal defect. such marriage if performed may be annulled. (4) remarriage may take place after the death of husband or wife, after disappearance for a period varying from three to seven years, or a certain time after divorce. in the twenty-year period between 1886 and 1906 covered by the united states census of marriage and divorce slow improvements were made in legislation, but a number of states are far behind others in the enactment of suitable laws, and most of the states do not make the provisions that are desirable for law enforcement. yet there is a limit of strictness beyond which marriage laws cannot safely go, because they hinder marriage and provoke illicit relations. that limit is fixed by the sanction of public opinion. after all, there is less need of better regulation than of the education of public opinion to the sacredness of marriage and to its importance for human welfare. without the restraints put upon impulse by the education of the understanding and the will, young people often assume family obligations thoughtlessly and even flippantly, when they are ill-mated and often unacquainted with each other's characteristic qualities. such marriages usually bring distress and divorce instead of growing affection and unity. without education in the obligation of marriage many well-qualified persons delay it or avoid it altogether, because they are unwilling to bear the burdens of family support, childbearing, and housekeeping. society suffers loss in both cases. 41. =reforms and ideals.=--because of all these deficiencies several remedies have been proposed and certain of them adopted. because of the economic difficulties, it is urged that as far as possible by legislation, illegitimate ways of heaping up wealth for the few at the expense of the many should be checked, and that by vocational training boys should be fitted for a trade and girls prepared for housekeeping. to meet other difficulties it is proposed that popular instruction be given from press and pulpit, in order that the moral and spiritual plane of married life may be uplifted. the marriage ideal is a well-mated pair, physically and intellectually qualified, who through affection are attracted to marriage and through mutual consideration are ready unselfishly to seek each other's welfare, and who recognize in marriage a divinely ordered provision for human happiness and for the perpetuation of the race. such a marriage does not plant the seeds of discord and neighborly scandal or compel a speedy resort to the divorce court. reading references dealey: _the family in its sociological aspects_, pages 12-84. howard: _history of matrimonial institutions_, ii, pages 388-497. goodsell: _the family as a social and educational institution_, pages 5-47. bosanquet: _the family_, part i. "report on marriage and divorce, 1906," _bureau of the census_, i, pages 224-226. bliss: _encyclopedia of social reform_, art. "family." chapter v the making of the home 42. =the story of the home.=--marriage is the gateway of the home; the home is the shelter of the family. it is the cradle of children, the nursery of mutual affection, and the training-school for citizenship in the community. the physical comfort of its inmates depends upon the house and its furnishings, but fondness for the home develops only in an atmosphere of good-will and kindness. the home has a story of its own, as has the family. in primitive days there was little necessity of a dwelling-place, except as a nest for young or a cache for provisions. a cave or a rough shelter of boughs was a makeshift for a home. thither the hunter brought the game that he had killed, and there slept the glutton's sleep or went supperless to bed. when the hunter became a herdsman and shepherd and moved from place to place in search of pasture, he found it convenient to fashion a tent for his home, as the hebrew patriarchs did when they roamed over canaan and as the bedouin of the desert does still. a settled life with a measure of civilization demanded a better and a stationary home, the degree of comfort varying with the desire and ambition of the householder and the amount of his wealth. to thousands home was little more than a place to sleep. even in imperial rome the proletariat occupied tall, ramshackle tenements, like the submerged poor who exist in the slums of modern cities. in mediæval europe the peasant lived in a one-room hovel, clustered with others in a squalid hamlet upon the estate of a great landowner. the hut was poorly built, often of no better material than wattled sticks, cemented with mud, covered over with turf or thatch, usually without chimneys or even windows. the place was absolutely without conveniences. summer and winter the family huddled together in the single room of the hut, faring forth to work in the morning, sleeping at night on bundles of straw, each person in the single garment that he wore through the day, and at convenient intervals breaking fast on black bread, salt meat, and home-brewed beer. there was no inducement for a landless serf to spend care or labor upon houses or surroundings; pigs and babies were permitted to tumble about both indiscriminately. peasant homes in the orient are little if any better now than european homes in the middle ages. the houses are rude structures and ill-kept. in the villages of india it is not unusual to occupy one house until it becomes so unsanitary as to be uninhabitable, and then to move elsewhere. even royal courts in mediæval europe moved from palace to palace for the same reason. it is a mistake to suppose that the squalid conditions found in the slums are peculiar to them; they are survivals of a lower stage of human existence found in all parts of the world, due to psychical, social, and economic conditions that are not easily changed, but conspicuous in the midst of modern progress. 43. =the ancestral type.=--in ancient egypt, greece, and rome only the higher classes enjoyed any degree of comfort. accustomed to inconveniences, few even among them knew such luxuries as are common to middle-class americans. the castle and manor-house of the mediæval lord were still more comfortless. in america the colonial log cabin and the sod house of the prairie pioneer were primitively incomplete. the struggle for existence and the difficulty of manufacture and transportation allowed few comforts. american homes, even a hundred years ago, knew nothing of furnaces and safety-matches, refrigerators and electric fans, bathtubs and sanitary accommodations, carpet-sweepers and vacuum cleaners, screen doors and double windows, hammocks and verandas. neither law nor social custom required a good water or drainage system. a healthful or attractive location for the house received little thought; outbuildings were in close proximity to the house, if not attached to it. the furnishings of the house lacked comfort and beauty. interior decorations of harmonious design were absent. instruments of music were rare; statuary and paintings were beyond the reach of any but the richest purse. 44. =social values.=--on the other hand, there was in many a dwelling a home atmosphere that made up for the lack of conveniences. there was a bond of unity that was felt by every member of the family, and a spirit of mutual affection and self-sacrifice that stood a hard strain through poverty, sickness, and ill fortune of every sort. father and mother, boys and girls were not afraid to work, and when the time came for relaxation there was little to attract away from the home circle. people had less to enjoy, but they were better contented with what they had. they had little money to spend, but their frugal tastes and habits of thrift fortified them against want, and there was little need of public or private charity. the home was frequently a school of moral and religious education. selfishness in all its forms was discountenanced. there was no room for the idler, no time for laziness. social hygiene and domestic science were not taught as such, but young people learned their responsibilities and grew up equipped to establish homes of their own. parents were faithful instructors in the homely virtues of truthfulness, honesty, faithfulness, kindness, and love. religion in the family was by no means universal, but in hundreds of homes religion was recognized as having legitimate demands upon the individual; religious exercises were observed at the mother's knee, the table, and the family altar; all the family attended church together, and were expected to take upon themselves the responsibilities of church membership. 45. =gains and losses.=--in the making of a modern home there have been both addition and subtraction. life has gained immeasurably in comfort and convenience for the well-to-do, but the comfortless quarters of the poor drive the man to the saloon and the child to the streets. for the fortunate the home has become enriched with music, art, and literature, but it has lost much of the earlier simplicity, economic thrift, moral sturdiness, and religious principle and practice. for the poor life is so hard that the good qualities, if they ever existed, have tended to disappear without any compensation in culture. it is well understood that the home environment has most to do with shaping individual character. if the homely virtues are not cultivated there, society will suffer; if cold and cheerlessness are characteristic of its atmosphere, there will be little warmth in the disposition of its inmates toward society. every home of the right sort is an asset to the community. it is an experiment station for social progress. every married couple that sets up housekeeping starts a new centre of group life. if they diffuse a helpful atmosphere social virtues will develop and social efficiency increase. on the other hand, many homes are a menace to the community, because an ill-mated pair, poorly equipped for the struggle of existence, create a centre of group life in which the individual is handicapped physically and morally and too often becomes a curse to society at large. when it is remembered that the home is at the same time the power-house that generates the forces that push society forward, and the channel through which are transmitted the ideas and achievements of all the past, it will seem to be the supremely important institution that human experience has devised and sanctioned. 46. =the ideal home.=--the ideal home toward which the average home will be gradually approximating will be housed in a well-built dwelling of approved architecture; erected in a healthy location with room enough around it to give air space, and a bit of out-of-doors to enjoy; tastefully furnished and decorated inside, but without ostentation or extravagance; occupied by a healthy, happy family of parents and children who care more for each other and for their neighbors than for selfish pleasure and display, and who are learning how to play a worthy part in the folk life of their community and nation, and how to appreciate the highest and finest qualities that mind and spirit can develop in themselves or others. if for economic or social reasons any of this is impossible, there is a weakness in society that calls for prompt repair. reading references starr: _first steps in human progress_, pages 149-158. jessopp: _the coming of the friars_, pages 87-104. gillette: _constructive rural sociology_, pages 170-178. carney: _country life and the country school_, pages 18-38. richards: "the farm home," art. in _cyclopedia of agriculture_, iv, pages 280-284. chapter vi children in the home 47. =children complete the home.=--if the legend of the pied piper of hameln should come true and all the children should run away from home, or if by some strange stroke of fortune no children should be born in a village or town for ten years or more, the tragedy of the childless home would be realized. there are localities and even nations where the birth-rate is so small that population is little more than stationary. in the united states the native birth-rate tends to decline, while the rate of immigrant foreigners greatly exceeds it. the higher the degree of comfort and luxury in the home the smaller the birth-rate seems to be a principle of social experience. there are selfish people who shirk the responsibilities and troubles of parenthood, and there are social diseases that tend to sterility, but the childless home is always an incomplete home. children are the crown of marriage, the enrichment of the home, the hope of society in the future. the needs of the children stimulate parents to unselfish endeavor. children are the comfort of the poor and distressed. the wedded life of a human pair may be ideal in every other respect, but one of the main functions of marriage is unaccomplished when the family remains incomplete. 48. =the right to be well-born.=--the child comes into the home in obedience to the same primary instinct that draws the parents to each other. he calls out the affections of the parents and their intellectual resources, for he is dependent upon them, and often taxes their best judgment in coping with the difficulties that beset child life. but they often fail to realize that the child has certain inalienable rights as an individual and a potential member of society that demand their best gifts. there is first the right to be well-born. there is so much to contend with when once ushered into the world, that a child needs the best possible bodily inheritance. he needs to be rid of every encumbrance of physical unfitness if he is to live long and become a blessing and not a burden to society. handicapped at the start, he cannot hope to achieve a high level of attainment. it is little short of criminal for a child to be condemned to lifelong weakness or suffering, because his parents were not fit to give him birth. yet large numbers of parents make the thought of child welfare subordinate to their own desires. a man's primary concern in choosing a wife is his own personal satisfaction, not the birth and mothering of his children. many young women regard the attractiveness, social position, or wealth of a young man as of greater consequence than his physical or moral fitness to become the father of her children. there are thousands of persons who are mentally deficient or unmoral, who nevertheless are unrestrained by society from association and even marriage. it is a social misfortune that the unfit should be taken care of by the tender mercies of philanthropists and even permitted to propagate their kind, while no special encouragement is given to those who are supremely fit to give their best to the upbuilding of the race. the principle of brotherly kindness requires that the weak and unfortunate be taken care of, but they should not be permitted to increase. it is a principle of social welfare that those who are incapable of exercising self-control should be placed under the control of the larger group. 49. =eugenics in legislation.=--it is the conviction that the right to be well-born is a valid one, that has given rise to the science of eugenics. as a science it was first discussed by francis gallon, and it has interested writers, investigators, and legislators in all progressive countries. various specific proposals have been made in the interest of posterity, and agitation has resulted in certain experiments in legislation. it is not proposed that any should be required to marry, but it is thought possible to encourage the well qualified and to discourage and restrain the incapable. some of these proposals, such as the offering of a premium by the state for healthy children, or endowing mothers as public functionaries, are not widely approved, but great britain in a national insurance act in 1911 included the provision of maternity benefits in recognition of the mother's contribution to the citizenship of the nation. restrictive laws have been passed by certain of the states in america, which are eugenic experiments. feeble-mindedness, in so many ways a social evil, is readily reproduced, and the weak-minded are easily controlled by the sex instinct. to prevent this certain state legislatures have forbidden the marriage of any feeble-minded or epileptic woman under the age of forty-five. it is well known that insanity is a family trait, and that criminal insanity is liable to recur if those who are afflicted are permitted to indulge in parenthood. certain states accordingly annul the marriage of insane persons. venereal disease is easily transmitted; there has been a beginning of legislation prohibiting persons thus tainted to marry. it is well established that very many persons, while not actually tainted with such diseases as tuberculosis and alcoholism, are predisposed to yield to their attack. for this reason the scope of eugenic legislation is likely to be extended. some states have gone so far as to sterilize the unfit, that they may not by any chance exercise the powers of parenthood; it is urged in many quarters that clergymen require a medical certificate of good health before sanctioning marriage. 50. =family degeneracy.=--several impressive illustrations have been published of degenerate families that show the far-reaching effects of heredity. in contrast to these pictures, has been set the life story of families who have won renown in successive generations because of unusual ability. nothing so effective is presented by any argument as that of concrete cases. perhaps the best known of these stories is that of the jukes family. about the middle of the eighteenth century a normal man with a coarse, lazy vein in his nature built himself a hut in the woods of central new york. in five generations he had several hundred descendants. a study of twelve hundred persons who belonged to the family by kinship or marriage was made carefully, with the following findings. nearly all of the family were lazy, ignorant, and coarse. four hundred were physically diseased by their own fault. two hundred were criminals; seven of them murderers. fifty of the women were notoriously immoral. three hundred of the children died from inherited weakness or neglect. more than three hundred members of the family were chronic paupers. it is estimated that they cost the state a thousand dollars apiece for pauperism and crime. another family called the kallikak family, which has been made the subject of investigation, is a still better example of heredity. the family was descended from a revolutionary soldier, who had an illegitimate feeble-minded son by an imbecile young woman. the line continued by feeble-minded descent and marriage until four hundred and eighty descendants have been traced. of these one hundred and forty-three were positively defective, thirty-six were illegitimate, thirty-three sexually immoral, mostly prostitutes, eight kept houses of ill repute, three were criminal, twenty-four were confirmed drunkards, and eighty-two died in infancy. on the other hand, there are striking examples of what good birth and breeding can do. it happened that the ancestor of the kallikak family, after he had sown his wild oats, married well and had about five hundred descendants. all of them were normal, only two were alcoholic, and one sexually loose. the family has been prominent socially and in every way creditable in its history. in contrast to the jukes family, the history of the edwards family has been written. its members married well, were well-bred, and gave much attention to education. out of fourteen hundred individuals more than one hundred and twenty were yale graduates, and one hundred and sixty-five more completed their education at other colleges; thirteen were college presidents, and more than a hundred college professors; they were founders of schools of all grades; more than one hundred were clergymen, missionaries, and theological professors; seventy-five were officers in the army and navy; more than eighty have been elected to public office; more than one hundred were lawyers, thirty judges, sixty physicians, and sixty prominent in literature. not a few of them have been active in philanthropy, and many have been successful in business. it is impossible to escape from the conviction that whatever may be the physical and social environment, heredity perpetuates physical and mental worth or defectiveness and tends to produce social good or evil, and that the right to a worthy parentage belongs with the other rights to which individuals lay claim. it is as important as the right to a living, to an education, to a good home, or to the franchise. without it society is incalculably poorer and the ultimate effects of failure are startling to consider. 51. =marriage and education.=--some enthusiasts have demanded that to make sure of a good bodily inheritance, individuals be permitted to produce children without the trammels of marriage if they are well fitted for parenthood, but such persons seem ignorant or forgetful that free love has never proved otherwise than disastrous in the history of the race, and that physical perfection is not the sole good with which the child needs to be endowed, but that it must be supplemented with moral, mental, and spiritual endowment, and with the permanent affection and care of both parents in the home. galton himself acknowledges marriage as a prerequisite in eugenics by saying: "marriage, as now sanctified by religion and safeguarded by law in the more highly civilized nations, may not be ideally perfect, nor may it be universally accepted in future times, but it is the best that has hitherto been devised for the parties primarily concerned, for their children, for home life, and for society." the greatest hope of eugenics lies in social education. sex hygiene must in some way become a part of the child's stock of information, but knowledge alone does not fortify action. more important is it to deal with the springs of action, to teach the equal standard of purity for men and women, and the moral responsibility of parenthood to adolescent youth, and at the same time to impress upon the whole community its responsibility of oversight of morals for the good of the next generation. conviction of personal and social responsibility as superior to individual preferences is the only safety of society in all its relations, from eugenics through economics to ethics and religion. 52. =euthenics.=--euthenics is the science of controlled environment, as eugenics is the science of controlled heredity. the health and good fortune of the child depend on his surroundings as well as on his inheritance, and the gift of a perfect physique may be vitiated by an unwholesome environment. environment acts directly upon the physical system of the individual through climate, home conditions, and occupation; it acts indirectly by affecting the personal desires, idiosyncrasies, and possible conduct. when the child of an early settler was carried away from home on an indian raid, and brought up in the wigwam of the savage, he forgot his civilized heritage, and love for his foster-parents sometimes proved stronger than his natural affections. the child of the russian jew in europe has little ambition and rises to no high level, but in america he gains distinction in school and success in business. a natural environment of forest or plain may determine the occupation of a whole community; a fickle climate vitally affects its prosperity. whole races have entered upon a new future by migration. it is necessary to be cautious and not to ascribe to environment, as some do, the sole influence. every individual is the creature of heredity plus environment plus his own will. but it is not possible to overlook environment as some do, and expect by a miracle to make or preserve character in the midst of conditions of spiritual asphyxiation. if social life is to be pure and strong, communities and families, through the official care of overseers of health and industry and through the loving care of parents in the homes, must see that children grow up with the advantages of nourishing food, pure air, proper clothing, and means for cleanliness; that at the proper age they be given mental and moral instruction and fitted for a worthy vocation; that wholesome social relations be established by means of playgrounds, clubs, and societies; that industrial conditions be properly supervised, and young people be able to earn not alone a living but a marriageable wage; and that some means of social insurance be provided sufficient to prevent suffering and want in sickness and old age. in such an environment there is opportunity to realize the value that will accrue from a good inheritance, and there is incentive to make the most of life's possibilities as they come and go. ever since the importance of environment was made plain in the nineteenth century, social physicians have been trying all sorts of experiments in community therapeutics. many of the remedies will be discussed in various connections. it is enough to remark here that social education, social regulation, and social idealism are all necessary, and that a social utopia cannot be obtained in a day. 53. =the right to proper care.=--granted the right of the child to be well-born and the right to a favorable environment, there follows the right to be taken care of. this may be involved in the subject of a proper environment, but it deserves consideration by itself. there is more danger to the race from neglect than from race suicide. it is better that a child should not be born at all, than that he should be condemned to the hard knocks of a loveless home or a callous neighborhood. there is first the case of the child born out of wedlock, often a foundling with parentage unacknowledged. then there is the child who is legitimately born as far as the law is concerned, but whose parents had no legitimate right to bring him into the world, because they had no reasonable expectation that they could provide properly for his wants. the wretched pauper recks nothing of the future of his offspring. since the family group can never remain independent of the community, it may well be debated whether society is not under obligation to interfere and either by prohibition of excessive parenthood or by social provision for the care of such children, to secure to the young this right of proper care. cruelty is a twin evil of neglect. the history of childhood deserves careful study side by side with the history of womanhood. in primitive times not even the right to existence was recognized. abortion and infanticide, especially in the case of females, were practices used at will to dispose of unwelcome children, and these practices persisted among the backward peoples of asia and africa, until they were compelled to recognize the law of the white master when he extended his dominion over them. in the patriarchal household of classic lands, the child was under the absolute control of his father. religious regulations might demand that he be instructed in the history and obligations of the race, as in the case of the hebrew child, or the interests of the state might require physical training for its own defense, as in the case of sparta, but there was no consideration of child rights in the home. until the eighteenth century european children shared the hardships of poverty and discomfort common to the age, and often the cruelty of brutal and degraded parents; they were often condemned to long hours of industry in factories after the new industrial order caught them in its toils. in the mine and the mill and on the farm children have been bound down to labor for long and weary hours, until modern legislation has interfered. there are a number of reasons why child labor has been common. hereditary custom has decreed it. children have been looked upon by many races as a care and a burden rather than a responsibility and a blessing. their economic value was their one claim to be regarded as a family asset. even the religious teaching of jews and christians about the value and responsibility of children has not been influential enough to compel a recognition of their worth, though their innocence and purity, their faith and optimism are qualities indispensable to the race of mankind if social relations are to approach the ideal. 54. =the value of work.=--labor is a social blessing rather than a curse. there can be no doubt that habits of industry are desirable for the child as well as for the adult. idleness is the forerunner of ignorance, laziness, and general incapacity. it is no kindness to a child to permit him to spend all his time out of school in play. it gives him skill, a new respect for labor, and a new conception of the value of money, if he has a paper route, mows a lawn, shovels snow, or hoes potatoes. especially is it desirable that a boy should have some sort of an occupation for a few hours a day during the long summer vacation. the child on the farm has no lack of opportunity, but for the boy of the city streets there is little that is practicable, outside of selling papers or serving as messenger boy or bootblack; for the girl there is little but housework or department-store service. both need steady employment out of doors, and he who devises a method by which boys and girls can be taught such an occupation as gardening on vacant lots or in the city outskirts, and at the same time can be given a love for work and for the growing things of the country, will help to solve the problem of child labor and, incidentally, may contribute to the solution of poverty, incipient crime, and even of the rural problem and the high cost of living. reading references bosanquet: _the family_, pages 299-314. goddard: _the kallikak family._ eames: _principles of eugenics._ saleeby: _parenthood and race culture_, pages 213-236. mckeever: _farm boys and girls_, pages 171-196. galton: _inquiries into human faculty._ chapter vii work, play and education. 55. =child labor and its effects.=--excessive child labor away from home is one of the evils that has called for reform more than the lack of employment. the child has a right to the home life. it is injurious for him to be kept at a monotonous task under physical or mental strain for long hours in a manufacturing establishment, or to be deprived of time to study and to play. yet there are nearly two million children in the united states under sixteen years of age who are denied the rights of childhood through excessive labor. this evil began with the adoption of the factory system in modern industry. the introduction of light machinery into the textile mills of england made it possible to employ children at low wages, and it was profitable for the keepers of almshouses to apprentice pauper children to the manufacturers. some of them were not more than five or six years old, but were kept in bondage more than twelve hours a day. children were compelled to hard labor in the coal-mines, and to the dirty work of chimney sweeping. in the united states factory labor for children did not begin so soon, but by 1880 children eight years old were being employed in massachusetts for more than twelve hours a day, and in parts of the country children are still employed at long hours in such occupations as the manufacture of cotton, glass, silk, and candy, in coal-mines and canning factories. besides these are the newsboys, bootblacks, and messengers of the cities, children in domestic and personal service, and the child laborers on the farms. the causes of child labor lie in the poverty and greed of parents, the demands of employers, and often the desire of the children to escape from school and earn money. in spite of agitation and legislation, the indifference of the public permits it to continue and in some sections to increase. the harmful effects of child employment are numerous. it is true that two-thirds of the boys and nearly one-half of the girls employed in the united states are occupied with agriculture, most of them with their own parents, an occupation that is much healthier than indoor labor, yet agriculture demands long hours and wearisome toil. in the cities there is much night-work and employment in dangerous or unhealthy occupations. the sweating system has carried its bad effects into the homes of the very poor, for the younger members of the family can help to manufacture clothing, paper boxes, embroidery, and artificial flowers, and in spite of the law, such labor goes on far into the night in congested, ill-ventilated tenements. children cannot work in this way day after day for long hours without serious physical deterioration. some of them drop by the way and die as victims of an economic system and the social neglect that permits it. others lose the opportunity of an education, and so are mentally less trained than the normal american child, and ultimately prove less efficient as industrial units. for the time they may add to the family income, but they react upon adult labor by lowering the wage of the head of the family, and they make it impossible for the child when grown to earn a high wage, because of inefficiency. the associations and influences of the street are morally degrading, and in the associations of the workroom and the factory yard the whole tone of the life of individuals is frequently lowered. 56. =child-labor legislation.=--friends of the children have tried to stop abuses. trade-unions, consumers' leagues, and state bureaus have taken the initiative. voluntary organizations, like the national child labor committee, make the regulation of child labor their special object. they have succeeded in the establishment of a federal children's bureau in washington, and have encouraged state and national legislation. most of the states forbid the employment of children under a certain age, usually twelve or fourteen years, and require attention to healthful conditions and moderate hours. they insist also that children shall not be deprived of education, but there is often inadequate provision made for inspection and proper enforcement of laws. the friends of the children are desirous of a uniform child-labor law which, if adopted and enforced by competent inspectors, would prevent factory work for all under fourteen years of age, and for weak children under sixteen would prescribe a limited number of hours and allow no night-work, would require certain certificates of age and health before employment is given, and would compel school attendance and the attainment of a limited education before permission is granted to go into the factory. without doubt, it is a hardship to families in poverty that strong, growing children should not be permitted to go to work and help support those in need, but it is better for the social body to take care of its weak members in some other way, and for its own sake, as well as for the sake of the child, to make sure that he is physically and mentally equipped before he takes a regular place in the ranks of the wage-earners. 57. =the right to play.=--the play group is the first social training-ground for the child outside of the home, and it continues to be a desirable form of association, even into adult life, but it is only in recent years that adults have recognized the legitimacy of such a claim as the right to play. it was thought desirable that a boy should work off his restlessness, but the wood-pile provided the usual safety-valve for surplus energy. play was a waste of time. now it is more clearly understood that play has a distinct value. it is physically beneficial, expanding the lungs, strengthening muscle and nerve, and giving poise and elasticity to the whole body. it is mentally educational in developing qualities of quickness, skill, and leadership. it is socially valuable, for it requires honesty, fair play, mutual consideration, and self-control. co-operation of effort is developed as well in team-play as in team-work, and the child becomes accustomed to act with thought of the group. the play group is a temporary form of association, varying in size and content as the whim of the child or the attraction of the moment moves its members. it is an example of primitive groupings swayed by instinctive impulses. children turn quickly from one game to another, but for the time are absorbed in the particular play that is going on. no achievement results from the activity, no organization from the association. the rapid shifting of the scenes and the frequent disputes that arise indicate lack of control. yet it is out of such association that the social mind develops and organized action becomes possible. if these are the advantages of play, the right to play may properly demand an opportunity for games and sports in the home and the yard, and the necessary equipment of gymnasium and field. it may call for freedom from the school and home occupations sufficient to give the recreative impulse due scope. as its importance becomes universally recognized, there will be no neighborhood, however congested, that lacks its playground for the children, and no industry, however insistent, that will deprive the boy or girl of its right to enjoy a certain part of every day for play. 58. =the right to liberty.=--the present tendency is to give large liberty to the child. not only is there freedom on the playground; but social control in the home also has been giving place during the last generation to a recognition of the right of the individual child to develop his own personality in his own way, without much interference from authority. it is true that there is a nominal control in the home, in the school, and in the state, but in an increasing degree that control is held in abeyance while parent, teacher, and constable leniently indulge the child. this is a natural reaction from the discipline of an earlier time, and is a welcome indication that children's rights are to find recognition. like most reactions, there is danger of its going too far. an inexperienced and headstrong child needs wise counsel and occasional restraint, and within the limits of kindness is helped rather than harmed by a deep respect for authority. lawlessness is one of the dangers of the current period. it appears in countless minor misdemeanors, in the riotous acts of gangs and mobs, in the recklessness of corporations and labor unions, and in national disregard for international law; and its destructive tendency is disastrous for the future of civilized society unless a new restraint from earliest childhood keeps liberty from degenerating into license. 59. =the right to learn.=--there is one more right that belongs to children--the right of an opportunity to learn. approximately three million children are born annually in the united states. each one deserves to be well-born and well-reared. he needs the affectionate care of parents who will see that he learns how to live. this instruction need not be long delayed, and should not be relegated altogether to the school. there is first of all physical education. it is the mother's task to teach the child the principles of health, to inculcate proper habits of eating, drinking, and bathing. it is for her to see that he learns how to play with pleasure and profit, and is permitted to give expression to his natural energies. it is her privilege to make him acquainted with nature, and in a natural way with the illustration of flower and bird and squirrel she can give the child first lessons in sex hygiene. it is the function of the mother in the child's younger years and of the father in adolescent boyhood to open the mind of the child to understand the life processes. the lack of knowledge brings sorrow and sin to the family and injures society. seeking information elsewhere, the boy and girl fall into bad habits and lay the foundation of permanent ills. the adolescent boy should be taught to avoid self-abuse, to practise healthful habits, and to keep from contact with physical and moral impurity; the adolescent girl should be given ample instruction in taking care of herself and in preparing for the responsibility of adult life. 60. =mental and moral education.=--mental education in the home is no less important. it is there that the child's instinctive impulses first find expression and he learns to imitate the words and actions of other members of the home. the things he sees and handles make their impressions upon him. he feels and thinks and wills a thousand times a day. the channels of habit are being grooved in the brain. it is the function of the home to protect him from that which is evil, to stimulate in him that which is good. mental and moral education are inseparably interwoven. the first stories told by the mother's lips not only produce answering thoughts in the child mind, but answering modes of conduct also. the chief function of the intellect is to guide to right choice. character building is the supreme object of life. it begins early. learning to obey the parent is the first step toward self-control. learning to know the beautiful from the ugly, the true from the false, the good from the evil is the foundation of a whole system of ethics. learning to judge others according to character and attainment rather than according to wealth or social position cultivates the naturally democratic spirit of the child, and makes him a true american. sharing in the responsibility of the home begets self-reliance and dependableness in later life. the supreme lesson of life is to learn to be unselfish. the child in the home is often obliged to yield his own wishes, and finds that he gets greater satisfaction than if he had contended successfully for his own claims. in the home the compelling motive of his life may be consecrated to the highest ideals, long before childhood has merged into manhood. such consecration of motive is best secured through a knowledge of the concrete lives of noble men and women. the noble characters of history and literature are portraits of abstract excellences. it is the task of moral education in the home to make the ideal actual in life, to show that it is possible and worth while to be noble-minded, and that the highest ambition that a person can cherish is to be a social builder among his fellows. 61. =child dependents.=--many children are not given the rights that belong to them in the home. they come into the world sickly or crippled, inheriting a weak constitution or a tendency toward that which is ill. they have little help from environment. one of a numerous family on a dilapidated farm or in an unhealthy tenement, the child struggles for an existence. poverty, drunkenness, crime, illegitimacy stamp themselves upon the home life. neglect and cruelty take the place of care and education. the death of one or both parents robs the children of home altogether. the child becomes dependent on society. the number of such children in the united states approximates one hundred and fifty thousand. in the absence of proper home care and training, society for its own protection and for the welfare of the child must assume charge. the state becomes a foster-parent, and as far as possible provides a substitute for the home. the earlier method was to place the individual child, with many other similar unfortunates, in a public or private philanthropic institution. in such an environment it was possible to maintain discipline, to secure instruction and a wholesome atmosphere for social development, and to have the advantage of economical management. but experience proved that a large institution of that kind can never be a true home or provide the proper opportunity for the development of individuality. the placing-out system, therefore, grew in favor. results were better when a child was adopted into a real home, and received a measure of family affection and individual care. even where a public institution must continue to care for dependent children, it is plainly preferable to distribute them in cottages instead of herding them in one large building. the principle of child relief is that life shall be made as nearly normal as possible. it is an accepted principle, also, that children shall be kept in their own home whenever possible, and if removal is necessary that they be restored to home associations at the earliest possible moment. in case of poverty, a charity organization society will help a needy family rather than allow it to disintegrate; in case of cruelty or neglect such an organization as the society for the prevention of cruelty to children will investigate, and if necessary find a better guardian; but the case must be an aggravated one before the society takes that last step, so important does the function of the home seem to be. 62. =special institutions.=--it is, of course, inevitable that some children should be misplaced and that some should be neglected by the civil authorities, but public interest should not allow such conditions to persist. social sensitiveness to the hard lot of the child is a product of the modern conscience. time was when the state remanded all chronic dependents to the doubtful care of the almshouse, and children were herded indiscriminately with their elders, as child delinquents were herded in the prisons with hardened criminals. idiots, epileptics, and deformed and crippled children were given no special consideration. a kindlier public policy has provided special institutions for those special cases where under state officials they may receive adequate and permanent attention, and for normal dependent children there is a variety of agencies. the most approved form is the state school. this is virtually a temporary home where the needy child is placed by investigation and order of the court, is given a training in elementary subjects, manual arts, and domestic science, and after three or four years is placed in a home, preferably on a farm, where he can fill a worthy place in society. 63. =children's aid societies.=--another aid society is the private aid society supervised and sometimes subsidized by the state. this is a philanthropic organization supported by private gifts, making public reports, managed by a board of directors, with a secretary or superintendent as executive officer, and often with a temporary home for the homeless. with these private agencies the placing-out principle obtains, and children are soon removed to permanent homes. the work of the aid societies is by no means confined to finding homes. it aids parents to find truant children, it gives outings in the summer season, it shelters homeless mothers with their children, it administers aid in time of sickness. in industrial schools it teaches children to help themselves by training them in such practical arts as carpentry, caning chairs, printing, cooking, dressmaking, and millinery. efficient oversight and management, together with co-operation among child-saving agencies, is a present need. a national welfare bureau is a decided step in advance. prevention of neglect and cruelty in the homes of the children themselves is the immediate goal of all constructive effort. the education of public opinion to demand universal consideration for child life is the ultimate aim. reading references mangold: _problems of child welfare_, pages 166-184, 271-341. clopper: _child labor in the city street._ mckeever: _training the boy_, pages 203-213. mckeever: _farm boys and girls_, pages 26-36. lee: _constructive and preventive philanthropy_, pages 123-184. folks: _care of destitute and neglected children._ chapter viii home economics 64. =the economic function of the home.=--up to this point the domestic function of the family has been under consideration. marriage and parenthood must hold first place, because they are fundamental to the family and to the welfare of the race. but the family has an economic as well as a domestic function. the primitive instinct of hunger finds satisfaction in the home, and economic needs are supplied in clothing, shelter, and bodily comforts. production, distribution, and consumption are all a part of the life of the farm. domestic economy is the foundation of all economics, and the family on the farm presents the fundamental principles and phenomena that belong to the science of economics as it presents the fundamentals of sociology. the hunger for food demands satisfaction even more insistently than the mating instinct. birds must eat while they woo each other and build their nests, and when the nest is full of helpless young both parents find their time occupied in foraging for food. similarly, when human mating is over and the family hearth is built, and especially when children have entered into the home life, the main occupation of man and wife is to provide maintenance for the family. the need of food, clothing, and shelter is common to the race. the requirements of the family determine largely both the amount and the kind of work that is done to meet them. however broad and elevated may be the interests of the modern gentleman and his cultured wife, they cannot forget that the physical needs of their family are as insistent as those of the unrefined day laborer. 65. =primitive economics.=--in primitive times the family provided everything for itself. in forest and field man and woman foraged for food, cooked it at the camp-fire that they made, and rested under a temporary shelter. if they required clothing they robbed the wild beasts of their hide and fur or wove an apron of vegetable fibre. physical wants were few and required comparatively little labor. in the pastoral stage the flocks and herds provided food and clothing. under the patriarchal system the woman was the economic slave. she was goatherd and milkmaid, fire-tender and cook, tailor and tent-maker. it was she who coaxed the grains to grow in the first cultivated field, and experimented with the first kitchen garden. she was the dependable field-hand for the sowing and reaping, when agriculture became the principal means of subsistence. but woman's position has steadily improved. she is no longer the slave but the helper. the peasant woman of europe still works in the fields, but american women long ago confined themselves to indoor tasks, except in the gathering of special crops like cotton and cranberries. home economics have taught the advantage of division of labor and co-operation. 66. =division of labor.=--because of greater fitness for the heavy labor of the field and barn, the man and his sons naturally became the agriculturists and stock-breeders as civilization improved. it was man's function to produce the raw material for home manufacture. he ploughed and fertilized the soil, planted the various seeds, cultivated the growing crops, and gathered in the harvest. it was his task to perform the rougher part of preparing the raw material for use. he threshed the wheat and barley on the threshing-floor and ground the corn at the mill, and then turned over the product to his wife. he bred animals for dairy or market, milked his cows, sheared his sheep, and butchered his hogs and beeves; it was her task to turn then to the household's use. she learned how to take the wheat and corn, the beef and pork, and to prepare healthful and appetizing meals for the household; she practised making butter and cheese for home use and exchange. she took the flax and wool and spun and wove them into cloth, and with her needle fashioned garments for every member of the household and furnishings for the common home. she kept clean and tidy the home and its manufacturing tools. when field labor was slack the man improved the opportunity to fashion the plough and the horseshoe at the forge, to build the boat or the cart in the shop, to hew store or cut timber for building or firewood, to erect a mill for sawing lumber or grinding grain. similarly the woman used her spare time in knitting and mending, and if time and strength permitted added to her duties the care of the poultry-house. 67. =the servant of the household.=--long before civilization had advanced the household included servants. when wars broke out the victor found himself possessed of human spoil. with passion unrestrained, he killed the man or woman who had come under his power, but when reason had a chance to modify emotion he decided that it was more sensible to save his captives alive and to work them as his slaves. the men could satisfy his economic interest, the women his sex desire. the men were useful in the field, the women in the house. ancient material prosperity was built on the slave system of industry. the remarkable culture of athens was possible because the citizens, free from the necessity of labor, enjoyed ample leisure. lords and ladies could live in their mediæval castles and practise chivalry with each other, because peasants slaved for them in the fields without pay. slowly the servant class improved its status. slaves became serfs and serfs became free peasants, but the relation of master and servant based on mutual service lasted for many centuries. the time came when it was profitable for both parties to deal on a money basis, and the workman began to know the meaning of independence. the actual relation of master and servant remained about the same, for the workman was still dependent upon his employer. it took him a long time to learn to think much for himself, and he did not know how to find employment outside of the community or even the household where he had grown up. in the growing democracy of england, and more fully in america, the workman learned to negotiate for himself as a free man, and even to become himself a freeholder of land. 68. =hired labor on the farm.=--in the process of production in doors and out it was impossible on a large farm for the independent farmer and his wife to get on alone. there must be help in the cultivation of many acres and in the care of cattle and sheep. there must be assistance in the home when the birth and care of children brought an added burden to the housewife. later the growing boys and girls could have their chores and thus add their contribution to the co-operative household, but for a time at least success on the farm depended on the hired laborer. husband and wife became directors of industry as well as laborers themselves. in the busy summer season it was necessary to employ one or more assistants in the field, less often indoors, and the employee became for a time a member of the family. often a neighbor performed the function of farm assistant, and as such stood on the same level as his employer; there was no servant class or servant problem, except the occasional shortage of laborers. young men and women were glad of an opportunity to earn a little money and to save it in anticipation of the time when they would set up farming in homes of their own. the spirit and practice of co-operation dignified the employment in which all were engaged. 69. =co-operation.=--the control of the manufacturing industry on a large scale by corporations makes hearty co-operation between the employing group and the employees difficult, but on the farm the personal relations of the persons engaged made it easy and natural. the art of working together as well as living together was an achievement of the home, at first beginning unconsciously, but later with a definite purpose. the practice of co-operation is a continual object-lesson to the children, as they become conscious of the mutual dependence of each and all. the farmer has no time to do the small tasks, and so the boy must do the chores. there is a limit to the strength of the mother, and so the daughter or housemaid must supplement her labors. without the grain and vegetables the housewife cannot provide the meals, but the man is equally dependent upon the woman for the preparation of the food. without the care and industry of the parents through the helpless years of childhood, the children could not win in the struggle for existence. nor is it merely an economic matter, but health and happiness depend upon the mutual consideration and helpfulness of every member of the household. 70. =economic independence of the farm.=--until well into the nineteenth century the american farm household provided for most of its own economic needs. a country store, helped out if necessary by an occasional visit to town, supplied the few goods that were not produced at home. economic wants were simple and means of purchase were not abundant. on the other hand, most of the products of the farm were consumed there. in the prevailing extensive agriculture the returns per acre were not great, methods of efficiency were not known or were given little attention, families were large and children and farm-hands enjoyed good appetites, and production and consumption tended to equalize themselves. in the process of the home manufacture of clothing it was difficult to keep the family provided with the necessary comforts; there was no thought of laying by a surplus beyond the anticipated needs of the family and provision for the wedding store of marriageable daughters. the distribution of any accumulated surplus was effected by the simplest mechanism of exchange. if the supply of young cattle was large or the wood-lot furnished more firewood than was needed, the product was bartered for seed corn or hay. there was swapping of horses by the men or of fruit or vegetable preserves by the women. eggs and butter disposed of at the store helped to pay for sugar, salt, and spices. new incentives to larger production came with the extension of markets. when wood and hay could be shipped to a distance on the railroad, when a milk route in the neighborhood or a milk-train to the city made dairy products more profitable, or when market gardening became possible on an extensive scale, better methods of distribution were provided to take care of the more numerous products. 71. =social and economic changes in the family.=--the fundamental principles that govern the economic activities of the family are the same as they used to be. industry, thrift, and co-operation are still the watchwords of prosperity. but with the development of civilization and the improvements in manufacture, communication, and transportation, the economic function of the family has changed. instead of producing all the crops that he may need or the tools of his occupation, the farmer tends to produce the particular crops that he can best cultivate and that will bring him the largest returns. because of increasing facilities of exchange he can sell his surplus and purchase the goods that will satisfy his other needs. the farmer's wife no longer spins and weaves the family's supply of clothing; the men buy their supply at the store and often even she turns over the task of making up her own gowns to the village dressmaker. where there is a local creamery she is relieved of the manufacture of butter and cheese, and the cannery lays down its preserves at her door. household manufacturing is confined almost entirely to the preparation of food, with a varying amount of dressmaking and millinery. in the towns and cities the needs of the family are even more completely supplied from without. children are relieved of all responsibility, women's care are lightened by the stock of material in the shops, and the bakery and restaurant help to supply the table. family life loses thereby much of its unity of effort and sympathy. the economic task falls mainly upon the male producer. even he lives on the land and in the house of another man; he owns not the tools of his industry and does business in another's name. he hires himself to a superior for wage or salary, and thereby loses in a measure his own independence. but there is a gain in social solidarity, for the chain of mutual dependence reached farther and binds more firmly; there is gain in community co-operation, for each family is no longer self-sufficient. reading references bosanquet: _the family_, pages 221-227, 324-333. thomas: _sex and society_, pages 123-146. small and vincent: _introduction to the study of society_, pages 105-108. mason: _woman's share in primitive culture._ weeden: _economic and social history of new england_, i, pages 324-326. chapter ix changes in the family 72. =causes of changes in the family.=--the family at the present time is in a transition era. its machinery is not working smoothly. its environment is undergoing transformation. a hundred years ago the family was strictly rural; not more than three per cent of the people lived in large communities. now nearly one-half are classified as urban by the united states census of 1910, and those who remain rural feel the influences of the town. there is far less economic independence on the farm than formerly, and in the towns and cities the home is little more than a place in which to sleep and eat for an increasing number of workers, both men and women. the family on the farm is no longer a perfectly representative type of the family in the more populous centres. these changes are due mainly to the requirements of industry, but partly at least to the desire of all members of the family to share in urban life. the increasing ease of communication and travel extends the mutual acquaintance of city and country people and, as the city is brought nearer, its pull upon the young people of the community strengthens. there is also an increasing tendency of the women folk to enter the various departments of industry outside of the home. it is increasingly difficult for one person to satisfy the needs of a large family. this tends to send the family to the city, where there are wider opportunities, and to drive women and children into socialized industry; at the same time, it tends to restrict the number of children in families that have high ideals for women and children. family life everywhere is becoming increasingly difficult, and at the same time every member of the family is growing more independent in temper. the result is the breaking up of a large number of homes, because of the departure of the children, the separation of husband and wife, the desertion of parents, or the legal divorce of married persons. the maintenance of the family as a social institution is seriously threatened. 73. =static vs. dynamic factors.=--there are factors entering into family life that act as bonds to cement the individual members together. such are the material goods that they enjoy in common, like the home with its comforts and the means of support upon which they all rely. in addition to these there are psychical elements that enter into their relations and strengthen these bonds. the inheritance of the peculiar traits, manners, and customs that differentiate one family from another; the reputation of the family name and pride in its influence; an affection, understanding, and sympathy that come from the intimacy of the home life and the appreciation of one another's best qualities are ties that do not easily rend or loosen. on the other hand, there are centrifugal forces that are pushing the members of the family apart. at the bottom is selfish desire, which frets at restriction, and which is stimulated by the current emphasis upon personal pleasure and individual independence. the family solidarity which made the sons democrats because their father voted that party ticket, or the daughters methodists because their mother's religious preferences were for that denomination, has ceased to be effective. every member of the family has his daily occupations in diverse localities. the head of the household may find his business duties in the city twenty miles away, or on the road that leads him far afield across the continent. for long hours the children are in school. the housewife is the only member of the family who remains at home and her outside interests and occupations have multiplied so rapidly as to make her, too, a comparative stranger to the home life. modern industrialism has laid its hand upon the women and children, and thousands of them know the home only at morning and night. 74. =the strain on the urban family.=--the rapid growth of cities, with the increase of buildings for the joint occupancy of a number of families, tends to disunity in each particular family and to a reduction in the size of families. the privacy and sense of intimate seclusion of the detached home is violated. the modern apartment-house has a common hall and stairway for a dozen families and a common dining-room and kitchen on the model of a hotel. the tenements are human incubators from which children overflow upon the streets, boarders invade the privacy of the family bedroom, and even sanitary conveniences are public. home life is violated in the tenement by the pressure of an unfavorable environment; it perishes on the avenue because of a compelling desire to gain as much freedom as possible from household care. the care of a modern household grows in difficulty. although the housekeeper has been relieved of performing certain economic functions that added to the burden of her grandmother, her responsibilities have been complicated by a number of conditions that are peculiar to the modern life of the town. social custom demands of the upper classes a far more careful observance of fashion in dress and household furnishings, and in the exchange of social courtesies. the increasing cost of living due to these circumstances, and to a constantly rising standard of living, reacts upon the mind and nerves of the housewife with accelerating force. and not the least of her difficulties is the growing seriousness of the servant problem. custom, social obligations, and nervous strain combine to make essential the help of a servant in the home. but the american maid is too independent and high-minded to make a household servant, and the american matron in the main has not learned how to be a just and considerate mistress. the result has been an influx of immigrant labor by servants who are untrained and inefficient, yet soon learn to make successful demands upon the employer for larger wages and more privileges because they are so essential to the comfort and even the existence of the family. family life is increasingly at the mercy of the household employee. it is not strange that many women prefer the comfort and relief of an apartment or hotel, that many more hesitate to assume the responsibility of marriage and children, preferring to undertake their own self-support, and that not a few seek divorce. 75. =family desertion.=--while the burden of housekeeping rests upon the wife, there are corresponding weights and annoyances that fall upon the man. business pressure and professional responsibility are wearying; he, too, feels the strain upon his nerves. when he returns home at evening he is easily disturbed by a worried wife, tired and fretful children, and the unmistakable atmosphere of gloom and friction that permeates many homes. he contrasts his unenviable position with the freedom and good-fellowship of the club, and chafes under the family bonds. in many cases he breaks them and sets himself free by way of the divorce court. the course of men of the upper class is paralleled by that of the working man or idler who meets similar conditions in a home where the servant does not enter, but where there is a surplus of children. he finds frequent relief in the saloon, and eventually escapes by deserting his family altogether, instead of having recourse to the law. this practice of desertion, which is the poor man's method of divorce, is one of the continual perplexities of organized charity, and constitutes one of the serious problems of family life. there are gradations in the practice of desertion, and it is not confined to men. the social butterfly who neglects her children to flutter here and there is a temporary deserter, little less culpable than the lazy husband who has an attack of _wanderlust_ before the birth of each child, and who returns to enjoy the comforts of home as soon as his wife is again able to assume the function of bread-winner for the growing family. from these it is but a step to the mutual desertion of a man and a woman, who from incompatibility of temper find it advisable to separate and go their own selfish ways, to wait until the law allows a final severance of the marriage bond. it is indisputable that this breaking up of the home is reacting seriously upon the moral character of the present generation; there is a carelessness in assuming the responsibility of marriage, and too much shirking of responsibility when the burden weighs heavily. there is a weakening of real affection and a consequent lack of mutual forbearance; there is an increasing feeling that marriage is a lottery and not worth while unless it promises increased satisfaction of sexual, economic, or social desires and ambitions. 76. =feminism.=--there can be no question that the growing independence of woman has complicated the family situation. in reaction against the long subjection that has fallen to her lot, the modern woman in many cases rebels against the control of custom and the expectations of society, refuses to regard herself as strictly a home-keeper, and in some cases is unwilling to become a mother. she seeks wider associations and a larger range of activities outside of the home, she demands the same rights and privileges that belong to man, and she dreams of the day when her power as well as her influence will help to mould social institutions. the feminist movement is in the large a wholesome reaction against an undeserved subserviency to the masculine will. undoubtedly it contains great social potencies. it deserves kindly reception in the struggle to reform and reconstruct society where society is weak. the present situation deserves not abuse, but the most careful consideration from every man. in countless cases woman has not only been repressed from activities outside of the family group, but has been oppressed in her own home also. america prides itself on its consideration for woman in comparison with the general european attitude toward her, but too often chivalry is not exercised in the home. often the wife has been a slave in the household where she should have been queen. she has been subject to the passion of an hour and the whim of a moment. she has been servant rather than helpmeet. upon her have fallen the reproaches of the unbridled temper of other members of the family; upon her have rested the burdens that others have shirked. husband and children have been free to find diversion elsewhere; family responsibilities or broken health have confined her at home. her husband might even find sex satisfaction away from home, but public opinion would be more lenient with him than with her if she offended. the time has come when it is right that these inequalities and injustices should cease. society owes to woman not only her right to her own person and property, but the right to bear, also, her fair share of social responsibility in this modern world. yet in the process of coming to her own, there is danger that the wife will forget that marriage is the most precious of human relations; that the home has the first claim upon her; that motherhood is the greatest privilege to which any woman, however socially gifted, can aspire; and that social institutions of tried worth are not lightly to be cast upon the rubbish heap. it is by no means certain that society can afford or that women ought to demand individualistic rights that will put in jeopardy the welfare of the remainder of the family. the average woman has not the strength to carry properly the burden of home cares plus large political and social responsibilities, nor has she the money to employ in the home all the modern improvements of labor-saving devices and skilled service that might in a measure take her place. nor is it at all certain that the granting of individual rights to women would tend to purify sex relations, but it is quite conceivable that the old moral and religious sanctions of marriage may disappear and the state assume the task of caring for all children. it is clear that the rights and duties of women constitute a very serious part of the problem of family life. 77. =individual rights vs. social duties.=--the greatest weakness to be found in twentieth-century society is the disposition on the part of almost all individuals to place personal rights ahead of social duties. the modern spirit of individualism has grown strong since the renaissance and the reformation. it has forced political changes until absolutism has been yielding everywhere to democracy. it has extended social privileges until it has become possible for any one with push and ability to make his way to the top rung of the ladder of social prestige. it has permitted freedom to profess and practise any religion, and to advocate the most bizarre ideas in ethics and philosophy. it has brought human individuals to the place where they feel that nothing may be permitted to stand between them and the satisfaction of personal desire. the disciples of nietzsche do not hesitate to stand boldly for the principle that might makes right, that he who can crush his competitors in the race for pleasure and profit has an indisputable claim on whatever he can grasp, and that the principle of mutual consideration is antiquated and ridiculous. such principles and privileges may comport with the elemental instincts and interests of unrestrained, primitive creatures, but they do not harmonize with requirements of social solidarity and efficiency. social evolution in the past has come only as the struggle for individual existence was modified by consideration for the needs of another, and social welfare in the future can be realized only as men and women both are willing to sacrifice age-long prejudice or momentary pleasure and profit to the permanent good of the larger group. reading references cooley: _social organization_, pages 356-371. brandt and baldwin: _family desertion._ dealey: _the family in its sociological aspects_, pages 85-95, 109-118. goodsell: _the family as a social and educational institution_, pages 456-477. howard: _history of matrimonial institutions_, iii, pages 239-250. chapter x divorce 78. =the main facts about divorce.=--an indication of the emphasis on individual rights is furnished by the increase of divorce, especially in the united states, where the demands of individualism and industrialism are most insistent. the divorce record is the thermometer that measures the heat of domestic friction. statistics of marriage and divorce made by the national government in 1886 and again in 1906 make possible a comparison of conditions which reveal a rapid increase in the number of divorces granted by the courts. certain outstanding facts are of great importance. (1) the number of divorces in twenty years increased from 23,000 to 72,000, which is three times the rate of increase of the population of the country. if this rate of progress continues, more than half the marriages in the united states will terminate in divorce by the end of the present century. (2) in the first census it was discovered that the number of divorces in the united states exceeded the total number of divorces in all the european countries; in the second census it was shown that the united states had increased its divorces three times, while japan, with the largest divorce rate in the world, had reduced its rate one-half. (3) divorces in the united states are least common among people of the middle class; they are higher among native whites than among immigrants, and they are highest in cities and among childless couples. (4) two-thirds of the divorces are granted on the demands of the wife. (5) divorce laws are very variable in the different states, but most divorces are obtained from the states where the applicants reside. 79. =causes of divorce.=--the causes recorded in divorce cases do not represent accurately the real causes, for the reason that it is easier to get an uncontested decision when the charges are not severe, and also for the reason that state laws vary and that which best fits the law will be put forward as the principal cause. divorce laws in the united states generally recognize adultery, desertion, cruelty, drunkenness, lack of support, and crime as legitimate grounds for divorce. in the five years from 1902 to 1906 desertion was given as the ground for divorce in thirty-eight per cent of the cases, cruelty in twenty-three per cent, and adultery in fifteen per cent. intemperance was given as the direct cause in only four per cent, and neglect approximately the same. the assignment of marital unfaithfulness in less than one-sixth of the cases, as compared with one-fourth twenty years before does not mean, however, that there is less unfaithfulness, but that minor offenses are considered sufficient on which to base a claim; the small percentage of charges of intemperance as the principal cause ought not to obscure the fact that it was an indirect cause in one-fifth of the cases. it is natural that the countries of europe should present greater variety of laws and of causes assigned. in england, where the law has insisted on adultery as a necessary cause, divorces have been few. in ireland, where the church forbids it, divorce is rare, less than one to thirty-five marriages. in scotland fifty per cent of the cases reported are due to adultery. cruelty was the principal cause ascribed in france, austria, and rumania; desertion in russia and sweden. the tendency abroad is to ascribe more rather than less to adultery. the real causes for divorce are more remote than the specific acts of adultery, desertion, or cruelty that are mentioned as grounds for divorce. the primary cause is undoubtedly the spirit of individual independence that demands its rights at the expense of others. in the case of women there is less hesitancy than formerly in seeking freedom from the marriage bond because of the increasing opportunity of self-support. the changing conditions of home life in the city, with the increasing cost of living, coupled with the ease of divorce, encourage resort to the courts. the unscrupulousness of some lawyers, who fatten their purses at the expense of marital happiness, and the meddlesomeness of relatives are also contributing causes. finally the restraint of religion has relaxed, and unhappy and ill-mated persons do not shrink from taking a step which was formerly condemned by the church. 80. =history of divorce.=--the history of divorce presents various opinions and practices. the hebrews had high ideals, but frequently fell into lax practices; the greeks began well but degenerated sadly to the point where marriage was a mere matter of convenience; the romans, noted for their sterling qualities in the early days of the republic, practised divorce without restraint in the later days of the empire. the influence of christianity was greatly to restrict divorce. the teaching of the bible was explicit that the basis of marriage was the faithful love of the heart, and that impure desire was the essence of adultery. illicit intercourse was the only possible moral excuse for divorce. true to this teaching, the christian church tried hard to abolish divorce, as it attempted to check all sexual evils, and the catholic church threw about marriage the veil of sanctity by making it one of the seven sacraments. as a sacrament wedlock was indissoluble, except as money or influence induced the church to turn back the key which it alone possessed. separation was allowed by law, but not divorce. greater stability was infused into the marriage relation. yet it is not possible to purify sex relations by tying tightly the marriage bond. unfaithfulness has been so common in europe among the higher classes that it occasioned little remark, until the social conscience became sensitive in recent decades, and among the lower classes divorce was often unnecessary, because so many unions took place without the sanction of the church. in protestant countries there has been a variable recession from the extreme catholic ground. the episcopal church in england and in colonial america recognized only the one biblical cause of unfaithfulness; the more radical protestants turned over the whole matter to the state. in new england desertion and cruelty were accepted alongside adultery as sufficient grounds for divorce, and the legislature sometimes granted it by special enactment. 81. =investigation and legislation in the united states and england.=--the divorce question provoked some discussion in this country about the time of the civil war, and some statistics were gathered. twenty years later the national government was induced by the national divorce reform league to take a careful census of marriage and divorce. this was published in 1889, and revised and reissued in 1909. these reports aroused the states which controlled the regulation of marriage and divorce to attempt improved legislation. almost universally among them divorce was made more difficult instead of easier. the term of residence before divorce could be obtained was lengthened; certain changes were made in the legal grounds for divorce; in less than twenty years fourteen states limited the privilege of divorced persons to remarry until after a specified time had elapsed, varying from three months to two years. congress passed a uniform marriage law for all the territories. it was believed almost universally that the constitution should be amended so as to secure a federal divorce law, but experience proved that it was better that individual states should adopt a uniform law. the later tendency has been in this direction. at the same time, the churches of the country interested themselves in the subject. the protestant episcopal church took strong ground against its ministers remarrying a divorced person, and the national council of congregational churches appointed a special committee which reported in 1907 in favor of strictness. fourteen protestant churches combined in an interchurch committee to secure united action, and the federal council of churches recorded itself against the prevailing laxness. the purpose of all this group action was to check abuses and to create a more sensitive public opinion, especially among moral and religious leaders. in great britain, on the other hand, divorce had always been difficult. there the strictness of the law led to a demand for a study of the subject and a report to parliament. the result was the appointment of a royal commission on divorce and matrimonial causes, consisting of twelve members, which investigated for three years, and in 1912 presented its report. it recognized the fact that severe restrictions were in force, and a majority of the commission regarding marriage as a legal rather than a sacramental bond, favored easier divorce and a single standard of morality for both sexes. it was proposed that the grounds for legal divorce should be adultery, desertion extending over three years, cruelty, incurable insanity after confinement for five years, habitual drunkenness found incurable after three years, or imprisonment carrying with it a sentence of death. a minority of the committee still regarding marriage as a sacrament, favored no relaxation of the law as it stood. 82. =proposed remedies.=--various remedies have been proposed to stem the tide of excessive divorce. there are many who see in divorce nothing more than a healthy symptom of individual independence, a revolt against conditions of the home that are sometimes almost intolerable. many others are alarmed at the rapid increase of divorce, especially in the united states, and believe that checks are necessary for the continued existence of the family and the well-being of society. the first reform proposed as a means of prevention of divorce is the revision of the marriage laws on a higher model. the second is a stricter divorce law, made as uniform as possible. the third is the adoption of measures of reconciliation which will remove the causes that provoke divorce. the proposed laws include such provisions as the prohibition of marriage for those who are criminal, degenerate, or unfitted to perform the sex function; the requirement of six months' publication of matrimonial banns and a physical certificate before marriage; a strictly provisional decree of divorce; the establishment of a court of domestic relations, and a prohibition of remarriage of the defendant during the life of the plaintiff. these are reasonable restrictions and seem likely to be adopted gradually, as practicable improvements over the existing laws. it is also proposed that the merits of every case shall be more carefully considered, and the judicial procedure improved by the appointment of a divorce proctor in connection with every court trying divorce cases, whose business it shall be to make investigations and to assist in trying or settling specific cases. experiment has proved the value of such an officer. 83. =court of domestic relations.=--one of the most significant improvements that has taken place is the establishment of a court of domestic relations, which already exists in several cities, and has made an enviable record. in the early experiments it seemed practicable in kansas to make such a court a branch of the circuit and juvenile courts, so arranged that it would be possible to deal with the relations of the whole family; in chicago the new tribunal was made a part of the municipal court. by means of patient questioning, first by a woman assistant and then by the judge himself, and by good advice and explicit directions as to conduct, with a warning that failure would be severely treated, it has been possible to unravel hundreds of domestic entanglements. 84. =tendencies.=--there can be no question that the present tendency is in the direction of greater freedom in the marriage relation. society will not continue to sanction inhumanity and immorality in the relations of man to woman. marriage is ideally a sacred relation, but when it is not so treated, when love is dead and repulsion has taken its place, and especially when physical contact brings disease and suffering, public opinion is likely to consider that marriage is thereby virtually annulled, and to permit ratification of the fact by a decree of divorce. on the other hand, it is probable that increasing emphasis will be put on serious and well-prepared marriage, on the inculcation of a spirit of mutual love and forbearance through the agency of the church, and on the exhaustion of every effort to restore right relations, if they have not been irreparably destroyed, before any grant of divorce will be allowed. in this, as in all problems of the family, the spirit of mutual consideration for the interests of all concerned is that which must be invoked for a speedy and permanent solution. education of young people in the importance of the family as a social institution and in the responsibility which every individual member should feel to make and keep the family pure and strong as a bulwark of social stability, is the surest means of preventing altogether its dissolution. reading references "report on marriage and divorce," 1906, _bureau of the census_, i, pages 272-274, 331-333. "reports of the national league for the protection of the family." post: _ethics of marriage and divorce_, pages 62-84. dealey: _the family in its sociological aspects_, pages 96-108. howard: _history of matrimonial institutions_, iii, pages 3-160. willcox: _the divorce problem._ chapter xi the social evil 85. =sexual impurity.=--a prime factor in the breaking up of the home is sexual impurity. the sex passion, an elemental instinct of humanity, is sanctified by the marriage relation, but unbridled in those who seek above all else their own pleasure, becomes a curse in body and soul. it is not limited to either sex, but men have been more self-indulgent, and have been treated more leniently than erring women. sexual impurity is wide-spread, but public opinion against it is steadily strengthening, and the tendency is to hold men and women equally responsible. for the sake of clearness it is advisable to distinguish between various forms of impurity, and to observe the proper terms. the sexual evil appears in aggravated form in commercial prostitution, but is more prevalent as an irregularity among non-professionals. sexual intercourse before marriage, or fornication, was not infrequent in colonial days, and in europe is startlingly common; very frequently among the lower classes there is no marriage until a child is born. sexual infidelity after marriage, or adultery, is the cause of the ruin of many homes. in the cities and among the well-to-do classes the keeping of mistresses is an occasional practice, but it is far less common than was the case in former days, when it was the regular custom at royal courts and imitated by those lower in the social scale. 86. =prostitution.=--prostitution, softened in common speech to "the social evil," is a term for promiscuity of sex relationship for pay or its equivalent. it is a very old practice, and has existed in the east as a part of religious worship in veneration of the power of generation. in the west it is a frequent accompaniment of intemperance and crime. modern prostitutes are recruited almost entirely from the lower middle class, both in europe and america. ignorant and helpless immigrant girls are seduced on the journey, in the streets of american cities, and in the tenements. domestic servants and employees in factories and department stores seem to be most subject to exploitation, but no class or employment is immune. a great many girls, while still in their teens, have begun their destructive career. they are peculiarly susceptible in the evening, after the strain of the day's labor, when they are hunting for fun and excitement in theatres, dance-halls, and moving-picture shows. in summer they are themselves hunted on excursion steamers, and at the parks and recreation grounds. the seduction and exploitation of young women has become a distinct occupation of certain worthless young men, commonly known as cadets, who live upon the earnings of the women they procure. three-fourths of the prostitutes have such men dependent on them, to whom they remain attached through fear or need of pecuniary relief in case of arrest, or even through a species of affection, though they receive nothing but abuse in return. once secured, the victim is not permitted to escape. not many women enter the life of prostitution from choice, but when they have once yielded to temptation or force, they lose their self-respect and usually sink into hopeless degradation, and then do not shrink from soliciting business within doors or on the streets. 87. =promotion and regulation of vice.=--the social evil is centred in houses of ill fame managed by unprincipled women. the business is financed and the profits enjoyed by men who constantly stimulate the trade to make it more profitable. as a result of investigations in new york, it is estimated that the number of prostitutes would be not more than one-fourth of what it is were it not for the ruthless greed of these men. the houses are usually located in the poorer parts of the city, but they are also to be found scattered elsewhere. in cases where public opinion does not warrant rigid enforcement of the law against it, the illicit traffic is disregarded by the police, and often they are willing to share in the gains as the price of their leniency. as a rule the business is kept under cover and not permitted to flaunt itself on the streets. definite segregation in a particular district has been attempted, and has sometimes been favored as a means of checking vice, but this means is not practised or favored after experiment has shown its uselessness as a check upon the trade. government regulation by a system of license, with registration of prostitutes and regular though superficial examination of health, is in vogue in parts of western and southern europe, but it is not favored by vice commissions that have examined into its workings. 88. =extent of the social evil.=--it is probable that estimates as to the number of prostitutes in the great urban centres has been much exaggerated. in the nature of the case it is very difficult to get accurate reports, but when it is remembered that the number of men who frequent the resorts is not less than fifteen times the number of women, and that in most cases the proportion is larger, it is not difficult to conceive of the immense profits to the exploiters, but also of the enormous economic waste, the widely prevalent physical disease, and the untold misery of the women who sin, and of the innocent women at home who are sinned against by those who should be their protectors. a "white-slave traffic" seems to have developed in recent years that has not only increased the number of local prostitutes, but has united far-distant urban centres. it is very difficult to prove an intercity trade, but investigation has produced sufficient evidence to show that there is an organized business of procuring victims and that they have been exported to distant parts of the world, including south america, south africa, and the far east. 89. =the causes.=--the social evil has usually been blamed upon the perversity of women and their pecuniary need, but investigation makes it plain that the causes go deeper than that. the first cause is the ignorance of girls who are permitted to grow up and go out into the world innocently, unaware of the snares in which they are liable to become enmeshed. added to this ignorance is the lack of moral and religious training, so that there is often no firm conviction of right and wrong, an evil which is intensified in the city tenements by the conditions of congested population. a third grave cause is the public neglect of persons of defective mentality and morality. women who are not capable of taking care of themselves are allowed full liberty of conduct, and frequently fall victims to the seducer. an investigation of cases in the new york reformatory for women at bedford in 1913 showed one-third very deficient mentally; the massachusetts vice commission in 1914 reported one-half to three-fourths of three hundred cases to be of the same class. it seems clear that a large proportion of prostitutes generally belong in this category. it has been estimated that there are now (1915) as many defective women at large in massachusetts as there are in public institutions. poverty is an important factor in the extension of the sexual evil. it is notorious that thousands of women workers are underpaid. in factories, restaurants, and department stores they frequently receive wages much less than the eight dollars a week required by women to maintain themselves, if dependent on their own resources. the american woman's pride in a good appearance, the natural human love of ease, luxury, and excitement, the craving for relaxation and thrill, after the exacting labor of a long day, all contribute to the welcome of an opportunity for an indulgence that brings money in return. the agency of the dance-hall and the saloon has also an important place in the downfall of the tempted. intemperance and prostitution go together, and places where they can be enjoyed are factories of vice and crime. many so-called hotels with bar attachment are little more than houses of evil resort. especially notorious for a time were the raines law hotels in new york city, designed to check intemperance, but proving nurseries of prostitution. commercial profit is large from both kinds of traffic, and one stimulates the other. among minor causes of the social evil is the postponement or abandonment of marriage by many young people, the celibate life imposed upon students and soldiers, the declaration of some physicians that continence is injurious, and lax opinion, especially in europe. 90. =the consequences.=--it is impossible to measure adequately the consequences of sexual indulgence. it is destructive of physical health among women and of morals among both sexes. it results in a weakening of the will and a blunting of moral discernment. it is an economic waste, as is intemperance, for even on the level of economic values it is plain that money could be much better spent for that which would benefit rather than curse. but the great evil that looms large in public view is the legacy of physical disease that falls upon self-indulgent men and their families. the presence of venereal disease in europe is almost unbelievable; so great has it been in continental armies that governments have become alarmed as to its effects upon the health and morale of the troops. college men have been reckless in sowing wild oats, and have suffered serious physical consequences. most pathetic is the suffering that is caused to innocent wives and children in blindness, sterility, and frequent abdominal disease. this is a subject that demands the attention of every person interested in human happiness and social welfare. 91. =history of reform.=--spasmodic efforts to suppress the social evil have occurred from time to time. the result has been to scatter rather than to suppress it, and after a little it has crept back to its old haunts. scattering it in tenements and residential districts has been very unfortunate. the cure is not so simple a process. neither will segregation help. it is now generally agreed, especially as a result of recent investigations by vice commissioners in the large cities, that there must be a brave, sustained effort at suppression, and then the patient task of reclaiming the fallen and preventing the evil in future. organization and investigation are the two words that give the key to the history of reform. international societies are agitating abroad; other associations are directly engaged in checking vice in the united states, most prominent of which is the american vigilance association. rescue organizations are scattered through the cities. especially active have been the commissions of investigation appointed privately and by municipal, state, and federal governments, which have issued illuminating reports. the united states in 1908 joined in an international treaty to prevent the world-wide traffic in white slaves, and in 1910 congress passed the mann white slave act to prevent interstate traffic in america. 92. =measures of prevention and cure.=--the social evil is one about which there have been all sorts of wild opinions, but the facts are becoming well substantiated by investigations, and these investigations are the basis upon which all scientific conclusions must rest, alike for public education and for constructive legislation. no one remedy is adequate. there are those who believe that the church has it in its power to stir a wave of indignation that would sweep the whole traffic from the land, but it is not so simple a process. it is generally agreed that both education and legislation are necessary to check the evil. the first is necessary for the public health, and to support repressive laws. as a helpful means of repression it is proposed that the social evil, along with questions of social morals, like gambling, excise, and amusements, shall be taken out of the hands of the municipal police and the politicians, and lodged with an unpaid morals commission, which shall have its own special corps of expert officers and a morals court for the trial of cases appropriate to its jurisdiction. this experiment actually has been tried in berlin. measures of prevention as well as measures of repression are needed. restraint is needed for defectives; protection for immigrants and young people, especially on shipboard, in the tenements, and in the moving-picture houses; better housing, better amusements, and better wages for all the people. finally, the wrecks must be taken care of. rescue homes and other agencies manage to save a few to reformed lives; homes are needed constantly for temporary residence. private philanthropy has provided them thus far, but the united states government has discussed the advisability of building them in sufficient numbers to meet every local need. many old and hardened offenders need reformatories with farm and hospital where they can be cared for during a long time; some of the states have provided these already. the principles upon which a permanent cure of the social evil must be based are similar to those that underlie all family reform, namely, the rescue as far as possible of those already fallen, the social and moral education of youth to nobler purpose and will, the removal of unfavorable economic and social conditions, and the improvement of family life until it can satisfy the human cravings that legitimately belong to it. reading references addams: _a new conscience and an ancient evil._ willson: _the american boy and the social evil._ morrow: _social diseases and marriage_, pages 331-353. kneeland: _commercialized prostitution in new york city_, pages 253-271. chapter xii characteristics and principles 93. =social characteristics illustrated by the family.=--a study of the family such as has been made illustrates the characteristics of social life that were noted in the introductory chapter. there is activity in the performance of every domestic, economic, and social function. there is association in various ways for various purposes between all members of the family. control is exercised by paternal authority, family custom, and personal and family interest. the history of the family shows gradual changes that have produced varieties of organization, and the present situation discloses weaknesses that are precipitating upon society very serious problems. present characteristics largely determine future processes; always in planning for the future it is necessary to take into consideration the forces that produce and alter social characteristics. specific measures meet with much scepticism, and enthusiastic reformers must always reckon with inertia, frequent reactions, and slow social development. in the face of sexualism, divorce, and selfish individualism, it requires patience and optimism to believe that the family will continue to exist and the home be maintained. 94. =principles of family reform.=--it is probably impossible to restore the home life of the past, as it is impossible to turn back the tide of urban migration and growth. but it is possible on the basis of certain fundamental principles to improve the conditions of family life by means of methods that lie at hand. the first principle is that the home must function properly. there must be domestic and economic satisfactions. without the satisfaction of the sexual and parental instincts and an atmosphere of comfort and freedom from anxiety, the home is emptied of its attractions. the second principle is that social sympathy and service rather than individual independence shall be the controlling motive in the home. as long as every member of the family consults first his own pleasure and comfort and contributes only half-heartedly to create a home atmosphere and to perform his part of the home functions, there can be no real gain in family life. the home is built on love; it can survive on nothing less than mutual consideration. 95. =the method of economic adjustment.=--the first method by which these principles can be worked out is economic adjustment. it is becoming imperative that the family income and the family requirements shall be fitted together. less extravagance and waste of expenditure and a living wage to meet legitimate needs, are both demanded by students of economic reform. it is not according to the principles of social righteousness that any family should suffer from cold or hunger, nor is it right that any social group should be wasteful of the portion of economic goods that has come to it. there is great need, also, that the expense of living should be reduced while the standards of living shall not be lowered. the business world has been trying to secure economies in production; there is even greater need of economies in distribution. millions are wasted in advertising and in the profits of middlemen. some method of co-operative buying and selling will have to be devised to stop this economic leakage. it would relieve the housewife from some of the worries of housekeeping and lighten the heart of the man who pays the bills. a third adjustment is that of the household employee to the remainder of the household. the servant problem is first an economic problem, and questions of wages, hours, and privileges must be based on economic principles; but it is also a social problem. the servant bears a social relation to the family. the family home is her home, and she must have a certain share in home comforts and privileges. a fourth reform is better housing and equipment. attractive and comfortable houses in a wholesome environment of light, air, and sunshine, built for economical and easy housekeeping, are not only desirable but essential for a permanent and happy family life. 96. =the method of social education.=--a second general method by which the principles of home life may be carried out is social education. given the material accessories, there must be the education of the family in their use. children in the home need to know the fundamentals of personal and sex hygiene and the principles of eugenics. in home and in school the emphasis in education should be upon social rather than economic values, on the significance of social relationships and the opportunities of social intercourse in the home and the community, on the personal and social advantages of intellectual culture, on the importance of moral progress in the elimination of drunkenness, sexualism, poverty, crime, and war, if there is to be future social development, and on the value of such social institutions as the home, the school, the church, and the state as agencies for individual happiness and group progress. especially should there be impressed upon the child mind the transcendent importance of affectionate co-operation in the home circle, parents sacrificing personal preferences and anticipations of personal enjoyment for the good of children, and children having consideration for the wishes and convictions of their elders, and recognizing their own responsibility in rendering service for the common good. sanctioned by law, by the custom of long tradition, by economic and social valuations, the home calls for personal devotion of will and purpose from every individual for the welfare of the group of which he is a privileged member. the family tie is the most sacred bond that links individuals in human society; to strengthen it is one of the noblest aspirations of human endeavor. reading references dealey: _the family in its sociological aspects_, pages 119-134. post: _ethics of marriage and divorce_, pages 105-127. howard: _history of matrimonial institutions_, iii, pages 253-259. thwing: _the recovery of the home._ a pamphlet. part iii--social life in the rural community chapter xiii the community and its history 97. =broadening the horizon.=--out of the kindergarten of the home the child graduates into the larger school of the community. thus far through his early years the child's environment has been restricted almost entirely to the four walls of the home or the limits of the farm. his horizon has been bounded by garden, pasture, and orchard, except as he has enjoyed an occasional visit to the village centre or has found playmates on neighboring farms. he has shared in the isolation of the farm. the home of the nearest neighbor is very likely out of sight beyond the hill, or too far away for children's feet to travel the intervening distance; on the prairie the next door may be over the edge of the horizon. the home has been his social world. it has supplied for him a social group, persons to talk with, to play with, to work with. inevitably he takes on their characteristics, and his life will continue to be narrow and to grow conservative and hard, unless he enlarges his experience, broadens his horizon, tries new activities, enjoys new associations, tests new methods of social control, and lets the forces that produce social change play upon his own life. happy is he when he enters definitely into community life by taking his place in the district school. the schoolhouse may be at the village centre or it may stand aloof among the trees or stark on a barren hillside along the country road; physical environment is of small consequence as compared with the new social environment of the schoolroom itself. the child has come into contact with others of his kind in a permanent social institution outside the home, and this social contact has become a daily experience. every child that goes to school is one of many representatives from the homes of the neighborhood. he brings with him the habits and ideas that he has gathered from his own home, and he finds that they do not agree or fuse easily with the ideas and habits of the other children. in the schoolroom and on the playground he repeats the process of social adjustments which the race has passed through. conflicts for ascendancy are frequent. he must prove his physical prowess on the playground and his intellectual ability in the schoolroom. he must test his body of knowledge and the value of his mental processes by the mind of his teacher. he must have strength of conviction to defend his own opinions, but he must have an open mind to receive truths that are new to him. one of the great achievements of the school is to fuse dissimilar elements into common custom and opinion, and thus to socialize the independent units of community life. 98. =learning social values in the community.=--the school is the door to larger social opportunity than the home can provide, but it is not the only door. the child in passing to and from school comes into touch with other institutions and activities. he passes other homes than his own. he sees each in the midst of its own peculiar surroundings, and he makes comparisons of one with another and of each with his own. he estimates more or less consciously the value of that which he sees, not so much in terms of economic as of social worth, and congratulates or pities himself or his schoolmates, according to the judgments that he has made. he stops at the store, the mill, or the blacksmith shop, through frequent contact becomes familiar with their functions, and thinks in turn that he would like to be storekeeper, miller, and blacksmith. he sees the farmer on other farms than his own gathering his harvest in the fall, hauling wood in the winter, or ploughing his field in the spring, and he becomes conscious of common habits and occupations in this rural community. he gets acquainted with the variety of activities that enter into life in the country district in which his home is located, and he learns to appreciate the importance of the instruments upon which such activity depends for travel from place to place. by all these means the child is learning social values. after a little he comes to understand that the community, with its roads, its public buildings, and its established institutions, exists to satisfy certain economic and social needs that the single family cannot supply. by and by he learns that, like the family, it has grown out of the experience of relationships, and can be traced far back in history, and that as time passes it is slowly changing to adapt itself to the changing wants and wishes of its inhabitants. he becomes aware of a present tendency for the community to imitate the larger social life outside, to make its village centre a reproduction in miniature of the urban centres; later he realizes that the introduction of foreign elements into the population is working for the destruction of the simple, unified life of former days, and is introducing a certain flavor of cosmopolitanism. it is this growth of social consciousness in a single child, multiplied by the number of children in the community, that constitutes the process of social education. a community with no dynamic influences impinging upon it reproduces itself in this way generation after generation, and at best seems to maintain but a static existence. in reality, few communities stand still. the principle of change that is characteristic of social life is continually working to build up or tear down the community structure and to modify community functioning. the causes of change and their methods of operation appear in the history of the rural community. 99. =rural history.=--the history of the rural community falls into two periods--first, when the village was necessary to the life of the individual; second, when the individual pioneer pushed out into the forest or prairie, and the village followed as a convenient social institution. the community came into existence through the bond of kinship. every clan formed a village group with its own peculiar customs. these were primitive, even among semi-civilized peoples. among the ancient hebrews the village elders sat by the gate to administer justice in the name of the clan; in china the old men still bask on a log in the sun and pronounce judgment in neighborly gossip. the village existed for sociability and safety. the mediæval germans left about each village a broad strip of waste land called the mark, and over this no stranger could come as a friend without sounding a trumpet. later the village was surrounded by a wall called a tun, and by a transfer of terms the village frequently came to be called a mark, or tun, later changed to town. place names even in the united states are often survivals of such a custom, as charlestown or chilmark. the indian village in colonial america was similarly protected with a palisade, and village dogs heralded the approach of a stranger, as they do still in the east. 100. =the mediæval village.=--the peasant village of the middle ages constitutes a distinct type of rural community. a consciousness of mutual dependence between the owner of the land and the peasants who were his serfs produced a feudal system in which the landlord undertook to furnish protection and to permit the peasant to use portions of his land in exchange for service. strips of fertile soil were allotted to the village families for cultivation, while pasture-land, meadow, and forest were kept for community use. even in the heart of the city boston common remains as a relic of the old custom. on the mediæval manor people lived and worked together, most of them on the same social level, the lord in his manor-house and the peasants in a hamlet or larger village on his land, huddling together in rude huts and in crude fashion performing the social and economic functions of a rural community. in the village church the miller or the blacksmith held his head a little higher than his neighbors, and sometimes the lord of the manor did not deign to worship in the common parish church, but the mass of the people were fellow serfs, owning a common master, working at the same tasks, by custom sowing and reaping the same kind of grain on the same kind of land in the same week of the year. they attended the court of the master, who exercised the functions of government. they worshipped side by side in the church. the same customs bound them and the same superstitions worried their waking hours. there was thus a community solidarity that less commonly exists under modern conditions. there was no stimulus to progress on the manor itself. there were no schools for the peasant's children, and there was little social intelligence. the finer side of life was undeveloped, except as the love of music was stirred by the travelling bard, or martial fervor or the love of movement aroused the dance. there was no desire for religious independence or understanding of religious experience. the mass in the village church satisfied the religious instinct. there was no dynamic factor in the community itself. besides all this, the community lived a self-centred life, because the people manufactured their own cloth and leather garments and most of the necessary tools, and, except for a few commodities like iron and salt, they were independent of trade. the result was that every stimulus of social exchange between villages was lacking. the broadening influence of the crusades with their stimulus to thought, their creation of new economic wants, and their contact of races and nationalities, set in motion great changes. out of the manorial villages went ambitious individuals, making their way as industrial pioneers to the opportunity of the larger towns, as now young people push out from the country to the city. new towns were founded and new enterprises were begun. trade routes were opened up. the feudal principality grew into the modern state. cultural interests demanded their share of attention. schools were founded, and art and literature began again to develop. even law and religion, most conservative among social institutions, underwent change. 101. =the village in american history.=--the spirit of enterprise and the disturbed political and religious conditions impelled many groups in western europe to emigrate to new lands after the geographical discoveries that ushered in the sixteenth century. they were free to go, for serfdom was disappearing from most of the european countries. the village life of europe was transplanted to america. in the south the mediæval feudal village became the agricultural plantation, where the planter lived on his own estate surrounded by the rude cabins of his dusky peasantry. the more democratic, homogeneous village life of middle-class englishmen reproduced itself in new england, where the houses of the settlers clustered about the village meeting-house and schoolhouse, and where habits of industry, frugality, and sobriety characterized every local group. in this new village life there came to be a stronger feeling of self-respect, and under the hard conditions of life in a new continent there developed a self-reliance that was destined to work wonders in days to come. the new world bred a spirit of independence that suited well the individualistic philosophy and religion of the modern englishman. all these qualities prophesied much of individual achievement. yet this tendency toward individualism threatened the former social solidarity, though there was a recognition of mutual interests and a readiness to show neighborly kindness in time of stress, and a perception of the social value of democracy in church and state. 102. =individual pioneering.=--the pioneer american colonies were group settlements, but they produced a new race of individual pioneers for the west. occasionally a whole community emigrated, but usually hardy, venturesome individuals pushed out into the wilderness, opening up the frontier continually farther toward the setting sun. by the brookside the pioneer made a clearing and erected his log house; later on the unbroken prairie he built a rude hut of sod. on the land that was his by squatter's right or government claim he planted and reaped his crops. about him grew up a brood of children, and as the years passed, others like himself followed in the path that he had made, single men to work for a time as hired laborers, families to break new ground, until the countryside became sparsely settled and the nucleus of a village was made. such pioneers were hard-working people, lonely and introspective. they knew little of the comforts and none of the refinements of life. they prescribed order and administered justice at the weapon's point. they were emotional in religion. they required the stimulus of abundant food and often of strong drink to goad them to their various tasks. frontier pioneering in america reproduced many of the features of former ages of primitive life and compressed centuries into the space of a generation. it was distinctly individualistic, and needed socializing. the large farm or cattle-range kept men apart, the freedom of the open country attracted an unruly population, and in consequence frontier life tended to rough manners and lawlessness. isolation and loneliness produced despondency and inertia, and tended to individual and group degeneration. even in a growing village men and women of this type had few social institutions. there was little time for schooling or recreation. a circuit-riding preacher held religious services once or twice a month, and in certain regions at a certain season religious enthusiasm found vent in a camp-meeting, but religion often had little effect on habits and morals. local government and industry were home-made. the settlers brought with them customs and traditions which they cherished, but in the mingling of pioneers from different districts there was continual change and fusion, until the west became the most enterprising and progressive part of the nation, continually open to new ideas and new methods. there was a wholesome respect for church and school, and as villages grew the settlers did not neglect the organization and housing of such institutions; store, mill, and smithy found their place as farther east, and later the lawyer and physician came, but the pioneer could do without them for a time. inventiveness and individual initiative were characteristics of the rural people, made necessary by their remoteness and isolation. 103. =the development of the west.=--with increasing settlement the rural pioneer gave place to the farmer. it was no longer necessary for him to break new ground, for arable acres could be purchased; neither was it necessary to turn from one occupation to another to satisfy personal or household needs, for division of labor provided specialists. hardship gave way to comfort, for the land was fertile and experience had taught its values for the cultivation of particular crops. loneliness and isolation were felt less severely as neighbors became more frequent and travelled roads made communication easier. group life expanded and institutions became fixed. every neighborhood had its school-teacher, and even the academy and college began to dot the land. churches of various denominations found root in rural soil, and a settled minister became more common. a general store and post-office found place at the cross-roads, and the permanent machinery of local government was set up. out of the forest clearings and prairie settlements evolved the prosperous farm life that has been so characteristic of the middle west. but the prosperous life of these rural communities has not remained unchanged. speculation in land has been creating a class of non-resident agricultural capitalists and tenant cultivators, and has been transforming the type of agricultural population over large sections of country. soil exhaustion is leading to abandonment of the poorest land and is compelling methods of scientific agriculture on the remainder. these conditions are producing their own social problems for the rural community. reading references small and vincent: _introduction to the study of society_, pages 112-126. cheyney: _industrial and social history of england_, pages 31-56. cubberley: _rural life and education_, pages 1-62. wilson: _evolution of the country community_, pages 1-61. carver: _principles of rural economics_, pages 74-116. ross: "the agrarian revolution in the middle west," _north american review_, september, 1909. gillette: "the drift to the city in relation to the rural problem," _american journal of sociology_, march, 1911. chapter xiv the land and the people 104. =physical types.=--to understand the continually changing rural life of the present, it is necessary to examine into the physical characteristics of the country districts, the elements of the population, the functions of the rural community, and its social institutions. the physical characteristics have a large part in determining occupations and in fashioning social life. a natural harbor, especially if it is at the mouth of a river, seems destined by nature for a centre of commerce, as the falls of a swift-flowing stream indicate the location of a manufacturing plant. a mineral-bearing mountain invites to mining, and miles of forest land summon the lumberman. broad and well-watered plains seem designed for agriculture, and on them acres of grain slowly mature through the summer months to turn into golden harvests in the fall. the mississippi valley and the western plain into which it blends have become the granary of the american nation. the railroad-train that rushes day and night from the great lakes toward the setting sun moves hour after hour through the extensive rural districts that characterize the great west. there are the mammoth farms that are given to the one enormous crop of wheat or corn. alongside the railroad loom the immense elevators where the grain is stored to be shipped to market. here and there are the farm-buildings where the owner or tenant lives, but villages are small and scattered and community activity is slight. similarly, in the south before the civil war there were large plantations of cotton and tobacco, dotted only here and there with the planter's mansion and clumps of negro cabins. village life was not a characteristic of southern society. the old south had its picturesque plantation life, and the aristocracy made its sociable visits from family to family, but that rural type disappeared with the war. with the breaking up of the old plantations there came a greater diversification of agriculture, which is going on at an accelerated pace, and social centres are increasing, but there is still much rural isolation. among the remoter mountains lingers the most conservative american type of citizens in the arrested development of a century ago, with antique tools and ancient methods, scratching a few acres for a garden and corn-field, and living their backward, isolated life, without comfort or even peace, and almost without social institutions. in the east the country is more broken. large farms are few, and agriculture is carried on intensively as a business, or is united with another occupation or as a diversion from the cares and tasks of the town. farms of a score to a few hundred acres, only part of which are cultivated, form rural communities among the hills or along a river valley. here and there a few houses cluster in village or hamlet, where each house yard has its garden patch, but the inhabitants of the village depend on other means than agriculture for a living. on the farms dairy and poultry products share with agriculture in rural importance, and no one crop constitutes an agricultural staple. in new england the villages are comparatively near together, and social life needs only prodding to produce a healthy development. 105. =characteristics of population.=--rural life feels in each region the reactions of nature. the narrow life of the hills, the open life of the plains, the peaceful life of the comfortable plantation with its lazy river and its delightful climate, each has its peculiar characteristics that are due in part at least to nature. but these features are complicated by social elements of population. the american rural community of to-day is composed of individuals who differ in age and fortune and kinship, and who vary in qualities and resemblances. there are old and young and middle-aged persons, men and women, married and single, persons with many relatives and others with few, native and foreign born, strong and weak, well and ill, good and bad, educated and illiterate. yet there are certain characteristics that are typical. in the first place, for example, there is a considerable uniformity of age in the population of a certain type of community. in those agricultural districts where individuals own their own homes, the number of elderly people is larger than it is in the city, and the young people are comparatively few, for the reason that their ambitions carry them to the city for its larger opportunities, and in the older states many a farm becomes abandoned on the death of the old people. in districts where tenant-farming is largely in vogue, gray hairs are much fewer. the tendency is for the original farmers who have been successful to sell or rent their property and move to town to enjoy its comforts and attractions, leaving the tenants and their families of children. in the second place, it is characteristic of long-settled rural communities that there is an interlocking of family relationship, with a number of prevailing family names and a great preponderance of native americans; but in portions of the west and in rural districts not very remote from the large cities of the east there is a large mixture, and in spots a predominance of the foreign element. in the third place, small means rather than wealth and a sluggish contentment rather than ambition is characteristic of the older rural sections; in newer districts ambition to push ahead is more common, and prosperity and an air of opulence are not unusual. 106. =the composition of rural communities.=--in an analysis of population it is proper to consider its composition and its manner of growth. in making a survey or taking a census of a community there are included at least statistics as to age, sex, number and size of families, degree of kinship, race parentage, and occupations. records of age, sex, and size of family show the tendencies of a community as to growth or race suicide; kinship and race parentage indicate whether population is homogeneous; and occupations indicate the place that agriculture holds in a particular section of country. by a comparative study of statistics it is easy to determine whether a community is advancing, retrograding, or standing still, and what its position is relative to its neighbors; also to find out whether or not its occupations and characteristics are changing. 107. =manner of growth.=--the manner of growth of a community is by natural excess of births over deaths, and by immigration of persons from outside. as long as the former condition obtains, population is homogeneous, and the community is conservative in customs and beliefs; when immigration is extensive, and more especially when it goes on at the same time with a declining birth-rate and a considerable emigration of the native element, the population is becoming heterogeneous, and the customs and interests of the people are growing continually more divergent. the immigration of an earlier day was from one american community to another, or from northern europe, but rural communities east and west are feeling the effects of the large foreign immigration of the last decade from southern and eastern europe and from asia. 108. =decline of the rural population.=--the rural exodus to the cities is even more impressive and more serious in its consequences than the foreign influx into the country, though both are dynamic in their effects. this exodus is partly a matter of numbers and partly of quality. a distinction must be made first between the relative loss and the actual loss. the rural population in places of less than twenty-five hundred persons is steadily falling behind in proportion to the urban population in the country at large. there are many localities where there is also an actual loss in population, and in the north and middle west the states generally are making no rural gain. but the most disheartening element in the movement of population from the point of view of rural communities is the loss of the most substantial of the older citizens, who move to the city to enjoy the reward of years of toil, and of the most ambitious of the young people who hope to get on faster in the city. loss of such as these means loss of competent, progressive leaders. added to this is the loss of laborers needed to cultivate the farms to their capacity for urban as well as rural supply. the loss of labor is not a serious economic misfortune, for it can be remedied to a large extent by the introduction of more machinery and new methods, but the loss of population reproduces in a measure the isolation of earlier days, and so tends to social degeneration. it is idle to expect that the far-reaching causes that are contributing to city growth will stop working for the sake of the rural community, but it is possible to enrich community life so that there will be less relative attraction in the city, and so that those who remain may enjoy many of the advantages that hitherto have been associated with the city alone. reading references hart: _educational resources of village and rural communities_, pages 11-37. gillette: _rural sociology_, pages 32-46, 281-292. anderson: _the country town_, pages 57-91. semple: _influences of geographic environment._ galpin: "method of making a social survey in a rural community," _university of wisconsin circular of information_, no. 29. carroll: _the community survey._ chapter xv occupations 109. =rural occupations.=--an important part of the study of the rural community is its social functions. these do not differ greatly in name from the functions of the family, but they have wider scope. the domestic functions are confined almost entirely to the homes. the village usually includes a boarding-house or a country inn for the homeless few, and here and there an almshouse shelters the few derelicts whom the public must support. economic activities in the main are associated with the farm home. the common occupation in the country is agriculture. individuals are born into country homes, learn the common occupation, and of necessity in most cases make it their means of livelihood. rural people are accustomed to hard labor for long hours. there are seasons when comparative inactivity renders life dull; there are individuals who enjoy pensions or the income of inherited or accumulated funds, and so are not compelled to resort to manual labor, and there are directors of agricultural industry; there are always a shiftless few who are lazy and poor; but these are only exceptions to the general rule of active toil. not all rural districts are agricultural. some are frontier settlements where lumbering or mining are the chief interests. even where agriculture prevails there are varieties such as corn-raising or fruit-growing regions; there are communities that are progressively making use of the latest results of scientific agriculture, and communities that are almost as antique in their methods as the ancient hebrews. also, even in homogeneous districts, like those devoted to cotton-growing or tobacco-culture, there are always individuals who choose or inherit an occupation that supplies a special want to the community, such as carpenters, blacksmiths, and masters of other crafts. occupations indicate an attempt to gear personal energies to the opportunities or requirements of a physical or social environment. all these occupations have more than economic value; they are fundamental to social prosperity. it is self-evident that the physician and the school-teacher render community service, but it is not so clear that the farmer who keeps his house well painted and his grounds in order, and who is improving his cattle and increasing the yield of his fields and woodland by scientific methods, and who organizes his neighbors for co-operative endeavor, is doing more than an economic service. yet it is by means of inspiration, information, and co-operation that the community moves forward, and he who supplies these is a social benefactor. 110. =differentiation of occupation.=--if community life is to continue there must be the producers who farm or mine or manufacture; in rural districts they are farmers, hired laborers, woodcutters, threshers, and herdsmen. in the co-operation of village life there must be the craftsmen and tradesmen who finish and distribute the products that the others have secured, such as the miller, the carpenter, the teamster, and the storekeeper. for comfort and peace in the neighborhood there must be added the physician, the minister, the school-teacher, the justice of the peace, and such public functionaries as postmaster, mail-carrier, stage-driver, constable or sheriff, and other town or county officials. without specific allotment of lands as on the feudal estate, or distribution of tasks as in a socialistic commonwealth, the community accomplishes a natural division of labor and diversification of industry, supports its own institutions by self-imposed taxes and voluntary contributions, and supplies its quota to the larger state of which it forms a democratic part. in spite of the constant exercise of individual independence and competition, there is at the foundation of every rural community the principle of co-operation and service as the only working formula for human life. 111. =co-operation.=--one great advantage of community life over the home is the increased opportunity for co-operation. in new communities families work together to erect buildings, make roads, support schools, and organize and maintain a church. they aid each other in sickness, accident, and distress. farmers find it profitable to unite for purposes of production, distribution, communication, transportation, and insurance. it may not seem worth while for a single farmer to buy an expensive piece of agricultural machinery for his own use, but it is well worth while for four or five to club together and buy it. the cost of an irrigation plant is much too high for one man, but a community can afford it when it will add materially to the production of all the farms in a district. in a region interested mainly in dairying a co-operative creamery can be made very profitable; in grain-producing sections co-operative elevator service makes possible the storage of grain until the demand increases values; in fruit-raising regions co-operation in selling has made the difference between success and failure. a co-operative telephone company has been the means of supplying several adjacent communities with easy communication. co-operative banks are a convenient means of securing capital for agricultural use, and co-operative insurance companies have proved serviceable in carrying mutual risks. the advantages of such co-operation are by no means confined to economic interests. the best result is the increasing realization of mutual dependence and common concern. co-operation is an antidote to the evils of isolation and independence. a co-operative telephone company may not pay large dividends, and may eventually sell out to a larger corporation, but it has introduced people to one another, brightened circumscribed lives, and taught the people social understanding and sympathy. but aside from all such artificial forms of co-operation, the very custom of providing such common institutions as the school and the church is a valuable form of social service, entirely apart from the specific results that come from the exercises of the schoolroom and the meeting-house. 112. =why co-operation may fail.=--many co-operative enterprises fail, and this is not strange. there is always the natural conservatism and individualism of the american people to contend with; there is jealousy of the men who have been elected to responsible offices, and there is lack of experience and good judgment by those who undertake to engineer the active organization. sometimes the method of organization or financing is faulty. such enterprises work best among foreigners who have a good opinion of them, and know how to conduct them because they have seen them work well in europe. every successful attempt at economic co-operation is a distinct gain for rural community betterment, for upon co-operation depends the success of the efforts being put forth for rural improvement generally. 113. =competition within the group.=--co-operation is of greatest value when it includes within it a wholesome amount of individual competition for the sake of general as well as individual gain. boys' agricultural clubs, organized in the south and west, have raised the standards of corn and tomato production by stimulating a friendly spirit of rivalry among boys, and as a result the fathers of the boys have adopted new and more scientific methods to increase their own production. agricultural fairs may be made powerful agencies for a similar stimulus. at state and county fairs agricultural colleges and experiment stations find it worth while to exhibit their methods and processes with the results obtained; wide-awake farmers get new ideas, which they try out subsequently at home; young people are encouraged to try for the premiums offered the next year, and steadily the general level of excellence rises throughout the district. reading references mckeever: _farm boys and girls_, pages 171-196, 275-305. gillette: _rural sociology_, pages 20-31. "country life," _annals of american academy_, pages 58-68. kern: _among country schools_, pages 129-157. ford: _co-operation in new england_, pages 87-185. coulter: _co-operation among farmers_, pages 3-23. herrick: _rural credits_, pages 456-480. chapter xvi recreation 114. =recreation and culture.=--besides the economic function the community has recreative and cultural functions to perform, and these need recognition and improvement. as the child in the home has a right to time and means for play, so the community, especially the young people, may lay claim to an opportunity for recreation; as the child has the right to learn in the home, so the people of the community should have cultural privileges. these demands are the more imperative, because the city has so much of this sort to offer, and the country community cannot hold its young people unless it provides a reasonable amount of attractions. it needs no particular institution to bring this about, but it needs a new spirit to recognize and enjoy the advantages that are possible even in thinly settled localities. every opportunity for sociability strengthens just so much a natural instinct, increases the sense of social values, and enlarges the sphere of relationships. in the community, as in the home, children have the first claim to consideration. the recreative impulse is strong in them. when they graduate from the home into the school they find opportunity for the expression of this impulse through their new associations. on the way to and from school and at recess they have opportunity to indulge their impulses and to use their powers of invention. among the younger children the desire for muscular activity makes running games of all sorts popular; as boys grow older they imitate the primitive impulse to hit and run, so well provided for in games of ball; girls enjoy their recreation in a quieter way as they grow older, and show a tendency to association in pairs. associations formed in play are not usually lasting ones, but the playground reveals individual temperament and personal qualities that are likely to determine popularity or unpopularity. these play associations develop qualities of leadership, loyalty, honesty, and co-operation that tend to label a child among his mates with a reputation that he carries into later life. 115. =the gang.=--since play is a natural instinct it is to be expected that children will seek a natural rather than an artificial way of expressing the instinct. organization at best can only direct activities, giving recognition to the social inclinations of childhood. for example, it is not easy for a school-teacher to organize a boys' society and to direct it in such activities as appeal to him. the boys prefer to choose their own mates and their own chief, and the activities that appeal to them are not the same as those that seem to their elders to be most suitable. between the ages of ten and sixteen the boy tends to gang life. he may work on the farm all day, but evenings and sundays, if he is permitted to amuse himself, he joins a gang. obviously the characteristics of the gang are seen best in the city, but they are not materially different in the country. hunting and fishing may be enjoyed at odd times of leisure by the boy without companions, but the delights of the swimming-hole can be enjoyed thoroughly only as he has the companionship of other boys, and skating gains in virtue as a sport with the possibility of hockey on the ice. this liking for companionship exhibits itself in the habitual association of boys of a certain district for mutual enjoyment. on every possible opportunity they get together in the woods, pretend they are indians, hunt, fish, and fight in company, build their own camps and plunder the camps of other gangs, and practise other activities characteristic of the savage age through which they are passing. gangs exhibit a love of cruelty to those whom they may plague, a fondness for appropriating property which does not belong to them, and if possible provoking chase for the sake of the thrill that comes from the attempt to get away. group athletics of various sorts are popular. six out of seven gangs have physical activities as the purpose of their organization. the boys do not necessarily adopt any particular organization or choose a leader; on the contrary, they are a natural group, tacitly acknowledging the leadership of the most masterly and versatile individual, finding their own headquarters and adopting the forms of activity that appeal most to the group, according to the season and the opportunities of the region of country where they belong. 116. =leadership of boys.=--the gang is but one expression of the group instinct. it is often a nursery of bad habits that sometimes lead to crime and degeneracy, but it is capable of being used for the good of boyhood. the gang develops the virtues of loyalty to the group and loyalty to the group principles. it stimulates self-sacrifice and co-operation, honor and courage. these virtues can be cultivated by the man who aspires to boy leadership and directed into channels of usefulness as the boy passes on toward manhood. but there must be a frank recognition of the place of the gang in boy life, and not only a remembrance of one's own boyhood days, but also an appreciation of them. one of the best ways that has been devised for securing adult leadership without loss of the gang spirit and characteristics is the boy scout movement. it transforms the unorganized gang into the organized patrol, and affiliates it with other patrols in a wide organization, adopts the natural activities of boys as a part of its programme, and adds others of absorbing interest. obedience is added to the boy's other virtues, and social education is acquired rapidly. 117. =varieties of boys' clubs.=--the gang is one of the few natural groups of the community, and should be related to other institutions. it should not be hampered by them, but should receive the encouragement and assistance of home, school, and church. the boy scout movement has been associated with the churches; other boys' organizations have been connected with the sunday-schools; the home and the day-school may well provide resources or quarters for the gang, and recognize its activities. but the gang is not the only organization suited to the boys of a community. there are special interests provided for in more artificial groups, such as athletic, debating, agricultural, or natural history clubs. these attract like-minded individuals from all parts of the community, and help to balance the clan spirit developed by the gang. these clubs may centre in school or meeting-house or have quarters of their own. one provision that is needed for the satisfaction of boy life in the rural community is the field or green where two rival gangs may contend legitimately for supremacy in sport, or clubs from different neighborhoods may test their prowess and arouse local pride and enthusiasm. the green needs little or no equipment, but it gains recognition as the boys' own training-field and serves as a safeguard to the health and morals of the youth of the community. the gang and the green are the proper social institutions of boy life in the rural community. 118. =girls' clubs.=--the instinct of the girl is not the same as that of the boy. she has other interests that require different organization. her disposition is less active, and she does not so readily form a group organization. she associates with other girls in a set that is less democratic than her brother's gang. it has its rivalries and enmities, but hateful thoughts, angry words, and slighting attitudes take the place of the active warfare of the boys. girls enjoy clubs that are adapted to their interests. reading clubs, cooking clubs, sewing clubs, musical organizations, and philanthropic societies are useful forms of neighborhood association, and their activities may be correlated with the work of the home, the school, and the church more easily than those of their brothers. in the country girls' organizations are very properly based on the interests of the farm, with which they are so closely related. they combine, as their brothers do, on the economic principle, organizing their poultry clubs, preserving clubs, or knitting clubs, but the social purpose is not lost sight of in the particular economic concern. an hour of sociability properly follows an hour of economic discussion or activity. schoolgirls are very willing to accept the leadership of their teacher in a nature or culture club which will broaden their interests and stimulate their ambitions. one of the organizations that has sprung into existence on the model of the boy scout movement is the organization of camp-fire girls. it is designed to meet the demand for companionship in a wholesome, pleasant way, and by its incentives to healthy activity and womanly virtue it helps to build character. 119. =recreation in the country.=--the recreative instinct is not confined to children. for the adult labor is lightened, worries banished, and carking care is less corroding, if now and then an evening of diversion interrupts the monotony of rural life, or a day off is devoted to a picnic or neighborhood frolic. there is the same interest in the country that there is in the city in methods of entertainment that satisfy primitive instincts. the instinct for human society enters into all of them. other specific causes produce a fondness for the various forms of diversion indulged in. among uncultured people especially an evening gathering soon proves dull unless there is something to do. cards occupy the mind and hands and create a mild excitement that banishes troublesome thoughts and anxieties. dancing breaks up the stiffness of a party, brings the sexes together, and provides the exhilaration of rhythmic motion. barn frolics at maple-sugar or harvest time accomplish the same end, only less satisfactorily. musicales and amateur theatricals provide an exhibition of skill, cultivate the æsthetic nature, gratify the dramatic instinct, and furnish opportunity for mutual acquaintance among the people of the community, who meet all too seldom in social gatherings, and at the same time they furnish wholesome entertainment for the community at small expense. the proceeds are used for local advantage, instead of being carried out of town. the passing show and moving pictures are less desirable. they are often cheap and degrading, though the kinetoscope can be made valuable for education. the out-of-door gatherings that occur when the countryside is not too busy to plan or enjoy them are a helpful means of cultivating a community spirit. athletic contests on the boys' own field readily become a community affair, with a speech and refreshments afterward, and the award of a prize or pennant to the victorious individual or team. the old-fashioned picnic to lake or woods or hilltop is one of the best means for forming and strengthening friendships and for giving persons of all ages a good time. friendly contests of various sorts all come into play to add to the pleasure of the day. fourth of july, arbor day, old home week, and other occasions, give opportunity for recreation and the cultivation of neighborhood interests. 120. =a community centre.=--aside from the natural isolation and lack of energy and social interest among country people, the lack of efficient leadership is the most serious handicap to organized sociability. added to these is the want of a neighborhood centre both convenient and suitable. a community building, tasteful in architecture and equipped for community use, is a great desideratum, but is not often available. there seems to be no good reason why the schoolhouse should not be such a social centre as the community needs, but most school buildings are not adapted to such use. in the absence of any other provision it is the privilege of the rural church to furnish the opportunity for neighborhood gatherings, and there is a growing conviction that this is one of the opportunities of the church to ally itself to general community interests. the church represents, or should represent, the whole community of men, women, young people, and children. it has all their interests at heart. it makes provision for them in sunday-school, young people's societies, and other groups. it recognizes the social interests in festivals and sociables. it may usefully add to its functions that of raising the standards of community recreation, if no other proper provision for it exists; it is under obligation to find wholesome substitutes for the abuses that exist in the field of amusement which it commonly condemns. reading references curtis: _play and recreation for the open country._ puffer: _the boy and his gang._ _boy scout handbook; handbook for scout masters._ _the book of the campfire girls._ stern: _neighborhood entertainments._ cubberley: _rural life and education_, pages 117-126. chapter xvii rural institutions 121. =the complexity of social life.=--closely allied to the agencies of recreation are the institutions that promote sociability and incidentally provide means of culture. it is not possible to separate social life into compartments and designate an institution as purely recreational or cultural or religious. there is a blending of interests and of functions in such an organization as the grange or the church, as there is in one individual or group a variety of interests and activities. the whole social system is complex, interwoven with a multitude of separate strands of personal desires and prejudices, group clannishness and conservatism, rival institutions developing friction and continually compelled to find new adjustments. society in constantly in motion like the sea, its units continually striking against one another in perpetual conflict, and as continually melting into the harmony of a mighty wave breaking against the shore and forming anew to repeat the process. the difference is that social life is on an upward plane, its activities are not mere repetitions of a process, but they result in definite achievement, which in the process of centuries becomes an accumulated asset for the race. the most lasting achievements are the social institutions. 122. =the village and the country store.=--of all the social institutions of the rural community, the most important is the village itself. there scattered homesteads find their common centre of attraction; there houses are located nearer together and the spirit of neighborliness develops; there tradesmen and professional persons make their homes and at the same time diversify interests and provide for the wants of the community. the school and the church are often located in the open country, but the village forms the nucleus of social intercourse and there are most of the institutions of the community. the most primitive among these institutions is the country store. it has economic, social, and educational functions. it supplies goods that cannot be produced in the community, it serves as a mercantile exchange for local produce. it helps to remove the necessity of home manufacture of many articles. on occasion it may include an agency for insurance or real estate; it is frequently the village post-office; it contains the public bulletin-board; often the proprietor undertakes to perform the banking function to the extent of cashing checks. socially the store serves a useful purpose, for it is the centre to which all the inhabitants come, and from which radiate lines of communication all over the neighborhood. it is a clearing-house for news and gossip, and takes the place of a local press. it was formerly, and to some extent is still, the social club of the men of the community during the long winter evenings. as such it performed in the past an educational function. boxes, firkins, bales of goods, superannuated chairs, and the end of a counter constituted the sittings, and men of all ages occupied them, as they listened to harangues and joined in the discussions. the group constituted the forum of democracy, where politics were frequently on debate, where public opinion was formed, where conservatism and progressivism fought their battles before they tested conclusions at the ballot-box, where science and religion entered the lists, where local interests were threshed out in the absence of more general excitement and crops and agricultural methods filled in the pauses. in recent years the store circle has degenerated. the better class of habitual members has organized its lodges or found satisfaction in the grange, while the hangers-on at the store, barber-shop, or other loafing-place indulge in small talk on matters of no real concern. 123. =the sewing circle.=--what the country store has done for the men as a means of communication and stimulus, the ladies' aid society or church sewing circle has done for the women. its opportunities are less frequent, but it provides an outlet for ideas and opinions that without it cannot easily find expression. at the same time it provides active occupation for a good cause, which is more than can be said of the men's forum. when it adds to its exercises a supper to which the other sex is admitted, it performs a yet wider social service. 124. =the grange.=--the grange is an institution that includes both sexes and combines the interests of young people with those of their elders. its primary purpose was to consolidate the common interests of a farming community and to stimulate economic prosperity, but it has included several social features, and in many localities exists merely for social purposes. it is an institution that is well adapted to become a social and educational centre for the rural community. when the child has advanced from the home to the school and, graduating from school, has entered into the adult life of the community, the grange serves as a training-school for civic service. in the grange-room, in company with his like-minded parents and friends in the community, he learns how to hold his own in debate in parliamentary fashion, he discusses improved agriculture and listens to lectures from masters of the science, he gains literary and historical knowledge, and from time to time he participates in the social diversions that take place under grange auspices. music enlivens the meetings, and occasionally a feast is spread or an entertainment elaborated. the farmers' union is a similar organization, originating in the south in 1902. such rural interests as these have come into existence spontaneously and continue to provide social centres of community life because other institutions do not satisfy. the home, the school, and the church are often spoken of as the essential institutions of the american community, but they do not at best perform all the functions of neighborhood life. the boys' gang, the circle of men about the stove at the corner grocery, the women's sewing circle or club, and the grange, each in its own way performs a necessary part of the group activities, and deserves recognition among the institutions that are worth while. it is scarcely necessary to note that they have their evils, but these are not of the nature of the institution. as the gang can be guided to worthy ends, so the energies of the store club and the sewing circle can be turned into channels of usefulness and low talk and scandal-mongering abolished. as for the grange, it is capable of becoming the most valuable social centre of the community, if it maintains the ideals of its existence and co-operates heartily with other social institutions of worth, like the church. 125. =farmers' institutes.=--another type of organization exists which can hardly be called institutional, but which performs a useful community service. as illustrations may be mentioned the farmers' club, the farmers' institute, and the chautauqua movement. these are organizations or movements for stimulating and broadening the interests of farm regions. they bring together the farmers and their families, sometimes from several neighborhoods and for several days, for the consideration of agricultural problems and for entertainment and mutual acquaintance. they are able to attract speakers from the state agricultural college or board, and even from national halls, and they become a valuable clearing-house of ideas and experience. they serve much the same purpose as a church or teachers' convention, and are restricted to a limited number of persons. farmers' institutes have become a regular part of the state system of agricultural education throughout the country, and a large staff of lecturers and demonstrators exists for local instruction. the particular interests of women and young people are receiving recognition in institutes of their own in connection with the larger gatherings. the expense of such institutes is met by the government. their success is, of course, dependent on the attendance and intelligent interest of the farm people, who gain greatly in inspiration and knowledge from contact with one another and from the experts to whom they listen. the institutes prove the value of association for the enrichment of individual and family life by means of suggestion, communication, and concerted activity. reading references buck: _the granger movement._ butterfield: _chapters in rural progress_, pages 104-120, 136-161. carney: _country life and the country school_, pages 90-107. gillette: _rural sociology_, pages 208-213. cubberley: _rural life and education_, pages 117-159. chapter xviii rural education 126. =the school as a social institution.=--there is one institution in every american community that stands as the gateway into the promised land of a richer life. this is the school. it supplements home training and prepares for the broader experiences of community existence. into it goes the raw material of the bodies and minds of the children, and out of it comes the product of years of education for the making or marring of the children of the community. the school of the present is of two types. one is the relic of an earlier time, with few changes in equipment, organization, or function; it has not shared in the process of evolution enjoyed by certain other institutions of society. the other type is progressive. it has been continually finding adjustment to its environment, fitting itself to meet local needs, and is therefore abreast of the times in educational science. the demand of the age is that the progressive school keep advancing, and as fast as possible the backward school work up to the standard of efficiency. it is a sociological principle that every social institution approximates to the standards of the community as a whole. if community life is static, school and church stay in the ruts; if it is retrograding, they are losing ground; if it is progressive, they gradually show improvement. on the other hand, the community frequently feels external stimulus, first through one of its institutions, so that the institution becomes a means of betterment. recent years furnish examples of a new impulse generated in the neighborhood by a teacher or a minister who enters the locality with new ideas and unquenchable zeal. 127. =three fundamental principles of education.=--there are three fundamental principles that ought to have recognition in every school. the first of these is the principle that education is to be social. the pupil has to learn how to live in the community. in the home he becomes socialized so far as to learn how to get along with his own relatives and intimates, but the school teaches him how to deal with all sorts of people. he gets acquainted with his environment, both social and physical. what kind of people are living in the homes of the neighborhood? what are their characteristics, their ideals, their failings? what are their occupations, their race or nationality, their measure of comfort, poverty, or wealth? how are they hindered or helped by their natural surroundings, and have they easy means of communication and transit with the outside world? what are the principles that govern social intercourse, and how can the pupil learn to put them into practice? how is he to reconcile his own individual rights with his social obligations? these are fundamental questions that deserve careful answer, and that must be made a part of the school curriculum if the community is to enjoy social health. it matters little how such subjects are named in any course of study, but it is essential that the principles of social living should be taught under some title. a second principle of education is that it should be vocational. the school children, after graduation, must make their own way in the world. every normal youth looks forward in anticipation to the time when he will be earning his own support and the support of a family of his own. every normal girl hopes to be mistress of a home of her own. there are certain things that they need to know if they are to make a success and to build happy homes. their first business is to know how to make a home. naturally they want to know the story of the family as a social institution, how the home is purchased or rented, the essentials of a good home, both in its equipment and in the spirit that animates it, the duties and rights of every member of the family, and the relations of the family to the community. the question arises: how may the home-maker provide for the support of the family? what are the available occupations, and how by manual and mental training may he equip himself for usefulness? how may the home-keeper do her part to make the home attractive and comfortable by a study of domestic science and home-management? obviously, the curriculum should have a place for such studies as these that are so essential to peace and happiness and comfort in the home. a third principle is that education is to be cultural. social and vocational knowledge are essential, broad culture of the mind is highly desirable. no citizen of the united states is expected to grow to maturity ignorant of the simple arts of reading or spelling correctly, writing a fair hand, and solving correctly the simple problems of arithmetic. beyond this many schools provide a smattering of æsthetic training through music and drawing. these are subjects of study in the elementary schools. but culture involves more than these. an appreciation of literature, of the meaning and value of history, of the importance of science in the modern world, of the life of nations and races outside of our own country, of right thinking and right conduct with reference to all our individual relations, constitutes for all persons a mental training that is almost indispensable. to acquire this cultural education requires time and the elimination of the less valuable from the accepted course of study. it is a most wholesome tendency that is prolonging the terms and the years of compulsory education if that education is based on the right principles, and that is discussing the possibility, first, of using part of the long summer vacation to supplement the work of the present school year, and, secondly, of giving to the young people of every state a free university education. it is never to be forgotten that culture may and should go on through life, but that will not occur unless habits of study are formed in early years, and the school years will always remain the golden opportunity for an education. 128. =education as it is.=--on these fundamental principles every educational system should be built. actual education falls far short of the standard. this standard cannot be reached without proper educational ideals, expert teaching, and adequate equipment. the ideal has been narrow. stress is put upon one type of education. in the past it has been cultural above the lower grades, and, because it has been almost exclusively so, more than half the pupils have dropped out of school before entering high school. in recent years there has been a new emphasis on practical training, and vocational courses have tended to crowd out some of the cultural courses. the social education which is most important of all has been incidental or omitted altogether. public opinion needs to be educated to the point of understanding that all three types of training are imperatively needed. there is a serious difficulty, however, in the way of a supply of teachers for this broad education. it is necessary to extend reform among the normal schools, but this can take place only after they have felt the demand from the grades. another difficulty is the expense of providing the necessary equipment for vocational education. this does not prevent the introduction of social teaching or a proper attention to culture, but courses in manual training and domestic science usually cost more than most school boards are willing to meet. this is not an insurmountable obstacle, for cheap appliances are in the market and better school boards can be elected when the people want them. 129. =wanted--a better rural education.=--the school in the rural community has its own peculiar weaknesses. first among these weaknesses is the fact that education is not in terms of rural experience. it is an accepted educational principle of instruction to begin with that which is simple and familiar, and to work out to that which is complex and more remote. on that principle the rural school should make use of local geography, of rural material in arithmetic, of literature and music with a rural flavor, of nature study with drawings from nature. the opposite has been the case, with the result that the child appreciates neither his surroundings nor his opportunities, but looks upon them as something to be avoided for the more important urban life, with whose activities he has become familiar through his daily tasks. a second weakness is that rural education omits so much of importance to the child who must make his living in the country. to discuss rural conditions in a natural and systematic way, beginning with the family and working out into the social life of the community; to study the economic side of life first on the farm and then in the neighborhood, getting hold of the underlying principles of agriculture, becoming familiar with the action of various soils and crops and the best methods of cultivation and protection from harm, to prepare by a few simple lessons in household science for the responsibility of the home, is to provide the bases of success and happiness for the boys and girls of the country. rural education, therefore, needs redirection. 130. =the quality of teaching.=--the child in the country has a right to as good instruction as the city child, but because of the poverty and penuriousness of school districts and the maintenance of too many small schools, rural communities pay small salaries and cannot command good teaching. there are thousands of schools scattered over the country with less than ten pupils in attendance, housed in cheap, unattractive buildings, with teachers who have had no normal-school training, and who have no enthusiasm for the work they have to do. they may hear twenty or more classes recite on numerous subjects in the course of a day, but there is no stimulus to teacher or pupil, and school hours provide little more than a conventional method for passing the time. in such communities as these there is rarely any efficient superintendence of teaching by a paid supervisor, and the school board is unqualified to judge on any other basis than the cost of schooling for a limited number of weeks. the small district school has the effect of strengthening the isolation that is the bane of the country regions. it continues to exist because every farmer wants the school near by for the convenience of his own family. the history of the "little red schoolhouse" throws a glamour of romance about the district headquarters, but in actual experience the district school has outlived its usefulness. there is a strong movement to consolidate district schools and at some conveniently central point, with attractive and ample grounds, to build, equip, and man a school adequate to the needs of the community. experience shows that the expense need be no greater, because better teachers can be secured for a given expenditure when fewer are needed, and with a greater number of scholars there may be a regular system of grading and classes large enough to arouse enthusiasm and ambition. the district school operates on the principle of division of labor in educational production, but it does not enjoy the benefits of co-operation or combination for efficiency, while the consolidated school secures these advantages and at the same time a better division of labor through the grades. rural education needs reorganization. 131. =a discouraging environment.=--too many a rural community, like old china, has been facing the past. it has lacked courage and ambition. the atmosphere has been one of gloom and discouragement. this community temper appears in the social groups; it is felt in the home, and it is present in the school. it has been typical of whole sections of rural country. dilapidated school buildings, plain and unkempt in appearance and cheap in construction, have been set in the midst of barren surroundings, unshaded by trees and unadorned with shrubs, without walks or drives to the entrance, and without even a flagpole as an evidence of patriotic enthusiasm. inside the building there is insufficient light and ventilation, and the old-fashioned furniture is ill adapted to the needs of the pupils. the whole structure is almost devoid of the conveniences and modern devices for making school life either comfortable or worth while. in such an environment there is none of the stimulus that the school should furnish. the best pupil, who might respond quickly to stimulus, tends to sink to the level of the meanest, the mental horizon, cramped at home, is hardly broadened during school hours, and the main purpose for the existence of the institution is not achieved. reading references fiske: _the challenge of the country_, pages 151-170. foght: _the american rural school_, pages 154-253. carney: _country life and the country school_, pages 133-301. kern: _among country schools._ gillette: _rural sociology_, pages 233-263. bryan: _poems of country life._ chapter xix the new rural school 132. =nature study in the new rural school.=--in striking contrast to such a defective rural institution as has been presented is the new rural school and the country-life movement of which it is a vital part. the first step in the new education is a growing recognition of the function of the school to relate its courses of study and its activities to the daily experience of the pupil. the background of country life is nature; therefore nature study is fundamental in the new curriculum. careful observation of natural objects comes first, until the child is able to identify bird and bee and flower. to knowledge is added appreciation. the beauty of fern and leaf, of brookside and hillside, of star-dotted and cloud-dappled sky, is not appreciated by mere observation, but waits on the education of the mind. this is part of the task of the teacher. the economic use of natural objects and natural forces is secondary, and should remain so, but the new education takes the knowledge which has been gained by observation and the enthusiasm which has been distilled through appreciation, and applies them to the social need. agriculture comes to seem not only an occupation for economic ends, but a vocation for social welfare also. with all the rest there is a moral and religious value in nature study. nature is pre-eminently under the reign of law; obedience to that law, adjustment to the inexorable demands of nature, are essential to nature's children. no more wholesome moral lesson than this can be taught to the present generation of children. nature ministers also to the spiritual. power, order, beauty, intelligence speak through the language of the natural world to the human soul, and the thoughtful child can be led to see through nature to nature's god. such a god is not a theory; in nature the divine presence is self-evident. all theory in the new rural school is based on experimentation. together the new teacher and the pupils beautify the grounds and the interior of the school building; they plan and make gardens and try all sorts of gardening experiments; they grow the plants that they study, and, best of all, they see the process of growth; from the use of soil and seed and proper care they learn lessons in practical agriculture that give satisfaction to all employed as book studies alone never could, and they make possible a far better type of agriculture when the pupils have fields of their own. nor is it necessary for pupils to wait for their maturity, for many a lesson learned at school and demonstrated in the neighborhood is promptly applied on the neighboring farms. 133. =the study of the individual.=--a second subject of study in the new rural schools is the individual. nature study is essential to a rural school, but "the noblest study of mankind is man." though it is highly important that the individual should regard social responsibility as out-weighing his own rights, it would be unfortunate if the importance of the individual were ever overlooked. the nature of the physical self, the requirement of diet and hygiene, the moral virtues that belong to noble manhood and womanhood, the possible self-development in the midst of the rural environment that is the pupil's natural habitat are among the worthy subjects of patient and serious study through the grades. neither physiology, psychology, nor ethics need be taught as such, but the elementary principles that enter into all of them belong among the mental assets of every individual. 134. =rural social science.=--in the same way it is not necessary and perhaps may not be advisable to teach rural sociology or economics by name, even in the high school. with the extension of the curriculum to include agriculture, there is need of some consideration of the principles of the ownership and use of land, farm management, and marketing. practical instruction in accounts, manual training, and domestic science find place in the new school. fully as important as these is it to explain the social relations that properly exist in the home, the school, and the neighborhood, to show the mutual dependence of all upon one another, and to point out the advantages of co-operation over a prideful individualism and frequent social friction. along with these relationships, or supplementary to them, belong the larger relations of country and town and the reciprocal service that each can render to the other, the characteristics and tendencies of social life in both types of community, and the effects of the changes that are taking place in methods of doing business and in the nature and characteristics of the people of either community. following these topics come the problems of rural socialization through such agencies as the school, the grange, and the church, and the application of the principles already learned in a study of social relations. 135. =improvement in economy and efficiency.=--while the curriculum of the schools is being fitted to the needs of the community, it is desirable that there should be improvement of economy and efficiency in the whole system of education. this is being accomplished partly by better supervision and teaching, but also by a consolidation of schools which makes possible better grading, an enlarged curriculum, improved teaching, and a deeper interest among the pupils. but one of the best results that come from school consolidation is to the community itself. a consolidated school means a larger and better-equipped building. it often has a large assembly hall, a library, and an agricultural laboratory. the new school has within it tremendous potencies. it may become under proper direction an educational centre for people of all ages and degrees of attainment. continuation schools for adults, especially the young and middle-aged people, who were born too soon to enjoy the advantages of the new education, are possible in the late autumn and winter. popular lectures and demonstrations on subjects of common concern and entertainments based on rural interests find place at this centre. mixed occasionally with a rural programme belongs instruction in wider social relations and world affairs. 136. =the teacher a community leader.=--with the consolidated school comes the well-trained teacher, and such a teacher deserves new recognition as a community leader. in europe and in some parts of rural america the teacher has a permanent home near the schoolhouse, as a minister has a parsonage near the meeting-house. such a teacher has an interest in community welfare, and a willingness to aid in community betterment. whether man or woman, he becomes naturally a community leader, and with the backing of public sentiment and adequate support a distinct community asset. such a teacher is more than a school instructor. he becomes a social educator of the people by interpreting to them their community life; he becomes a social inspirer to hope, ambition, and courage as he unfolds possible social ideals; he becomes a guide to a new prosperity as he defines the methods and principles on which other communities have worked out their own local successes. through the medium of the teacher the neighborhood may be brought into vital contact with other communities in a district or whole county, and may be brought together to consider their common interests and to try experiments in co-operation, first for educational purposes and then for general community prosperity. at first the rural teacher in many localities will have enough to do with securing proper accommodations for the children in school, for good buildings frequently wait for a teacher who has the courage to demand and persist in getting them; but the larger work for the community is only second in importance and adds greatly to the responsiveness of the older people to the suggestions of the teacher. one great weakness in the past has been the short term of service of the average teacher. it takes time to accomplish changes in a conservative community, and the new education will be successful only as the new teacher becomes a comparative fixture. to build oneself into the life of a rural community as does the physician, and to ennoble it with new ideas and higher ideals, is a missionary service that can hardly be surpassed at the present time in america. 137. =higher education.=--the normal school, the rural academy or county high school, and the college have their part in rural education. it rests with the normal school to supply the trained teacher and the normal schools rapidly are meeting the demands of the present situation. training classes for rural teachers have been established in high schools or academies in twelve or more states. more and more these higher schools are relating their courses of study to the rural life in which so many of them are placed. 138. =what the university can do.=--an increasing number of young people from the country are going to college. the college was founded on the principle of educating american youth in a higher culture than local elementary schools could provide. it is the function of the college and the university to open wider vistas for the individual mind than is otherwise possible, to do on an infinitely larger scale what the teacher is attempting in the elementary grades. these higher schools are passing through a humanizing process; they are making more of the social sciences and the art of living well; and they are allying themselves with practical life. in the case of established institutions with traditions, and often with trustees and alumni of conservative tastes and tendencies, there are difficulties in the way of their rapid adaptation to vocational needs. it is probably best that a certain class of them should stand primarily for intellectual culture, as technical and agricultural schools stand for their specialties, but the true university should be representative of all the social interests of all the people in the state. an illustration of what the university can do in social service for a whole state occurs in the recent history of the university of wisconsin. it conceived its function to be not solely to educate students who came for the full university course. it considered the needs of the people of the state, and it planned to provide information and intellectual stimulus for as wide a circle as possible. it provided correspondence courses. it sent out a corps of instructors to carry on extension courses. it made affiliations with other state institutions. it reached all classes of the people and touched all their social interests. it became especially useful to the farmers. in spite of scepticism on the part of the people and some of the university officers, those who had faith in the wider usefulness of the university pushed their plan until they succeeded in organizing a short winter course in agriculture for farmers' sons and then for the older farmers, branched out into domestic courses for the women, and even made provision for the interests of the boys and girls. reaching out still further, the university organized farmers' courses in connection with the county agricultural schools, established experiment stations, and encouraged the boys to enter local contests for agricultural prizes. by these means the university has become widely popular and has been exceedingly beneficial to the people of the state. 139. =the public library.=--while the school stands out as the leading educational institution of the rural community, it is by no means the sole agency of culture. alongside it is the library. home libraries in the country rarely contain books of value, either culturally or for practical purposes. circulating libraries of fiction are little better. school libraries and village libraries that contain well-selected literature are to be included among the desiderata of every countryside. a few of the great books of all time belong there, a small collection of current literature, including periodicals, and an abundant literature on country life in all its phases. it is the function of the library to instruct the people what to read and how to read by supplying book lists and book exhibits, and by demonstrating occasionally through the school or the church how books may be read to get the most out of them. in the days before public libraries were common in this country, library associations were formed to secure good literature. such associations are still useful in small communities that find it impossible to sustain a public library, and they serve as a medium for securing from the state a travelling library, which has the special advantage of frequent substitution of books. or the school library may be the nucleus of a literary collection for the whole community--advantageously so if the school building is kept open as a community centre. 140. =reading circles and musical clubs.=--the value of the library to the public consists, of course, not in the presence of books on the shelves, but in their use. such use is encouraged by the existence of literary or art clubs and reading circles. they supply the twofold want of companionship and culture. the proper basis of association is similarity of interests. local history or geology, nature study, current public events in state or nation, art in some of its phases, or the literature of a particular country or period, may be the special consideration of a club or reading circle; in every case the library is the laboratory of investigation. one of the conspicuously successful organizations of the last thirty years, showing how organization grows out of social need, is the chautauqua movement. starting as an undertaking in sunday-school extension by means of a summer assembly and local reading circles, in which the study of history, literature, and science was added to bible study, the movement has grown, until it is represented by a thousand summer institutes, with numerous popular lectures and entertainments, and it is one of the most useful educational agencies anywhere in the united states. every community is interested in music. music has a place on every programme, whether of church, school, or public assembly. a musical club is one of the effective types of organization for those who are like-minded in country or town. there are two varieties of organization, the first of persons who join for the pleasure that comes from agreeable society, the second of those who enter the organization for the musical culture to be obtained. whether for diversion or study, a musical club is well worth while. under the influence of music antagonisms soften, moroseness disappears, and sociability and good cheer take their place. the old-fashioned singing-school was one of the most popular of local social institutions; something is needed to fill its place. a club or band for the serious study of instrumental music not only gives culture to individuals, but is also an asset of increasing value to a church or community. 141. =woman's clubs.=--these have become so common that they need no special description, but as a social phenomenon they have their significance. they mark a new era in the emancipation of ideas; they are indicative of a new interest and ambition, and they are training-schools for future citizenship. they are of special value because of the wide areas of human interest that are brought within scope of discussion. for rural women they are a great boon, and while they have been most numerous in the larger centres, they may easily become a universal stimulus and guide to higher culture everywhere. in the absence of a grange they may serve as a centre of farm interests, and discussion may be made practical by the application of acquired knowledge to local problems, but their great value is in broadening the women's horizon of thought and interest beyond their own affairs. if rural men would organize local associations or brotherhoods for similar assembly and discussion of state and national interests they could multiply many times the benefits that come from the associations and discussions that occur on special days of political rally and voting. the rural mind needs frequent stimulus, and it needs frequent association with many minds. for this reason the cultural function is to be provided for by a method of congregation and organization approved by experience, leadership is to be provided and occasional stimulus applied, and life is to be enriched at many points. it is for the people themselves to carry on such enterprises, but the initiation of them often comes from outside. usually, perhaps, the number of people locally who have a real desire for culture are few, but it is through the training of these few that judicious, capable leaders of the community are to be obtained. reading references hart: _educational resources of village and rural communities_, pages 197-277. cubberley: _rural life and education_, pages 161-347. carney: _country life and the country school_, pages 336-340. davis: _agricultural education in the public schools._ eggleston and bruére: _the work of the rural school_, pages 193-223. howe: _wisconsin: an experiment in democracy_, pages 140-182. _country life_, pages 200-210. foght: _the american rural school_, pages 254-281. chapter xx rural government 142. =the necessity of government.=--institutions of recreation and culture are in most cases the voluntary creation of local groups of individuals, except as the state has adopted a system of compulsory education. government may be self-imposed or fixed by external authority, in any case it cannot be escaped. it can be changed in form and efficiency; it depends for its worth upon standards of public opinion; but it cannot cease to exist. as the activity of the child needs to be regulated by parental control in the home and by the discipline of the teacher in the school, so the activity of the people in the community needs to be regulated by the authority of government. self-control on the part of each individual or the existence of custom or public opinion without an executive agency for the enforcement of the social will, is not sufficient to safeguard and promote the interests of all. government has everywhere been necessary. 143. =the reign of law.=--the existence of regulation in the community is continually evident. the child comes into relation to law when he is sent to school to conform to the law of compulsory education. he goes to school along a road built and maintained by law, takes his place in a school building provided by a board of education or school committee that executes the law, and accepts the instruction of a teacher who is employed and paid according to the law. his hours of schooling and the length of terms and vacations are determined by the same authority. during his periods of recreation he is still under the reign of law, for game laws regulate the times when he may or may not hunt and fish. when he grows older and assumes the rights of citizenship he must bear his part of the burdens of society. he has the right to vote as one of the lawmakers of the land, but he is not thereby free to cast off the restraints of law. he must pay his proportion of the taxes that sustain the government that binds him, local, state, and federal taxes. he must perform the public duty of sitting on a jury or administering civic office if he is summoned thereto. even in his own domicile, though he be householder and head of a family, he may not injure the public health or morals by nuisances on his own premises, his financial obligations to creditors are secured against him by law, even the possession of his acres is made certain only by public record. it makes no difference whether the legal restrictions under which he lives are local or national, they are all a part of the system for which he and his neighbors are responsible, and which as citizens they are under obligation to maintain. 144. =political terms.=--it is important to understand and use correctly certain terms which occur in this connection. the state is the people organized for the purpose of exercising the authority of social control. in its sociological sense it is not restricted to a large or small area, but in political parlance it is used with reference to a large district which possesses a certain degree of authority over all the people, as the state of new york, or the sovereign state of great britain. government is the institution that functions for social control in accordance with the will of the people or of an individual to whose authority they submit. politics is the science and art of government, and includes statesmanship as its highest type and the manipulation of party machinery as its lowest type. law is the body of social regulations administered by government ostensibly for the public good. each of these may be and in the past has been prostituted for private advantage. in the state one man or a small group has seized and held the sovereign power through the force of personal ascendancy or the prestige of birth or wealth, and has used it for himself, as history testifies by numerous examples. the forms of government in many cases have not been well adapted to the functions that they were designed to perform. the despotic administrative agencies that were overthrown by the french revolution were ill-adapted to the governmental needs of the lower classes. much of the governmental machinery of the american republic has not matched the constitutional forms that were originally provided, and the constitution has had to be stretched or amended if the government of the founders of the republic was not to be revolutionized. so law and politics have had to be reorganized, revised, and reinterpreted to fit into the social need. law is a conservative factor in progress, but it adapts itself of necessity to the demands of equity. 145. =the will of the people.=--on the continent of europe rural government is arranged usually by the central authority of the nation; in america it is more independent of national control. on this side of the water the colonial governments often interfered little with local freedom, and after the revolution the people fashioned their own national organization, and in giving it certain powers jealously guarded their own local privileges. they were willing to sacrifice a general lawmaking power and grudgingly to permit the nation to have executive and judicial authority, but they retained the management of local affairs, including the raising and expenditure of direct taxes. local government, therefore, has continued to reflect the mind of the community, a mind occasionally swayed by emotional impulse, but usually controlled by a love of order, and by an anglo-saxon pride in self-restraint. the will of the people has made the government and sanctions its actions. it may be that the will is not fixed or united enough to force itself effectually upon a set of public officials, and may await reform or revolution to become forceful, yet in the last resort and in the long run the will of the people prevails. by the provisions of a democratic constitution judgment is frequently passed by the people upon the administration of government, and it is within their power to change the administrative policy or to reject the agents of government whom they have previously elected. locally they have the advantage of knowing all candidates for office. the efficiency of rural government depends much on its revenue, and farmers are reluctant to increase the tax rate; slowly they are learning the value of good roads and good schools. 146. =the ancient history of the community.=--the government of the rural community has a history of its own, as has the community itself. this government gradually fits itself to meet local needs, but it is slow to put away the survivals of earlier forms and customs that have outlived their usefulness. the history of the community goes back to primitive times, when the clan group recognized common interests and acknowledged the leadership of the chief or head man. custom was the law of the clan, and its older members assisted the chief in interpreting custom. government in the community developed in two ways, one along the path of centralization of authority, the other in the growth of democracy. one tendency was to attach an undue importance to ancient custom, and to throw about it a veil of sanctity by connecting it with religion. such a community in its conservatism came to possess in time a static civilization, but it lacked virility and commonly fell under the control of a neighboring energetic community or prince. this is the usual history of the oriental community. the other tendency was to adapt local law and organization to changing circumstances, and to make use of the abilities of all the members of the community, to give them a voice in the local assembly, and a right to hold public office. such progressive communities were the city states of greece, the republic of rome, and the rural communities of the barbarian germans before they settled in the roman empire. when the greek communities became decadent they fell under foreign dominion; rome imperialized the republic, but never forgot how to rule well in her municipalities; the germans passed on their democratic ways to the english, and from that source they were brought to america. 147. =two types of rural government.=--in america there have been two types of rural government growing out of the manner of original settlement. in new england the colonists settled near together in villages grouped about the meeting-house. one or more villages constituted a town for purposes of government. in these small districts it was possible for all the citizens to meet frequently, and in an annual assembly the voters of the community elected their officers and adopted the necessary local regulations. long custom transplanted oversea had kept a close connection between church and state, and until the new american principle of separation was universally adopted, the annual town meeting in massachusetts was a parish meeting, in which the community voted with reference to the needs of the church as well as of the state. in the south community life was less closely knit, and town meetings were not in vogue. the parish held its vestry meetings for the transaction of ecclesiastical business, for episcopacy was the established church; overseers of the poor were elected at the same meetings. there were county assemblies for social and judicial purposes, but in each a few prominent people in the neighborhood managed affairs and perpetuated their privileges, as among the landed gentry of england. it was in these ways that popular government continued along the path of material and social progress in the north, while in the south a plantation aristocracy conservatively maintained its colonial ideas and institutions, including slavery. with wider settlement there was an extension of these sectional differences, except near the border of both, where a blending of the two took place to some extent. county organization was necessary for a time, while the country was thinly settled, but neighborhoods organized as school districts, and by a natural process the school district became the nucleus of a township government, at first for school purposes and later for the self-government of the whole community. in some cases, as in illinois, it was made optional with the people of a county whether they would organize a township government or not, but wherever the two systems entered into comparison and competition the township government proved the more popular. as long as pure democracy remains there must be a small local unit of government, and the new england town meeting seems wonderfully well adapted to the purpose of self-government. the recent tendency to extend democracy in the form of political primaries and the referendum is a stimulus to such organization, and it may be expected that the town system will continue to extend, even in the south. 148. =town and county officials.=--the town meeting is held in a public building. in colonial days the close connection between church and state made it proper that the meeting should be in the meeting-house; in the west, where the school was the nucleus of local organization, the schoolhouse was the natural voting place. in present-day new england even a small village has its town house, containing a large hall, which serves for town meetings and for community assemblies for various social purposes. in the town meeting the administrative officers, called selectmen, are chosen annually, and minor officers, including clerk, treasurer, constables, and school committee; there the community taxes itself for the salaries of its officials, for the support of the town poor, for the maintenance of highways, and for such modern improvements as street lights and a public library. personal ability counts for more than party allegiance, though each political party usually puts its candidates in the field. an important function of the local voters is the decision under the local-option system that prevails in the east, as to whether the sale of intoxicating liquors shall be licensed for the ensuing year; under an increasing referendum policy the acts of the state legislature are frequently submitted for review to the local voters. where the town system does not exist or is part of a larger county, officers are elected for more extended responsibility. the functions of county officers are mainly judicial. among the county officers are the sheriff elected by the people to preserve order and justice throughout the region, the coroner whose duty has been to investigate sudden death or disaster, and to hold an inquest to determine the origin of crime if it existed. the county commissioners or supervisors are executive officers, corresponding to the selectmen of the town; the clerk and treasurer of the county have duties similar to the town officers with those titles. 149. =political relations and responsibilities.=--the local community, alike under township and county government, is a part of a larger political unit, and so has relations with and responsibilities to the greater state. the town meeting may legislate on such matters as the erection of a new schoolhouse or the building of a town highway, but it cannot locate the post-office or change the location of a state or county road. it may make its local taxes large or small, but it cannot increase or diminish the amount of the state tax or regulate the national tariff. the townsman lives under the jurisdiction of a law that is made by his representatives in the state legislature or the national congress, and he is tried and punished for the infraction of law in a county, state, or national court. as a citizen of these larger political units he may vote for county, state, and national officials, and may himself aspire to the highest office in the gift of his countrymen. 150. =political standards.=--to a foreigner such a system of government may seem exceedingly complex, but by it self-government is preserved to the people of the nation, and a good degree of efficiency is maintained. there are problems of social control that need study and that produce various experiments in one state or another before they are widely adopted; there is corruption of party politics with unscrupulous methods and machinery that is too well oiled with "tainted" money; but local government averages up to the level of the intelligence and morals of the community. if the schoolhouse is an efficient centre for the proper training of boys and girls to understand their social relations and civic responsibilities, and if the meeting-house is an efficient centre for the discussion of social ethics and a religion that moves on the plane of earth as well as heaven, then the town house will give a good account of itself in intelligent voting and clean political methods. if the school-teacher and the minister have won for themselves positions of community leadership, and are educators of a forceful public opinion, and if the community is sufficiently in touch with the best constructive forces in the national political arena to feel their stimulus, the political type locally is not likely to be very low. a self-governing people will always have as good a government as it wants, and if the government is not what it should be, the will of the people has not been well educated. reading references fairlie: _local government in counties, towns, and villages._ fiske: _civil government in the united states_, pages 34-95. henderson: _social elements_, pages 292-317. hart: _educational resources of village and rural communities_, pages 92-105. cooley: _social organization_, pages 402-410. chapter xxi health and beauty 151. =health and beauty in the community.=--rural government formerly limited its range of activity to political and economic concerns. the individualism of americans resented the interference of government in other matters. if property was made secure and taxed judiciously for the maintenance of public institutions, the duty of government was accomplished. the individual man was prepared to assume all further responsibility for himself and family. such matters as the health of a rural community and its æsthetic appearance were left to individual initiative and generally were neglected. on many occasions the housewife showed her sympathy and kindliness by nursing a sick neighbor, but the members of the community had little appreciation of the seriousness of contagion and infection, no knowledge of germs, and small thought of preventive measures. the appearance of their buildings and grounds was nobody's business but their own. they had no conception of the social obligation of each for all and of all for each. the result was an unnecessary amount of illness, especially of tuberculosis and typhoid fever, because of insanitary buildings and grounds, and a general air of shabbiness and neglect that pervaded many communities. it was not that the people lacked the æsthetic sense, but it had not been trained, and in the struggle for the subjugation of a new continent all such minor considerations must give way to the satisfaction of elemental wants. slowly it is becoming understood that health and beauty are matters that demand public attention and regulation. good fortune and happiness are not purely economic and political concerns. well-kept roads, clean and well-planned public buildings, sanitary farm structures, properly drained farm lands, and pure drinking water may not add to the number of bushels an acre, but they prolong life and add to its comfort and satisfaction. when it seems no longer strange to bother about health conditions, it will be relatively easy to give attention to rural æsthetics. if a schoolhouse or a meeting-house is to be erected, it will give greater satisfaction to the community if the principles of good architecture are observed and the building is set in the midst of trees and shrubbery and well-kept lawn. with such an object-lesson, the people of the community will presently contrast their own property with that of the public, the imitative impulse will begin to work, and individuals will begin to make improvements as leisure permits. there are villages that are ugly scars on a landscape which nature intended should be beautiful. with misdirected energy, farmers have destroyed the wild beauty of the fence corners and roadsides, mowing down the weeds and clearing out the brush and vines in an effort to make practical improvements, while with curious oversight they have permitted the weeds to grow in the paths and the grass to lengthen in the yard. many a farm in rural communities has untidy refuse heaps, tottering outbuildings, rusting machinery, and general litter that reveal the absence of all sense of beauty or even neatness, yet the farmer and his wife may be thrifty, hard-working people, and scrupulously particular indoors. their minds have not been sensitized to outdoor beauty and hideousness. they forget that nature is æsthetic; they live in the midst of her beauty, but their eyes are dim and their ears are dull, and it is difficult to instruct them. happily, recent years have brought with them a new sense of the possibilities of rural beauty. children are learning to appreciate it in the surroundings of the schoolhouse and the tasteful decorations of its interior; their elders are buying lawn-mowers and painting their fences, and america may yet rival in attractiveness the fair countryside of old england. 152. =is the town healthier than the country?=--it has been commonly believed that country people are healthier than townspeople. their life in the open, with plenty of exercise and hard work, toughens fibre and strengthens the body to resist disease. it has also been supposed that the city, with its crowded quarters, vitiated air, and communicable diseases, has a much larger death-rate. it is true that city life is more dangerous to health than a country existence if no health precautions are taken, but city ordinances commonly regulate community health, while in the country there is greater license. exposure gives birth to colds and coughs in the country; these are treated with inadequate home remedies, because physicians are inconveniently distant or expensive, and chronic diseases fasten themselves upon the individual. ignorance of hygienic principles, absence of bathrooms, poor ventilation, unscreened doors and windows, and impure water and milk are among the causes of disease. there is as much need of pure air, pure water, and pure food in the country as in the city, and the danger from disease is no less menacing. the farmer loses vitality through long hours of labor, and is susceptible to disease scarcely less than is the working man in town. and he is more at fault if he suffers, for there is room to build the home in a healthful location, where drainage is easy and pure air and sunshine are abundant; there is water without price for cleansing purposes, and sanitation is possible without excessive cost. in most cases it is lack of information that prevents a realization of perils that lurk, and every rural community should have instruction in hygiene from school-teacher, physician, or resident nurse. 153. =rural health preservers.=--three health preservers are needed in every rural community. these are the health official, the physician, and the nurse. there is need first of one whose business it shall be to inspect the sanitary conditions of public and private buildings, and to watch the health of the people, old and young. it matters little whether the official is under state or local authority, if he efficiently and fearlessly performs his duty. constant vigilance alone can give security, and it is a small price to pay if the community is compelled to bear even the whole expense of such a health official. community health is often intrusted to the town fathers or a district board with little interest in the matter; on the other hand, the agent of a state board is not always a local resident, and is liable to overlook local conditions. it is desirable that the health official be an individual of good training, familiar with the locality, and with ample authority, for in this way only can safety be reasonably secure. it is by no means impracticable to give a local physician the necessary official authority. he is equipped with information and skilled by experience to know bad conditions when he sees them and to appreciate their seriousness. whether or not a physician is the official health protector of the community, a physician there should be who can be reached readily by those who need him, and who should be required to produce a certificate of thorough training in both medicine and surgery. if such a medical practitioner does not establish himself in the district voluntarily, the community might well afford to employ such a physician on a salary and make him responsible for the health of all. as civilization advances it will become increasingly the custom in the country as well as in the city to employ a physician to keep one's general health good, as now one employs a dentist to examine and preserve the teeth. medical practice must continually become more preventive and less remedial. it may seem as if it were an unwarranted expansion of the social functions of a community that it should care for the health of individuals, but as the interdependence of individuals becomes increasingly understood, the community may be expected to extend its care for its own welfare. 154. =the village nurse.=--alongside the physician belongs the village or rural nurse. already there are many communities that are becoming accustomed to such a functionary, who visits the schools, examines the children, prescribes for their small ailments or recommends a visit to the physician, and who stands ready to perform the duties of a trained nurse at the bedside of any sufferer. the support of such a nurse is usually maintained by voluntary subscription, but there seems to be no good reason why she should not be appointed and paid by the organized community as a local official. she is as much needed as a road-surveyor, surely as valuable as hog-reeve or pound-keeper. it is a valid social principle, though rural observation does not always justify it, that human life is not only intrinsically more valuable to the individual or family than the life of an animal of the herd, but it is actually worth more to the community. 155. =the village improvement society.=--to secure good health conditions, interested persons in the community may organize a health club. its feasibility is well proved by the history of the village improvement society. there are two hundred such societies in massachusetts alone, and the whole movement is organized nationally in the american civic federation. their object is the toning up of the community by various methods that have proved practicable. they owe their organization to a few public-spirited individuals, to a woman's club, or sometimes to a church. their membership is entirely voluntary, but local government may properly co-operate to accomplish a desired end. expenses are met by voluntary contribution or by means of public entertainments, and its efforts are limited, of course, by the fatness of its purse. examples of the useful public service that they perform are the demolition of unsightly buildings and the cleaning up of unkempt premises, the beautification of public structures and the building of better roads, the erection of drinking troughs or fountains, and the improvement of cemeteries. besides such outdoor interests village improvement societies create public spirit, educate the community by means of high-class entertainments, art and nature exhibits, and public discussion of current questions of local interest. they stand back of community enterprises for recreation, fire protection, and other forms of social service, including such economic interests as co-operative buying and marketing and the extension of telephone or transportation service. the initial impulse that sets in motion various forms of village improvement frequently comes from the summer visitor or from a teacher or minister who brings new ideas and a will to carry them into action. in certain sections of country, like the mountain region of northern new england, summer people are very numerous, through the weeks from june to october, and not a few of them revisit their favorite rural haunts for a briefer time in the winter. it is not to be expected that they are always a force for good. sometimes they make country residents envious and dissatisfied. but it is not unusual that they give an intellectual stimulus to the young people and the women, compel the men to observe the proprieties of social intercourse, and encourage downcast leaders of church and neighborhood to renewed industry and hope. they demand multiplied comforts and conveniences, and expect attractive and healthful accommodations. where they purchase and improve lands and buildings of their own they provide useful models to their less particular neighbors, and thus the leaven of a better type of living does its work in the neighborhood. 156. =principles of organization.=--the principles that lie at the basis of every organization for improvement are simple and practicable everywhere. they have been enumerated as a democratic spirit and organization, a wide interest in community affairs, and a perennial care for the well-being of all the people. public spirit is the reason for its existence, and the same public spirit is the only force that can keep the organization alive. every community in this democratic country has its fortunes in its own hands. if it is so permeated with individualism or inertia that it cannot awake to its duties and its privileges, it will perish in accordance with the law of the survival of the fittest; if, on the contrary, it adopts as its controlling principles those just mentioned, it will find increasing strength and profit for itself, because it keeps alive the spirit of co-operation and mutual help. reading references hart: _educational resources of village and rural communities_, pages 66-82, 106-130. gillette: _rural sociology_, pages 147-167. harris: _health on the farm._ farwell: _village improvement_, pages 47-53, appendix. waters: _village nursing in the united states._ chapter xxii morals in the rural community 157. =social disease and its causes.=--rural morals are a phase of the public health of the community. immorality is a kind of social disease, for which the community needs to find a remedy. the amount of moral ill varies widely, but it can be increased by neglect or lessened by effort, as surely as can the amount of physical disease. moral ill is due to the individual and to the community. the judgment of the individual may be warped, his moral consciousness defective, or his will weak. he may have low standards and ill-adjusted relationships. selfishness may have blunted his sympathy. all these conditions contribute to the common vices of community life. but the individual is sometimes less to blame than the community. much moral ill is a consequence of the imperfect functioning of the community. a man steals because he is hungry or cold, and the motive to escape pain is stronger than the motive to deal lawfully with his neighbor; but if the community saw to it that adequate provision was made for all economic need, and if moral instruction was not lacking, it would be unlikely to happen. similar reasons may be found for other evils. it is as much the business of the community to keep the social atmosphere wholesome as it is to keep the air and water of its farms pure. it should provide moral training and moral exercise. 158. =how morals develop.=--without attempting a thoroughly scientific definition of morals, we may call good morals those habitual acts which are in harmony with the best individual and social interests of the people of the community, and bad morals the absence of such habits. of course the acts are the consequence of motives, and in the last analysis the question of morals is rooted in the field of psychology or religion; but the inner motive is revealed in the outward act, and it is customary to speak of the act as moral or immoral. moral standards are not unvarying. one race differs from another and one period of history differs from another. primitive custom was the first standard, and was determined by what was good for the group, and the individual conformed to it from force of circumstances. if he was to remain a member of the group and enjoy its benefits he must be willing to sacrifice his selfish desires. his consciousness of the solidarity of the group deepens with experience, and his feelings of sympathy grow stronger, until impulsive altruism becomes a habit and eventually a fixed and purposeful patriotism. by and by religion throws about conduct its sanctions and interprets the meaning of morality. however imperfect may be the relations between good morals and pagan religions, judaism and christianity have combined religion with high moral ideals. the hebrew prophets declared that god demanded justice, kindness, and mercy in human relations rather than acts of ceremony and sacrifice to himself, and jesus made love to neighbor as fundamental to holiness as love to god. such a religion becomes dynamic in producing moral deeds. 159. =the social stimulus to morality.=--it is customary to think of the homely virtues of truthfulness, sobriety, thrift, and kindliness as individual obligations, but they are not wrought out in isolation. isolation is never complete, and virtue is a social product. the farmer makes occasional visits to the country store, where he experiences social contacts; there is habitual association with individual workers on the farm or traders with whom the farmer carries on a business transaction. his personal contacts may not be helpful, and his wife may lack them almost altogether outside of the home; the result is often a tendency toward vice or degeneration, sometimes to insanity or suicide, but it is seldom that there are not helpful influences and relations available if the individual will put himself in the way of enjoying them. good morals are dependent on right associations. human beings need the stimulus of good society, otherwise the mind vegetates or broods upon real or fancied wrongs until the moral nature is in danger of atrophy or warping. family feuds develop, as among the scotch highlanders or the mountain people in certain parts of the south. lack of social sympathy increases as the interests become self-centred; out of this characteristic grow directly such evils as petty lawlessness, rowdyism, and crime. the country districts need the help of high-grade schools and proper places of recreation, of the young men's christian association or an association of like principles, and most of all of a virile church that will interpret moral obligation and furnish the power that is needed to move the will to right action. 160. =rural vices.=--the moral problems of the rural community do not differ greatly from those of the town. the most common rural vices are profanity, drunkenness, and sexual immorality. profanity is often a habit rather than a defect in moral character, and is due sometimes to a narrow vocabulary. it is a mark of ignorance and boorishness. in many localities it is less common than it used to be. the average community life is wholesome. not more than twenty per cent of american rural communities have really bad conditions in any way, according to the investigations made by the united states rural life commission in 1908. considering the monotony and hardships of rural life, it is much to the credit of the people that most communities are temperate and law-abiding. intemperance is one of the most common evils; there is a longing for the stimulant of liquor, which appears in some cases in moderate drinking and in other cases in the habit of an occasional spree in a near-by town, when reason abdicates to appetite. lumbermen and miners, whose work is especially hard and isolation from good society complete, have been notorious for their lapses into intemperance, but it is not a serious problem in three out of four communities the country over, and a wave of temperance sentiment has swept strongly over rural districts. gambling is a diversion that appeals to those who have few mental and pecuniary resources as an offset to the daily monotony, but this habit is not typical of rural communities. investigations of the rural life commission showed that sexual immorality prevails in ten to fifteen per cent of the rural communities, and they trace much of it to late evening drives and dances and unchaperoned calls, but on the whole the perversion of the sex instinct is less common than in the cities. the young are generally trained in moral principles, the religious sanctions are more strongly operative, and the conduct and character of every individual is constantly under the public eye. young people in the country marry at an earlier age than in the city, and husband and wife are normally faithful. crime in the country is peculiar to degenerate communities, elsewhere it is rare. juvenile delinquency occurs, and there are not such helpful influences as the juvenile court of the city; on the other hand, most boys are in touch with home influences, feel the restraint of a law-abiding community, and know that lawbreaking is almost certain to be found out and punished. 161. =community obligation.=--moral delinquency in the rural community lies in the failure to provide social stimulus to individual members. the farmer has as good reason to be ambitious for success and to feel pride in it as has the city merchant, but he has small local encouragement to develop better agriculture on his own farm. he has as much right to the benefits of association in toil and co-operation in effecting economies and disposing of his products as the employer or working man in town. he is equally entitled to good government, to wholesome recreation, to a suitable and efficient education, and to the spiritual leadership of a progressive church. without the spur of community fellowship his life narrows and his abilities are not developed. with the help of community stimulus the individual may develop capacity for individual achievement and social leadership of as fine a quality as any urban centre can supply. it is well known that the strong men of the cities in business and the professions have come in large proportion from the country. if such qualities developed in the comparative isolation and discomfort of the past, it is a moral obligation of rural communities of the future to do even more to produce the brawn and brain of city leaders in days to come. reading references wilson: _the evolution of the country community_, pages 171-188. anderson: _the country town_, pages 95-106. dealey: _sociology_, pages 146-165. hart: _educational resources of village and rural communities_, pages 166-175. hobhouse: _morals in evolution_, i, pages 364-375. spencer: _data of ethics_, chapter 8. _report of committee on morals and rural conditions of the general association of congregational churches of massachusetts_, 1908. chapter xxiii the rural church 162. =the value of the rural church.=--of all the local institutions of the rural community, none is so discouraging and at the same time so potential for usefulness as the country church. it has had a noble past; it is passing through a dubious present; it should emerge into a great future. the church is the conserver of the highest ideals. like every long-established institution, it is conservative in methods as well as in principles. it regards itself as the censor of conduct and the mentor of conscience, and it fills the rôle of critic as often as it holds out an encouraging hand to the weary and hard pressed in the struggle for existence and moral victory. it is the guide-post to another world, which it esteems more highly than this. sometimes it puts more emphasis on creed than on conduct, on sunday scrupulousness than on monday scruple. but in spite of its failings and its frequent local decline, the church is the hope of rural america. it is notorious that the absence of a church means a distinctly lower type of community life, both morally and socially. vice and crime flourish there. property values tumble when the church dies and the minister moves away. many residents rarely if ever enter the precincts of the meeting-house or contribute to the expense of its maintenance, yet they share in the benefits that it gives and would not willingly see it disappear when they realize the consequences. in the westward march of settlement the missionary kept pace with the pioneer, and the church on the frontier became the centre of every good influence. it is impossible to estimate the value of the rural church in the onrush of civilization. religion has been the saving salt of humanity when it was in danger of spoiling. in the lumber and the mining camp, on the cattle-ranch and the prairie, the missionary has sweetened life with his ministry and given a tone to the life of the open and the wild that in value is past calculation. 163. =the church in decline.=--in the days when it seems declining, the strength of the rural church is worth preserving. there are hundreds of rural communities where the young people have gone to the town and population has steadily fallen behind. there are hundreds more where the people of a community have drawn wealth from the soil, and with a succession of good crops and high prices have accumulated enough to keep them comfortable, and then have sold or leased their property and moved into town. the purchasers or tenants who replaced them have been less able to contribute to church support or have been of a different faith or race, and the churches have found it difficult to survive. doubtless some of these churches could be spared without great loss, for in the rush of real or expected settlement, certain localities became over-churched, but the spectacle of scores of abandoned churches in the middle west has as doleful an appearance as abandoned farms in new england. 164. =is it worth preserving?=--it would be a misfortune for the church to perish out of the rural districts, for it performs a religious function that no other institution performs. it cherishes the beliefs that have strengthened man through the ages and given him the upward look that betokens faith in his destiny and power in his life. it calls out the best that is in him to meet the tasks of every day. it ministers to him in times of greatest need. it teaches him how to relate himself to an unseen power and to the fellowship of human kind. the meeting-house is a community centre drawing to itself like a magnet family groups and individuals from miles around, overcoming their isolation and breaking into the daily monotony of their lives, and with its worship and its sermon awakening new thoughts and impulses for the enrichment of life. nor does its ministry confine itself to things of the spirit. the weekly sunday assembly provides opportunity for social intercourse, if no more than an exchange of greetings, and now and then a sociable evening gathering or anniversary occasion brings an added social opportunity. 165. =the country minister.=--the faithful rural minister also carries the church to the people. his parish is broad, but he finds his way into the homes of his parishioners, acquaints himself with their characteristics and their needs, and fits his ministrations to them. especially does he carry comfort to the sick and soothe the suffering and the dying. no other can quite fill his place; no other so builds himself into the hearts of the people. he may not be a great thinker or preach polished sermons; his hands may be rough and his clothes ill-fitting; but if he is a loyal friend and ministers to real spiritual need, he is saint and prophet to those whom he has brothered. in the rural economy each public functionary is worthy or unworthy, according to his personal fidelity to his particular task. a poorly equipped board of government is not worth half the salary of the school-teacher. that official may not hold his place or gain the respect of his pupils unless he meets their needs of instruction with a degree of efficiency. but a public servant who fills full the channels of his usefulness is worth twice what he is likely to get as his stipulated wage. the community can well afford to look kindly upon a minister of that type, to encourage him in his efforts for the upbuilding of the community, and to contribute to an honorable stipend for his support. 166. =the problems.=--the rural church has its problems and so has the rural minister. there are the indifferent people who are irreligious themselves and have no share in the activities of the religious institution. there are the insincere people who belong to the church but are not sympathetic in spirit or conduct. there are the cold-blooded people who gather weekly in the meeting-house but do not respond to intellectual or spiritual stimulus, and who chill the heart of the minister and soon quench his enthusiasm. it is not surprising if he is restless and changes location frequently, or if he becomes listless and apparently indifferent to the welfare of his flock, when he meets no response and himself enjoys no stimulus from his own kind. all these conditions constitute the spiritual problem. beyond this there is the institutional problem. the church finds maintenance difficult, often impossible without outside assistance. failing to minister to any purely community need except on special occasions, or to assume any responsibility of leadership in civic or social affairs, it does not receive the cordial support of the community to which as a social institution, conserving the highest interests, it is reasonably entitled. it must be remembered that in america there can be no established church supported by the state, as in england. the church is on a different footing in every community from that of the public school. it is therefore dependent on the good-will of the community and must cultivate that good-will if it is to succeed. most rural churches have yet to become a vital force, not only energizing their own members, but reaching out also to the whole community, seeking not their own growth as their chief end, but by ministering to the community's needs, realizing a fuller, richer life of their own. 167. =the needs of the church.=--the rural church needs reorganization for efficiency, but changes must be gradual. a local church that is democratic in its form of organization, with no external oversight, is likely to need strengthening in administration; a church that intrusts control to a small board or is governed from the outside probably needs to get closer to the people, but differences in church government are of small practical consequence. it does not appear that it makes much difference in the success of a rural church whether its organization is episcopal, presbyterian, or congregational. the machinery needs modernizing, whatever the pattern. it is a part of the task to be undertaken by every up-to-date country minister to consider possible improvements in the various departments of the church. it is as likely that the children are being as inefficiently taught in the sunday-school as in the every-day school, that organizations and opportunities for the young people are as lacking as in the community at large, that discussions in the bible class are as pointless as those in any local forum. it is more than likely that the church is failing to make good in a given locality because it is depending on a few persons to carry on its activities, and these few do not co-operate well with one another or with other christian people. the functions of the church are neither well understood nor properly performed. it has small assets in community good-will, and it is in no real sense a going concern. 168. =the new rural church.=--here and there a church of a new type is meeting manfully these various needs. it has set itself first to answer the question whether the church is a real religious force in the community, and what method may best be used to energize the countryside more effectually for moral and religious ends. old forms or times of worship have needed changing, or an innovating individual has taken a hand temporarily. then it has faced the practical problem of religious education. most churches maintain a sunday-school and a woman's missionary or aid society. certain of them have young people's organizations, and a few have organized men's classes or clubs. each of these groups goes on its own independent course. there is no attempt to correlate the studies with which each concerns itself, and there is much waste of effort in holding group sessions that accomplish nothing. the new church directors simplify, correlate, and systematize all the educational work that is being attempted, improve courses of study and methods of teaching, and propose to all concerned the attainment of certain definite standards. in the third place, the new rural church adopts for itself a well-considered programme of community service. its opportunity is unlimited, but its efforts are not worth much unless it approaches the subject intelligently, with a knowledge of local conditions, of its own resources, and of the methods that have been used successfully in other similar localities. nothing less than these three tasks of investigation, education, and service belong to every church; toward this ideal is moving an increasing number of churches in the country. reading references butterfield: _the country church and the rural problem._ fiske: _the challenge of the country._ wilson: _the church of the open country._ nesmith: chapter on "the rural church" in _social ministry._ hart: _educational resources of village and rural communities_, pages 176-196. _report of country life commission_, 1908. chapter xxiv a new type of rural institution 169. =a new type of institution.=--the rural community everywhere is in need of a new social institution. those which exist have been individualistic in purpose and method and only incidentally have been socially constructive. the school has existed to make individuals efficient intellectually, that they might be able to struggle successfully for existence. the church has existed as a means to individual salvation from future ill. social good has resulted from these institutions, but it has not been fundamental in their purpose. the new rural institution that is needed is a centre for community reconstruction. if the school or the church can adapt itself to the need, either may become such an institution; if not, there must be a new type. it has often been said that the characteristic evil of rural life is the isolation of the people, but this must be understood to mean not merely an isolated location of farm dwellings but a lack of human fellowship. in the city the majority of people might as well live in isolated houses as far as acquaintance with neighbors is concerned, but they do not lack human fellowship because they have group connections elsewhere. in the country it is hardly possible to choose associates or institutional connections. there is one school prepared to receive the children of a certain age, and no other, unless they are conveyed to a distance at great inconvenience; the variety of suitable churches is not large. it is necessary to cultivate neighbors or to go without friendships. but rural social relations are not well lubricated. there are few common topics of conversation, except the weather, the crops, or a bit of gossip. there are few common interests about which discussion may centre. there is need of an institution that shall create and conserve such common interests. 170. =a community house.=--the first task is to bring people together to a common gathering place, where perfect democracy will prevail, and where there may be unrestricted discussion. there is no objection to using the schoolhouse for the purpose, but ordinarily it is not adapted to the purposes of an assembly-room. the meeting-house may serve the purpose, but to many persons it seems a desecration of a sacred building, and except in the case of a single community church there is too much of the denominational flavor about it to make it an unrestricted forum. ideally there should be a community house erected at a convenient location, and large enough to accommodate as many as might desire to assemble. it should be equipped for all the social uses to which it might be put. it should be paid for by the voluntary contributions of all the people, but title to the property should be in the hands of a board of trustees or associates who would be responsible for its maintenance and for the uses to which it would be put. these persons must be men and women of the town in whose judgment the people have full confidence. regular expenses should be met by annual payments, as the young men's christian association is sustained in cities all over the country, and by occasional entertainments. a limited endowment fund would be helpful, but too large endowment tends to pauperize a local institution. 171. =intellectual stimulus.=--the second task is to put the community house to use. there are numerous ways by which this can be done, but the best are those that fit local need. of all the needs the greatest is stimulus to thought. ideally this should come from the pulpit of the rural church, but its stimulus is usually not strong, it is commonly confined to religious exhortation, and it reaches only a few. all the people of the community need to think seriously about their economic and social interests, and to be drawn out to express themselves on such subjects. the old-fashioned town meeting provided a channel for such discussion once a year. what is needed is a town-meeting extension through eight or nine months of the year. the community house offers an opportunity for such an extension. under the initiative and guidance of one or two energetic local leaders, inspired by an occasional outside lecturer, such as can be obtained at small expense from agricultural colleges and other public agencies, almost any american community ought to carry on a forum of public discussion for weeks, taking up first the most urgent questions of community interest and passing on gradually to matters of broader concern. 172. =social satisfaction.=--as the adults of the community need intellectual stimulus, so the young people need social satisfactions. the salvation of the american rural community lies largely in the contentment of the young people, for without that quality of mind they leave the country for the town, or settle back in an unprogressive, unsocial state of sullen resignation. there must be opportunity for recreation. the community house should function for the entertainment of its constituency in ways that approve themselves to the associates in charge. but it is not so much entertainment that is wanted as an opportunity for sociability, occasions when all the youth of the community can meet for mutual acquaintance and the beginnings of courtship, and for the stimulus that comes from human association. if association and activity are characteristic of normal social life, it is unreasonable to suppose that rural young people will be contented to vegetate. if they cannot have legitimate opportunities to realize their impulse to associated activity, they will provide less satisfactory unconventional opportunities. one of the best means for promoting sociability and providing an outlet for youthful energy in concert has been found in the use of music. the old-fashioned singing-school filled a real need and its passing has left a distinct gap. where musical gatherings have been revived experience has shown that they are a most effective stimulus to a new community consciousness. the country church choir has long been regarded as a useful social as well as religious institution, but the community chorus is far more effective. it is possible to uncover latent talent and to cultivate it so that it will furnish more attractive entertainment for the people than that which is imported at far greater expense from outside. among the foreigners who are finding their way into rural localities, there is sometimes discovered a musical ability that outranks the native, and no other method of approach to the immigrant is so easy as by giving his young people a place in the social activities of the community. 173. =continuation schooling.=--a further use for the community house is educational. the older education of the district school was defective, and the new education is not enjoyed by many a farmer's boy or girl, because they cannot be spared in the later years of youth for long schooling. an adaptation of the idea of continuation schools for rural young people so that they may apply the new sciences to country life is greatly to be desired. the local school principal or county superintendent or an extension teacher from a state institution may be found available as director, and it belongs to the community to provide the necessary funds. for older people some of the same courses are suitable, but they should be supplemented with lectures of all sorts. it has been demonstrated many times that popular lecturers can be secured at small expense in different parts of the country, especially in these days when there are so many agencies to push the new agricultural science, and other subjects over a wide range of interests will not fail to find exponents if a demand for them can be created. 174. =community leadership.=--in the last analysis the prime factor in the rural situation is the community leader. institutions can do little for the enrichment of rural life if personality is wanting. it is the leader's energy that keeps the wheels of the machinery turning, his wisdom that gears their action to the needs of the community. it is desirable that the leader should spring from the community itself, acquainted with its needs and voicing its aspirations. but more communities get their leaders from outside and are often more willing to accept such a leader than if he came up out of their midst, for the proverb is often true that a prophet is without honor in his own country. 175. =qualities of leadership.=--social leadership is dependent upon certain qualities in the person who leads and in those who are led. the attitude of the people of the community is fundamental. the stimulus that the leader applies must find response in their inner natures if his energy is to become socially effective. if there is not a latent capacity to action, no amount of stimulus will avail. it is safe to assume that there are few local communities in america that will fail to respond to the right kind of leadership, but certain qualities in the leader are essential for inspiration. it is not necessary that he should be country born, but it is essential that he love the country, appreciate its opportunities, and be conscious of its needs. he cannot hope to call out these qualities in the people if he does not himself possess them. and it must be a genuine love and appreciation that is in him, for only sincerity and perfect honesty can win men for long. it is essential that he have breadth of sympathy for all the interests of the people that he seeks for his own; he may not think lightly of farming or storekeeping, of education or recreation, of morals or religion. he must be devoted to the community, its servant as well as its leader, content to build himself into its life. it is not necessary that the leader should be a trained expert, a finished product of the schools, desirable as such equipment is, but it is essential that he know how to call out the best that is in others, to play upon their emotions, to appeal to their intellects, to energize their wills. he must not only understand their present mental processes, but he must have a vision of them when they have become transformed with new impulses and ambitions, and converted to new and nobler purposes. he needs an unquenchable enthusiasm, a gentle patience, an invincible, aggressive persistency, a contagious optimism that will carry him over every obstacle to ultimate victory. it is essential that he possess fertility of resource to adapt himself to circumstances, that he have power to call out action and executive ability to direct it. most important of all is a magnetic personality such as belonged to the great chieftains of history who in war or peace have been able to attract followers and to mould them in obedience to their own will. 176. =broad opportunities.=--a leader such as that described has an almost unlimited field of opportunity to mould social life. in the city the opportunity for leadership may seem to be larger, but few can dominate more than a small group. in the country the start may be slower and more discouraging, but the goal reaches out ahead. from better agriculture the leader may draw on the people to better social ideals, to a new appreciation of education and broad culture, to a truer understanding of ethics and religion. he may refashion institutions that may express the new in modern terms. but when this is accomplished his work is not done. he may reach out over the countryside and make his village a nucleus for wider progress through a whole county. even then his influence is not spent. the rural communities in america are feeders of the cities; in them is the nursery of the men and women who are to become leaders in the larger circles of business and professional life, in journalism and literature, in religion and social reform. many a rural teacher or pastor has built himself into the affections of a boy or a girl, incarnating for them the noblest ideals and stimulating them to achievement and service in an environment that he himself could never hope to fill and with a power of influence that he could never expect to wield. the avenues of opportunity are becoming more numerous. the teacher and the minister have advantages of leadership over the county young men's christian association secretary and the village nurse, but since personal qualities are the determining factors, no man or woman, whatever their position, can make good the claim without proving ability by actual achievement. any man or woman who enters a particular community for the first time, or returns to it from college, may become a dynamo of blessing to it. there waits for such a leader the loyalty of the boys who may be won for noble manhood, of the girls who may become worthy mothers of a better generation of future citizens, of men and women for whom the glamour of youth has passed into the sober reality of maturer years, but who are still capable of seeing visions of a richer life that they and their children may yet enjoy. there are ready to his hand the institutions that have played an important part, however inefficiently in rural life, the heritage of social custom and community character that have come down from the past, and the material environment that helps or hinders but does not control human relations and human deeds. these constitute the measure of his world; these are clay for the potter and instruments for his working; upon him is laid the responsibility of the product. reading references curtis: _play and recreation for the open country_, pages 195-259. fiske: _the challenge of the country_, pages 225-266. cooley: _human nature and the social order_, pages 283-325. mcnutt: "ten years in a country church," _world's work_, december, 1910. mckeever: _farm boys and girls_, pages 129-145. carney: _country life and the country school_, pages 1-17, 302-327. part iv--social life in the city chapter xxv from country to city 177. =enlarging the social environment.=--in the story of the family and the rural community it has become clear that the normal individual as he grows to maturity lives in an expanding circle of social relations. the primary unit of his social life is the family in the home. there the elemental human instincts are satisfied. there while a child he learns the first lessons of social conduct. from the home he enters into the larger life of the community. he takes his place in the school, where he touches the lives of other children and learns that he is a part of a larger social order. he gets into the current of community life and finds out the importance of local institutions like the country store and the meeting-house. he becomes accustomed to the ways that are characteristic of country people, and finds a place for himself in the industry and social activity of the countryside. when the boy who has grown up in a rural community comes to manhood, his natural tendency is to accept the occupation of farming with which he has become acquainted in boyhood, to woo a country maid for a mate, and to make for himself a rural home after the pattern of his ancestors. in that case his social environment remains restricted. his relations are with nature rather than with men. his horizon is narrow, his interests limited. the institutions that mould him are few, the forces that stimulate to progress are likely to be lacking altogether. he need not, but he usually does, cease to grow. 178. =characteristics of the city.=--certain individuals find the static life of the country unbearable. their nature demands larger scope in an expanding environment. to them the stirring town beckons, and they are restless until they escape. the city is a centre of social life where the individual feels a greater stimulus than in the home or the rural community. it resembles the family and the village in providing social relations and an interchange of ideas, but it surpasses them in the large scale of its activities. it presents many of the same social characteristics that they do, but geared in each case for higher speed. its activities are swifter and more varied. its associations are more numerous and kaleidoscopic. its people are less independent than in the country; control, economic and political, is more pervasive, even though crude in method. change is more rapid in the city, because the forces that are at work are charged with dynamic energy. weakness in social structure and functioning is conspicuous. in the large cities all these are intensified, but they are everywhere apparent whenever a community passes beyond the village stage. the line that separates the village or small town from the city is an arbitrary one. the united states calls those communities rural that have a population not exceeding twenty-five hundred, but it is less a question of population than of interests and activities. when agriculture gives place to trade or manufacturing as the leading economic interest; when the community takes on the social characteristics that belong to urban life; and when places of business and amusement assume a place of importance rather than the home, the school, and the church, the community passes into the urban class. names and forms of government are of small consequence in classification compared with the spirit and ways of the community. 179. =how the city grows.=--the city grows by the natural excess of births over deaths and by immigration. without immigration the city grows more slowly but more wholesomely. immigration introduces an alien element that has to adjust itself to new ways and does not always fuse readily with the native element. this is true of immigration from the country village as well as from a foreign country, but an american, even though brought up differently, finds it easier to adapt himself to his new environment. an increasingly large percentage of children are born and grow to maturity in the city. there are thousands of urban communities of moderate size in america, where there are few who come in from any distance, but for nearly a hundred years in the older parts of the country a rural migration has been carrying young people into town, and the recent volume of foreign immigration is spilling over from the large cities into the smaller urban centres, so that the mixture of population is becoming general. 180. =the attraction of the city.=--foreign immigration is a subject that must be treated by itself; rural immigration needs no prolonged discussion once the present limitations of life in the country are understood. multitudes of ambitious young people are not contented with the opportunities offered by the rural environment. they want to be at the strategic points of the world's activities, struggling for success in the thick of things. the city attracts the country boy who is ambitious, exactly as old rome attracted the immature german. the blare of its noisy traffic, the glare of its myriad lights, the rush and the roar and the rabble all urge him to get into the scramble for fun and gain. the crowd attracts. the instinct of sociability draws people together. those who are unfamiliar with rural spaces and are accustomed to live in crowded tenements find it lonesome in the country, and prefer the discomfort of their congested quarters in town to the pure air and unspoiled beauty of the country. they love the stir of the streets, and enjoy sitting on the door-steps and wandering up and down the sidewalks, feeling the push of the motley crowd. those who leave the country for the city feel all these attractions and are impelled by them, but beyond these attractions, re-enforcing them by an appeal to the intellect, are the economic advantages that lie in the numerous occupations and chances for promotion to high-salaried positions, the educational advantages for children and youth in the better-graded schools, the colleges, the libraries, and the other cultural institutions, and such social advantages as variety of entertainment, modern conveniences in houses and hotels, more beautiful and up-to-date churches, well-equipped hospitals, and comfortable and convenient means of transportation from place to place. 181. =making a countryman into a citizen.=--it is important to enter into the spirit of the young people who prefer the streets and blocks of the town to the winding country roads, and are willing to sacrifice what there is of beauty and leisure in rural life for the ugliness, sordidness, and continuous drive of the city; to understand that a greater driving force, stirring in the soul of youth and thrusting upon him with every item of news from the city, is impelling him to disdain what the country can give him and to magnify the counter-attractions of the town. he has felt the monotony and the contracted opportunity of farm life as he knows it. he has experienced the drudgery of it ever since he began to do the chores. familiar only with the methods of his ancestors, he knows that labor is hard and returns are few. he may look across broad acres that will some day be his, but he knows that his father is "land poor." as a farmer he sees no future for agriculture. he has known the village and the surrounding country ever since he graduated from the farmyard to the schoolhouse, and came into association with the boys and girls of the neighborhood. he knows the economic and social resources of the community and is satisfied that he can never hope for much enjoyment or profit in the limited rural environment. the school gave him little mental stimulus, but opened the door ajar into a larger world. the church gave him an orthodox gospel in terms of divinity and its environment rather than humanity on earth, but stirred vaguely his aspirations for a fuller life. he has sounded the depths of rural existence and found it unsatisfying. he wants to learn more, to do more, to be more. one eventful day he graduates from the village to the city, as years before he graduated from the home into the community. by boat or train, or by the more primitive method of stage-coach or afoot, he travels until he joins the surging crowd that swarms in the streets. he feels himself thrilling with the consciousness that he is moving toward success and possibly greatness. he does not stop to think that hundreds of those who seek their fortune in the city have failed, and have found themselves far worse off than the contented folk back in the home village. the newcomer establishes himself in a boarding-house or lodging-house which hundreds of others accept as an apology for a home, joins the multitude of unemployed in a search for work, and is happy if he finds it in an office that is smaller and darker than the wood-shed on the farm, or behind a counter where fresh air and sunlight never penetrate. he will put up with these non-essentials, for he expects in days ahead to move higher up, when the large rewards that are worth while will be his. in the ranks of business he measures his wits with others of his kind. he apes their manners, their slang, and their tone inflections. he imitates their fashions in clothes, learns the popular dishes in the restaurants, and if of feminine tastes gives up pie for salad. he goes home after hours to his small and dingy bedroom, tired from the drain upon his vitality because of ill-ventilated rooms and ill-nourishing food, but happy and free. there are no chores waiting for him now, and there is somewhere to go for entertainment. not far away he may have his choice of theatres and moving-picture shows. if he is æsthetically or intellectually inclined, there are art-galleries and libraries beckoning him. if his earnings are a pittance and he cannot afford the theatre, and if his tastes do not draw him to library or museum, the saloon-keeper is always ready to be his friend. the youth from the country would be welcomed at the young men's christian association on the other side of the city, or at a church if there happened to be a social or religious function that opened the building, but the saloon is always near, always open, and always cordial. poor or rich, or a stranger, it matters not, let him enter and enjoy the poor man's club. it is warm and pleasant there and he will soon make friends. 182. =mental and moral changes.=--the readjustments that are necessary in the transfer from country to city are not accomplished without considerable mental and moral shock. changing habits of living are paralleled by changing habits of thought. old ideas are jostled by new every hour of the day. at the table, on the street, in office or store, at the theatre or church the currents of thought are different. social contacts are more numerous, relations are more shifting, intellectual affinities and repulsions are felt constantly; mental interactions are so frequent that stability of beliefs and independence of thought give way to flexibility and uncertainty and openness to impression. group influence asserts its power over the individual. along with the influence of the group mind goes the influence of what may be called the electrical atmosphere of the city. the newcomer from the country is very conscious of it; to the old resident it becomes second nature. city life is noisy. the whole industrial system is athrob with energy. the purring of machinery, the rattle and roar of traffic, the clack and toot of the automobile, the clanging of bells, and the chatter of human tongues create a babel that confuses and tires the unsophisticated ear and brain. they become accustomed to the sounds after a time, but the noise registers itself continually on the sensitive nervous system, and many a man and woman breaks at last under the strain. another element that adds to the nervous strain is haste. life in the city is a stern chase after money and pleasure. everybody hurries from morning until night, for everything moves on schedule, and twenty-four hours seem not long enough to do the world's work and enjoy the world's fun. noise and hurry furnish a mental tension that charges the urban atmosphere with excitement. purveyors of news and amusement have learned to cater to the love of excitement. the newspaper editor hunts continually for sensations, and sometimes does not scruple to twist sober fact into stirring fiction. the book-stall and the circulating library supply the novel and the cheap magazine to give smack to the jaded palate that cannot relish good literature. the theatre panders to the appetite for a thrill. in these circumstances lie the possibilities of moral shock. in the city there is freedom from the old restraint that the country community imposed. in the city the countryman finds that he can do as he pleases without the neighbors shaking their heads over him. in the absence of such restraint and with the social contact of new friends he may rapidly lower his moral standards as he changes his manners and his mental habits. it does not take long to shuffle off the old ways; it does not take much push or pull to make the unsophisticated boy or girl lose balance and drift toward lower ideals than those with which they came. not a few find it hard to keep the moral poise in the whirlpool of mental distraction. it is these effects of the urban environment that help to explain the social derelicts that abound in the cities. it is the weakness of human nature, along with the economic pressure, that accounts for the drunkenness, vice, and crime that constitute so large a problem of city life and block the path of society's development. they are a part of the imperfection that is characteristic of this stage of human progress, and especially of the twentieth-century city. they are not incurable evils, they demand a remedy, and they furnish an inspiring object of study for the practitioner of social disease. he who escapes business and moral failure has open wide before him in the city the door of opportunity. he may, if he will, meet all the world and his wife in places where the people gather, touching elbows with individuals from every quarter of the country, with persons of every class and variety of attainment, with believers of every political, æsthetic, and religious creed. in such an atmosphere his mind expands like the exotic plant in a conservatory. his individual prejudices fall from him like worn-out leaves from the trees. he begins to realize that other people have good grounds for their opinions and practices that differ from his own, and that in most cases they are better than his, and he quickly adjusts himself to them. the city stimulates life by its greater social resources, and forms within its borders more highly developed human groups. beyond the material comforts and luxuries that the city supplies are the social values that it creates in the associations and organizations of men and women allied for the philanthropic, remedial, and constructive purposes that are looking forward to the slow progress of mankind toward its highest ideals. 183. =the city as a social centre.=--the city is an epitome of national and even world life, as the farm is community life in miniature. its social life is infinitely complex, as compared with the rural village. distances that stretch out for miles in the country, over fields and woods and hills, are measured in the city by blocks of dwellings and public buildings, with intersecting streets, stretching away over a level area as far as the eye can see. social institutions correspond to the needs of the inhabitants, and while there are a few like those in the country, because certain human needs are the same, there is a much larger variety in the city because of the great number of people of different sorts and the complexity of their demands. every city has its business centres for finance, for wholesale trade, and for retail exchange, its centres for government, and for manufacturing; it has its railroad terminals and often its wharves and shipping, its libraries, museums, schools, and churches. all these are gathering places for groups of people. but there is no one social centre for all classes; rather, the people of the city are associated in an infinite number of large and small groups, according to the mutual interests of their members. but if the city has no four corners, it is itself a centre for a large district of country. as the village is the nucleus that binds together outlying farms and hamlets, so the city has far-flung connections with rural villages and small towns in a radius of many miles. 184. =the importance of the city.=--the city has grown up because it was located conveniently for carrying on manufacturing and trade on a large scale. it is growing in importance because this is primarily an industrial age. its population is increasing relatively to the rural population, and certain cities are growing enormously, in spite of mr. bryce's warning that it is unfortunate for any city to grow beyond a population of one hundred thousand. the importance of the city as a social centre is apparent when we remember that in america, according to the census of 1910, 46.3 per cent of the people live in communities of more than 2,500 population, while 31 per cent of the whole are inhabitants of cities of 25,000 or more population. when nearly one-third of all the people of the nation live in communities of such size, the large city becomes a type of social centre of great significance. at the prevailing rate of growth a majority of the american people will soon be dwelling in cities, and there seems to be no reason to expect a reversal of tendency because modern invention is making it possible for fewer persons on the farm to supply the agricultural products that city people need. this means, of course, that the temper and outlook of mind will be increasingly urban, that social institutions generally will have the characteristics of the city, that the national government will be controlled by that part of the american citizens that so far has been least successful in governing itself well. 185. =municipal history.=--the city has come to stay, and there is in it much of good. it has come into existence to satisfy human need, and while it may change in character it is not likely to be less important than now. its history reveals its reasons for existence and indicates the probabilities of its future. the ancient city was an overgrown village that had special advantages for communication and transportation of goods, or that was located conveniently for protection against neighboring enemies. the cities of greece maintained their independence as political units, but most social centres that at first were autonomous became parts of a larger state. the great cities were the capitals of nations or empires, and to strike at them in war was to aim at the vitals of an organism. such were thebes and memphis in egypt, babylon and nineveh in the tigris-euphrates valley, carthage and rome in the west. such are vienna and berlin, paris and london to-day. lesser cities were centres of trade, like corinth or byzantium, or of culture, such as athens. such was florence in the middle ages, and such are liverpool and leipzig to-day. the municipalities of the roman empire marked the climax of civic development in antiquity. the social and industrial life of the middle ages was rural. only a few cities survived the fall of the roman empire in the west, and new centres of importance did not arise until trade revived and the manufacturing industry began to concentrate in growing towns about the time of the crusades. then artisans and tradesmen found their way to points convenient to travel and trade, and a city population began the processes of aggregation and congregation. they grew up rough in manners and careless of sanitation and hygiene, but they developed efficiency in local government and an inclination to demand civic rights from those who had any outside claim of control; they began to take pride in their public halls and churches, and presently they founded schools and universities. wealth increased rapidly, and some of the cities, like the hansa towns of the north, and venice and genoa in the south, commanded extensive and profitable trade routes. modern cities owe their growth to the industrial revolution and the consequent increase of commerce. the industrial centres of northern england are an illustration of the way in which economic forces have worked in the building of cities. at the middle of the eighteenth century that part of great britain was far less populous and progressive than the eastern and southern counties. it had small representation in parliament. it was provincial in thought, speech, and habits. it was given over to agriculture, small trade, and rude home manufacture. presently came the revolutionary inventions of textile machinery, of the steam-engine, and of processes for extracting and utilizing coal and iron. the heavy, costly machinery required capital and the factory. concentrated capital and machinery required workers. the working people were forced to give up their small home manufacturing and their unprofitable farming and move to the industrial barracks and workrooms of the manufacturing centres. these centres sprang up where the tools were most easily and cheaply obtained, and where lay the coal-beds and the iron ore to be worked over into machinery. from newcastle on the east, through sheffield, leeds, birmingham, and manchester, to liverpool on the west and glasgow over the scottish border grew up a chain of thriving cities, and later their people were given the ballot that was taken from certain of the depopulated rural villages. these cities have obtained a voice of power in the councils of the nation. in america the industrial era came somewhat later, but the same process of centralizing industry went on at the waterfalls of eastern rivers, at railroad centres, and at ocean, lake, and gulf ports. commerce has accelerated the growth of many of these manufacturing towns. increase of industry and population has been especially rapid in the great ports that front the two oceans, through whose gates pour the floods of immigrants, and in the interior cities like chicago, that lie at especially favorable points for railway, lake, or river traffic. as in the middle ages, universities grew because teachers went where students were gathered, and students were attracted to the place where teachers were to be found, so in the larger cities the more people there are and the more numerous is the population, the greater the amount of business. it pays to be near the centre of things. reading references howe: _the modern city and its problems_, pages 9-49. gillette: _constructive rural sociology_, pages 32-46. strong: _our world_, pages 228-283. nearing and watson: _economics_, pages 123-132. giry and reville: _emancipation of the mediæval towns._ bliss: _new encyclopedia of social reform_, art. "cities." chapter xxvi the manufacturing enterprise 186. =preponderance of economic interests.=--such a social centre as the city has several functions to perform for its inhabitants. though primarily concerned with business, the people have other interests to be conserved; the city, therefore, has governmental, educational, and recreational functions as a social organization, and within its limits all kinds of human concerns find their sponsors and supporters. unquestionably, the economic interests are preponderant. on the principle that social structure corresponds to function, the structure of the city lends itself to the performance of the economic function. business streets are the principal thoroughfares. districts near the great factories are crowded with the tenements that shelter the workers. little room is left for breathing-places in town, and little leisure in which to breathe. government is usually in the hands of professional politicians who are too willing to take their orders from the cohort captains of business. morals, æsthetics, and recreation are all subordinate to business. even religion is mainly an affair of sunday, and appears to be of relatively small consequence compared with business or recreation. the great problems of the city are consequently economic at bottom. poverty and misery, drunkenness, unemployment, and crime are all traceable in part, at least, to economic deficiency. economic readjustments constitute the crying need of the twentieth-century city. 187. =the manufacturing industry.=--it is the function of the agriculturist and the herdsman, the miner and the lumberman, to produce the raw material. the sailor and the train-hand, the longshoreman and the teamster, transport them to the industrial centres. it is the business of the manufacturer and his employees to turn them into the finished product for the use of society. manufacturing is the leading occupation in thousands of busy towns and small cities of all the industrial nations of western europe and america, and shares with commerce and trade as a leading enterprise in the cosmopolitan centres. the merchant or financier who thinks his type of emporium or exchange is the only municipal centre of consequence, needs only to mount to the top of a tall building or climb a suburban hill where he can look off over the city and see the many smoking chimneys, to realize the importance of the factory. with thousands of tenement-house dwellers it is as natural to fall into the occupation of a factory hand as in the rural regions for the youth to become a farmer. the growing child who leaves school to help support the family has never learned a craftsman's trade, but he may find a subordinate place among the mill or factory hands until he gains enough skill to handle a machine. from that time until age compels him to join the ranks of the unemployed he is bound to his machine, as firmly as the mediæval serf was bound to the soil. theoretically he is free to sell his labor in the highest market and to cross the continent if he will, but actually he is the slave of his employer, for he and his family are dependent upon his daily wage, and he cannot afford to lose that wage in order to make inquiries about the labor market elsewhere. theoretically he is a citizen possessed of the franchise and equal in privilege and importance to his employer as a member of society, but actually he must vote for the party or the man who is most likely to benefit him economically, and he knows that he occupies a position of far less importance politically and socially than his employer. employment is an essential in making a living, but it is an instrument that cuts two ways--it establishes an aristocracy of wealth and privilege for the employer and a servile class of employees who often are little better than peasants of the belt and wheel. 188. =history of manufacturing.=--the history of the manufacturing industry is a curious succession of enslavement and emancipation. until within a century and a half it was closely connected with the home. primitive women fashioned the utensils and clothing of the primitive family, and when slaves were introduced into the household it became their task to perform those functions. the slave was a bondman. neither his person nor his time was his own, and he could not hold property; but he was taken care of, fed and clothed and housed, and by a humane master was kindly treated and even made a friend. when the slave became a serf on the manorial estate of mediæval europe, manufacturing was still a household employment and old methods were still in use. these sufficed, as there was little outside demand from potential buyers, due to general poverty and lack of the means of exchange and transportation. certain industries became localized, like the forging of iron instruments at the smithy and the grinding of grain at the mill, and the monastery buildings included apartments for various kinds of handicraft, but the factory was not yet. then artisans found their way to the town, associated themselves with others of their craft, and accepted the relation of journeyman in the employ of a master workman; there, too, the young apprentice learned his trade without remuneration. the group was a small one. for greater strength in local rivalries they organized craft guilds or associations, and established over all members convenient rules and restrictions. increasing opportunities for exchange of goods stimulated production, but the output of hand labor was limited in amount. the position of the craftsman locally was increasingly important, and his fortunes were improving. the craft guilds successfully disputed with their rivals for a share in the government of the city; there was democracy in the guild, for master and journeyman were both included, and they had interests much in common. a journeyman confidently expected to become a master in a workshop of his own. 189. =alteration of status.=--under the factory system the employee becomes one of many industrial units, having no social or guild relation to his employer, receiving a money wage as a quit claim from his employer, and dependent upon himself for labor and a living. for a time after the factory system came into vogue there were small shops where the employer busied himself among his men and personally superintended them, but the large factory tends to displace the small workshop, the corporation takes the place of the individual employer, and the employee becomes as impersonal a cog in the labor system as is any part of the machine at which he works. it used to be the case that a thrifty workman might hope to become in the future an employer, but now he has become a permanent member of a distinct class, for the large capital required for manufacturing is beyond his reach. the manufacturing industry is continually passing under the management of fewer individuals, while the number of operatives in each factory tends to increase. with concentration of management goes concentration of wealth, and the gap widens between rich and poor. out of the modern factory system has come the industrial problem with all its varieties of skilled and unskilled work, woman and child labor, sweating, wages, hours and conditions of labor, unemployment, and other difficulties. 190. =the working grind.=--there are many manufacturing towns and small cities that are built on one industry. thousands of workers, young and old, answer the morning summons of the whistle and pour into the factory for a day's labor at the machine. a brief recess at noon and the work is renewed for the second half of the day. weary at night, the workers tramp home to the tenements, or hang to the trolley strap that is the symbol of the five-cent commuter, and recuperate for the next day's toil. they are cogs in the great wheel of industry, units in the great sum of human energy, indispensable elements in the progress of economic success. sometimes they seem less prized than the costly machines at which they work, sometimes they fall exhausted in the ranks, as the soldier in the trenches drops under the attack, but they are absolutely essential to wealth and they are learning that they are indispensable to one another. in the development of social organization the working people are gaining a larger part. the factory is educating them to a consciousness of the solidarity of their class interests. all class organizations have their faults, but they teach their members group values and the dependence of the individual on his fellows. 191. =the benefits of the new industry to the workers.=--it must not be supposed that the industrial revolution and the age of machinery have been a social misfortune. the benefits that have come to the laboring people, as well as to their employers, must be put into the balance against the evils. there is first of all the great increase of manufactured products that have been shared in by the workers and the greatly reduced price of many necessaries of life, such as matches, pins, and cooking utensils. invention has eased many kinds of labor and taken them away from the overburdened housewife, and new machinery is constantly lightening the burden of the farm and the home. invention has broadened the scope of labor, opening continually new avenues to the workers. it is difficult to see how the rapidly increasing number of people in the united states could have found employment without the typewriter, the automobile, and the numerous varieties of electrical application. the great number of modern conveniences that have come to be regarded as necessaries even in the homes of the working people, and the local improvements in streets and sidewalks, schools and playgrounds that are possible because of increasing wealth, are all due to the new type of industry. conditions of labor are better. where building laws are in force, factories are lighter, cleaner, and better ventilated than were the houses and shops of the pre-factory age, and the hours of labor that are necessary to earn a living have been greatly reduced in most industries. there have been mental and moral gains, also. it requires mental application to handle machinery. an uneducated immigrant may soon learn to handle a simple machine, but the complicated machinery that the better-paid workmen tend requires intelligence, care, and sobriety. the age of machinery has brought with it emancipation from slavery, indenture, and imprisonment for debt, and has made possible a new status for the worker and his children. the laborer in america is a citizen with a vote and a right to his own opinion equal to that of his employer; he has time and money enough to buy and read the newspaper; and he is encouraged and helped to educate his children and to prepare them for a place in the sun that is ampler than his own. reading references cheyney: _industrial and social history of england_, pages 199-239. nearing and watson: _economics_, pages 206-212, 256-266. henderson: _social elements_, pages 143-156. adams and sumner: _labor problems_, pages 3-15. bogart: _economic history of the united states_, pages 130-169, 356-399. chapter xxvii the industrial problem 192. =what it means.=--the industrial problem as a whole is a problem of adjusting the relations of employer and employee to each other and to the rapidly changing age in the midst of which industry exists. it is a problem that cannot be solved in a moment, for it has grown out of previous conditions and relationships. it must be considered in its causes, its alignments, the difficulties of each party, the efforts at solution, and the principles and theories that are being worked out for the settlement of the problem. 193. =conflict between industrial groups.=--the industrial problem is not entirely an economic problem, but it is such primarily. the function of employer and employee is to produce material goods that have value for exchange. both enter into the economic relation for what they can get out of it in material gain. selfish desire tends to overcome any consideration of each other's needs or of their mutual interests. there is a continual conflict between the wage-earner who wants to make a living and the employer who wants to make money, and neither stops long to consider the welfare of society as a whole when any specific issue arises. the conflict between individuals has developed into a class problem in which the organized forces of labor confront the organized forces of capital, with little disposition on either side to surrender an advantage once gained or to put an end to the conflict by a frank recognition of each other's rights. it is not strange that this conflict has continued to vex society. conflict is one of the characteristics of imperfectly adjusted groups. it seems to be a necessary preliminary to co-operation, as war is. it will continue until human beings are educated to see that the interests of all are paramount to the interests of any group, and that in the long run any group will gain more of real value for itself by taking account of the interests of a rival. railroad history in recent years has made it very plain that neither railway employees nor the public have gained as much by hectoring the railroad corporations as either would have gained by considering the interests of the railroad as well as its own. industrial conflict is due in great part to the unwillingness of the employer to deal fairly by his employee. there have been worthy exceptions, of course, but capitalists in the main have not felt a responsibility to consider the interests of the workers. it has been a constant temptation to take advantage of the power of wealth for the exploitation of the wage-earning class. unfortunately, the modern industrial period began with economic control in the hands of the employer, for with the transfer of industry to the factory the laborer was powerless to make terms with the employer. unfortunately, also, the disposition of society was to let alone the relations of master and dependent in accordance with the _laisser-faire_ theory of the economists of that period. government was slow to legislate in favor of the helpless employee, and the abuses of the time were many. the process of adjustment has been a difficult one, and experiment has been necessary to show what was really helpful and practicable. 194. =more than an industrial problem.=--in the process of experiment it has become clear that the industrial problem is more than an economic problem; secondarily, it is the problem of making a living that will contribute to the enrichment of life. it is not merely the adjustment of the wage scale to the profits of the capitalist by class conflict or peaceful bargaining, nor is it the problem of unemployment or official labor. the primary task may be to secure a better adjustment of the economic interests of employer and employee through an improvement of the wage system, but in the larger sense the industrial problem is a social and moral one. sociologists reckon among the social forces a distinction between elemental desires and broader interests. wages are able to satisfy the elemental desires of hunger and sex feeling by making it possible for a man to marry and bring up a family and get enough to eat; but there are larger questions of freedom, justice, comity, personal and social development that are involved in the labor problem. if wages are so small, or hours so long, or factory conditions so bad that health is affected, proper education made impossible, and recreation and religion prevented, the individual and society suffer much more than with reference to the elemental desires. the industrial problem is, therefore, a complex problem, and not one that can be easily or quickly solved. although it is necessary to remember all as parts of one problem of industry, it is a convenience to remember that it is: (1) an economic problem, involving wages, hours, and conditions of labor. (2) a social problem, involving the mental and physical health and the social welfare of both the individual worker, the family, and the community. (3) an ethical problem, involving fairness, justice, comity, and freedom to the employer, the employee, and the public. (4) a complex problem, involving many specific problems, chief of which are the labor of women and children, immigrant labor, prison labor, organization of labor, insurance, unemployment, industrial education, the conduct of labor warfare, and the interest of the public in the industrial problem. 195. =characteristics of factory life.=--group life in the factory is not very different in characteristics from group life everywhere. it is an active life, the hand and brain of the worker keeping pace with the speedy machine, all together shaping the product that goes to exchange and storage. it is a social life, many individuals working in one room, and all the operatives contributing jointly to the making of the product. it is under control. captains of industry and their lieutenants give direction to a group that has been thoroughly and efficiently organized. without control and organization industry could not be successfully carried on, but it is open to question whether industrial control should not be more democratic, shared in by representatives of the workers and of the public as well as by the representatives of corporate capital or a single owner. it is a life of change. it does not seem so to the operative who turns out the same kind of a machine product day after day, sometimes by the million daily, but the personnel of the workers changes, and even the machines from time to time give way to others of an improved type. it is a life that has its peculiar weaknesses. the relations of employer and employee are not cordial; the health and comfort of the worker are often disregarded; the hours of labor are too long or the wages too small; the whole working staff is driven at too high speed; the whole process is on a mechanical rather than a human basis, and the material product is of more concern than the human producer. these weaknesses are due to the concentration of control in the hands of employers. the industrial problem is, therefore, largely a problem of control. 196. =democratizing industry.=--when the modern industrial system began in the eighteenth century the democratic principle played a small part in social relations. parental authority in the family, the master's authority in the school, hierarchical authority in the church, official authority in the local community, and monarchical authority in the nation, were almost universal. it is not strange that the authority of the capitalist in his business was unquestioned. only government had the right to interfere in the interest of the lower classes, and government had little care for that interest. the democratic principle has been gaining ground in family and school, state and church; it has found grudging recognition in industry. this is because the clash of economic interests is keenest in the factory. but even there the grip of privilege has loosened, and the possibility of democratizing industry as government has been democratized is being widely discussed. there is difference of opinion as to how this should be done. the socialist believes that control can be transferred to the people in no other way than by collective ownership. others progressively inclined accept the principle of government regulation and believe that in that way the people, through their political representatives, can control the owners and managers. others think that the best results can be obtained by giving a place on the governing board of an industry to working men alongside the representatives of capital and permitting them to work out their problems on a mutual basis. each of these methods has been tried, but without demonstrating conclusively the superiority of any one. whatever method may come into widest vogue, there must be a recognition of the principle of democratic interest and democratic control. no one class in society can dictate permanently to the people as a whole. industry is the concern of all, and all must have a share in managing it for the benefit of all. 197. =legislation.=--the history of industrial reform is first of all a story of legislative interference with arbitrary management. when great britain early in the nineteenth century overstepped the bounds of the let-alone policy and began to legislate for the protection of the employee, it was but a resumption of a paternal policy that had been general in europe before. but formerly government had interfered in behalf of the employing class, now it was for the people who were under the control of the exploiting capitalist. the abuses of child labor were the first to receive attention, and parliament reduced the hours of child apprentices to twelve a day. once begun, restriction was extended. beginning in 1833, under the leadership of lord shaftesbury, the working man's friend, the labor of children under thirteen was reduced to forty-eight hours a week, and children under nine were forbidden to work at all. the work of young people under eighteen was limited to sixty-nine hours a week, and then to ten hours a day; women were included in the last provision. these early laws were applicable to factories for weaving goods only, but they were extended later to all kinds of manufacturing and mining. these laws were not always strictly enforced, but to get them through parliament at all was an achievement. later legislation extended the ten-hour law to men; then the time was reduced to nine hours, and in many trades to eight. in the united states the need of legislation was far less urgent. employers could not be so masterful in the treatment of their employees or so parsimonious in their distribution of wages, because the laborer always had the option of leaving the factory for the farm, and land was cheap. women and children were not exploited in the mines as in england, pauper labor was not so available, and such trades as chimney-sweeping were unknown. then, too, by the time there was much need for legislation, the spirit of justice was becoming wide-spread and legislatures responded more quickly to the appeal for protective legislation. it was soon seen that the industrial problem was not simply how much an employee should receive for a given piece of work or time, but how factory labor affected working people of different sex or age, and how these effects reacted upon society. those who pressed legislation believed that the earnings of a child were not worth while when the child lost all opportunity for education and healthful physical exercise, and that woman's labor was not profitable if it deprived her of physical health and nervous energy, and weakened by so much the stamina of the next generation. the thought of social welfare seconded the thought of individual welfare and buttressed the claims of a particular class to economic consideration in such questions as proper wages. massachusetts was the first american state to introduce labor legislation in 1836; in 1869 the same state organized the first labor bureau, to be followed by a national bureau in 1884, four years later converted into a government department. among the favorite topics of legislation have been the limitation of woman and child labor, the regulation of wage payments, damages and similar concerns, protection from dangerous machinery and adequate factory inspection, and the appointment of boards of arbitration. the doctrine of the liability of employers in case of accident to persons in their employ has been increasingly accepted since great britain adopted an employers' liability act in 1880, and since 1897 compulsory insurance of employees has spread from the continent of europe to england and the united states. 198. =the organization of labor.=--these measures of protection and relief have been due in part to the disinterested activity of philanthropists, and in part to the efforts of organized labor, backed up by public opinion; occasionally capitalists have voluntarily improved conditions or increased wages. the greatest agitation and pressure has come from the labor-unions. unlike the mediæval guilds, these unions exist for the purpose of opposing the employer, and are formed in recognition of the principle that a group can obtain guarantees that an individual is helpless to secure. like-mindedness holds the group together, and consciousness of common interests and mutual duties leads to sacrifice of individual benefit for the sake of the group. the moral effect of this sense and practice of mutual responsibility has been a distinct social gain, and warrants the hope that a time may come when this consciousness of mutual interests may extend until it includes the employing class as in the old-time guild. the modern labor-union is a product of the nineteenth century. until 1850 there was much experimenting, and a revolutionary sentiment was prevalent both in america and abroad. the first union movement united all classes of wage-earners in a nation-wide reform, and aimed at social gains, such as education as well as economic gains. it hoped much from political activity, spoke often of social ideals, and did not disdain to co-operate with any good agency, even a friendly employer. class feeling was less keen than later. but it became apparent that the lines of organization were too loose, that specific economic reforms must be secured rather than a whole social programme, and that little could probably be expected from political activity. labor began to organize on a basis of trades, class feeling grew stronger, and trials of strength with employers showed the value of collective bargaining and fixed agreements. out of the period grew the american federation of labor. more recently has come the industrial union, which includes all ranks of labor, like the early labor-union, and is especially beneficial to the unskilled. it is much more radical in its methods of operation, and is represented by such notorious organizations as the united mine workers and the international workers of the world. 199. =strikes.=--the principle of organization of the trade-union is democratic. the unit of organization is the local group of workers which is represented on the national governing bodies; in matters of important legislation, a referendum is allowed. necessarily, executive power is strongly centralized, for the labor-union is a militant organization, but much is left to the local union. though peaceful methods are employed when possible, warlike operations are frequent. the favorite weapon is the strike, or refusal to work, and this is often so disastrous to the employer that it results in the speedy granting of the laborers' demands. it requires good judgment on the part of the representatives of labor when to strike and how to conduct the campaign to a successful conclusion, but statistics compiled by the national labor bureau between 1881 and 1905 indicate that a majority of strikes ordered by authority of the organization were at least partially successful. the successful issue of strikes has demonstrated their value as weapons of warfare, and they have been accepted by society as allowable, but they tend to violence, and produce feelings of hatred and distrust, and would not be countenanced except as measures of coercion to secure needed reforms. the financial loss due to the cessation of labor foots up to a large total, but in comparison with the total amount of wages and profits it is small, and often the periods of manufacturing activity are so redistributed through the year that there is really no net loss. yet a strike cannot be looked upon in any other way than as a misfortune. like war, it breaks up peaceful if not friendly relations, and tends to destroy the solidarity of society. it tends to strengthen class feeling, which, like caste, is a handicap to the progress of mankind. though it may benefit the working man, it is harmful to the general public, which suffers from the interruption of industry and sometimes of transportation, and whose business is disturbed by the blow to confidence. 200. =peaceful methods of settlement.=--strikes are so unsettling to industry that all parties find it better to use diplomacy when possible, or to submit a dispute to arbitration rather than to resort to violence. it is in industrial concerns very much as it is in international politics, and methods used in one circle suggest methods in the other. formerly war was a universal practice, and of frequent occurrence, and duelling was common in the settlement of private quarrels; now the duel is virtually obsolete, and war is invoked only as a last resort. difficulties are smoothed out through the diplomatic representatives that every nation keeps at the national capitals, and when they cannot settle an issue the matter is referred to an umpire satisfactory to both sides. similarly in industrial disputes the tendency is away from the strike; when an issue arises representatives of both sides get together and try to find a way out. there is no good reason why an employer should refuse to recognize an organization or receive its representatives to conference, especially if the employer is a corporation which must work through representatives. collective bargaining is in harmony with the spirit of the times and fair for all. conference demands frankness on the part of all concerned. it leads more quickly to understanding and harmony if each party knows the situation that confronts the other. if the parties immediately concerned cannot reach an agreement, a third party may mediate and try to conciliate opposition. if that fails, the next natural step is voluntarily to refer the matter in dispute to arbitration, or by legal regulation to compel the disputants to submit to arbitration. 201. =boards of conciliation.=--the history of peaceful attempts to settle industrial disputes in the united states helps to explain the methods now frequently employed. in 1888, following a series of disastrous labor conflicts, congress provided by legislation for the appointment of a board of three commissioners, which should make thorough investigation of particular disputes and publish its findings. the class of disputes was limited to interstate commerce concerns and the commissioners did not constitute a permanent board, but the legislative act marked the beginning of an attempt at conciliation. ten years later the erdman act established a permanent board of conciliation to deal with similar cases when asked to do so by one of the parties, and in case of failure to propose arbitration; it provided, also, for a board of arbitration. meantime the states passed various acts for the pacification of industrial disputes; the most popular have been the appointment of permanent boards of conciliation and arbitration, which have power to mediate, investigate, and recommend a settlement. these have been supplemented by state and national commissions, with a variety of functions and powers, including investigation and regulation. the experience of government boards has not been long enough to prove whether they are likely to be of permanent value, but the results are encouraging to those who believe that through conciliation and arbitration the industrial problem can best be solved. 202. =public welfare.=--there can be no reasonable complaint of the interference of the government. the government, whether of state or nation, represents the people, and the people have a large stake in every industrial dispute. society is so interdependent that thousands are affected seriously by every derangement of industry. this is especially true of the stoppage of railways, mines, or large manufacturing establishments, when food and fuel cannot be obtained, and the delicate mechanism of business is upset. at best the public is seriously inconvenienced. it is therefore proper that the public should organize on its part to minimize the derangement of its interests. in 1901 a national civic federation was formed by those who were interested in industrial peace, and who were large-minded enough to see that it could not be obtained permanently unless recognition should be given to all three of the interested parties--the employers, the employees, and the public. many small employers of labor are bitterly opposed to any others than themselves having anything to say about the methods of conducting industry, but the men of large experience are satisfied that the day of independence has passed. this organization includes on its committees representatives of all parties, and has helped in the settlement of a number of controversies. 203. =voluntary efforts of employers.=--it is a hopeful sign that employers themselves are voluntarily seeking the betterment of their employees. it is a growing custom for corporations to provide for the comfort, health, and recreation of men and women in their employ. rest-rooms, reading-rooms, baths, and gymnasiums are provided; athletic clubs are organized; lunches are furnished at cost; continuation schools are arranged. some manufacturing establishments employ a welfare manager or secretary whose business it shall be to devise ways of improving working conditions. when these helps and helpers are supplied as philanthropy, they are not likely to be appreciated, for working people do not want to be patronized; if maintained on a co-operative basis, they are more acceptable. but the employer is beginning to see that it is good business to keep the workers contented and healthy. it adds to their efficiency, and in these days when scientific management is putting so much emphasis on efficiency, any measures that add to industrial welfare are not to be overlooked. 204. =profit-sharing.=--another method of conferring benefit upon the employee is profit-sharing. by means of cash payment or stock bonuses, he is induced to work better and to be more careful of tools and machinery, while his expectation of a share in the success of the business stimulates his interest and his energy and keeps him better natured. the objections to the plan are that it is paternalistic, for the business is under the control of the employer and the amount of profits depends on his honesty, good management, and philanthropic disposition. there are instances where it has worked admirably, and from the point of view of the employer it is often worth while, because it tends to weaken unionism; but it cannot be regarded as a cure for industrial ills, because it is a remedy of uncertain value, and at best is not based on the principle of industrial democracy. 205. =principles for the solution of the industrial problem.=--three principles contend for supremacy in all discussions and efforts to solve the industrial problem. the first is the doctrine of _employer's control_. this is the old principle that governed industrial relations until governmental legislation and trade-union activity compelled a recognition of the worker's rights. by that principle the capitalist and the laborer are free to work together or to fight each other, to make what arrangements they can about wages, hours, and health conditions, to share in profits if the employer is kindly disposed, but always with labor in a position of subordination and without recognized rights, as in the old political despotisms, which were sometimes benevolent but more often ruthless. only the selfish, stubborn capitalist expects to see such a system permanently restored. the second principle is the doctrine of _collective control_. this theory is a natural reaction from the other, but goes to an opposite extreme. it is the theory of the syndicalist, who prefers to smash machinery before he takes control, and of the socialist, who contents himself with declaring the right of the worker to all productive property, and agitates peacefully for the abolition of the wage system in favor of a working man's commonwealth. the socialist blames the wage system for all the evils of the present industrial order, regards the trade-unions as useful industrial agencies of reform, but urges a resort to the ballot as a necessary means of getting control of industry. there would come first the socialization of natural resources and transportation systems, then of public utilities and large industries, and by degrees the socialization of all industry would become complete. then on a democratic basis the workers would choose their industrial officers, arrange their hours, wages, and conditions of labor, and provide for the needs of every individual without exploitation, overexertion, or lack of opportunity to work. serious objections are made to this programme for productive enterprise on the ground of the difficulty of effecting the transfer of the means of production and exchange, and of executive management without the incentive of abundant pecuniary returns for efficient superintendency; even more because of the natural selfishness of human beings who seek personal preferment, and the natural inertia of those who know that they will be taken care of whether they exert themselves or not. more serious still are the difficulties that lie in the way of a satisfactory distribution of the rewards of labor, for there is sure to be serious difference of opinion over the proper share of each person who contributes to the work of production, and no method of initiative, referendum, and recall would avail to smooth out the difficulties that would be sure to arise. 206. =co-operation.=--the third principle is _co-operation_. the principle of co-operation is as important to society as the principle of division of labor. by means of co-operative activity in the home the family is able to maintain itself as a useful group. by means of co-operation in thinly settled communities local prosperity is possible without any individual possessing large resources. but in industry where competition rules and the aim of the employer is the exploitation of the worker, general comfort is sacrificed for the enrichment of the few and wealth flaunts itself in the midst of misery. there will always be a problem in the industrial relations of human beings until there is a recognition of this fundamental principle of co-operation. the application of the principle to the complicated system of modern industrialism is not easy, and attempts at co-operative production by working men with small and incapable management have not been successful, but it is becoming clear that as a principle of industrial relation between classes it is to obtain increasing recognition. if it is proper to admit the claims of the employer, the employee, and the public to an interest in every labor issue, then it is proper to look for the co-operation of them all in the regulation of industry. the usual experiments in co-operative industry have been the voluntary organization of production, exchange, or distribution by a group of middle or working class people to save the large expense of superintendents or middlemen. co-operation in production has usually failed; in america co-operative banks and building associations, creameries, and fruit-growing associations have had considerable success, and in europe co-operative stores and bakeries have had a large vogue in england and belgium, and co-operative agriculture in denmark. but industry on a large scale requires large capital, efficient management, capable, interested workmanship, and elimination of waste in material and human life. to this end it needs the good-will of all parties and the assistance of government. unemployment, for instance, may be taken care of by giving every worker a good industrial education and doing away with inefficiency, and then establishing a wide-spread system of labor exchanges to adjust the mass of labor to specific requirements. industry is such a big and important matter that nothing less than the co-operation of the whole of society can solve its problems. this co-operation, to be effective, requires a genuine partnership, in which the body of stockholders and the body of working men plan together, work together, and share together, with the assistance of government commissions and boards that continually adjust and, if necessary, regulate the processes of production and distribution on a basis of equity, to be determined by a consensus of expert opinion. in such a system there is no radical derangement of existing industry, no destruction of initiative, no expulsion of expert management or confiscation of property. individual and corporate ownership continue, the wage system is not abolished, efficient administration is still to be obtained, but the body of control is not a board of directors responsible only to the stockholders of the corporation, and managing affairs primarily for their own gain, but it consists of representatives of those who contribute money, superintendence, and labor, together with or regulated by a group of government experts, all of whom are honestly seeking the good of all parties and enjoying their full confidence. toward such an outcome of present strife many interested social reformers are working, and it is to be hoped that its advantages will soon appear so great that neither extreme alternative principle will have to be tried out thoroughly before there will be a general acceptance of the co-operative idea. it may seem utopian to those who are familiar with the selfishness and antagonism that have marked the history of the last hundred years, but it is already being tried out here and there, and it is the only principle that accords with the experiences and results of social evolution in other groups. it is the highest law that the struggle for individual power fails before the struggle for the good of the group, and a contest for the success of the few must give way to co-operation for the good of all. reading references ellwood: _sociology in its psychological aspects_, pages 188-194. adams and sumner: _labor problems_, pages 175-286, 379-432, 461-500. _bulletins of the united states department of labor._ carlton: _history and problems of organized labor_, pages 228-261. gladden: _the labor question_, pages 77-113. henderson: _social elements_, pages 167-206. cross: _essentials of socialism_, pages 11, 12, 106-111. wyckoff: _the workers._ chapter xxviii exchange and transportation 207. =mercantile exchange.=--important as is the manufacturing industry in the life of the city, it is only a part of the economic activity that is continually going on in its streets and buildings. the mercantile houses that carry on wholesale and retail trade, the towering office-buildings, and the railway and steamship terminals contain numerous groups of workers all engaged in the social task of supplying human wants, while streets and railways are avenues of traffic. the manufacture of goods is but a part of the process; distribution is as important as production. all these sources of supply are connected with banks and trust companies that furnish money and credit for business of every kind. the economic activities of a city form an intricate network in which the people are involved. hardly second in importance to manufacturing is mercantile exchange. the manufacturer, after he has paid his workers, owns the goods that have been produced, but to get his living he must sell them. to do this he establishes relations with the merchant. their relations are carried on through agents, some of whom travel from place to place taking orders, others establish office headquarters in the larger centres of trade. once the merchant has opened his store or shop and purchased his goods he seeks to establish trade relations with as many individual customers as he can attract. mercantile business is carried on in two kinds of stores, those which supply one kind of goods in wholesale or retail quantities, like groceries or dry goods, and those which maintain numerous departments for different kinds of manufactured goods. large department stores have become a special feature of mercantile exchange in cities of considerable size, but they do not destroy the smaller merchants, though competition is often difficult. 208. =the ethics of business.=--the methods of carrying on mercantile business are based, as in the factory, on the principle of getting the largest possible profits. the welfare of employees is a secondary consideration. expense of maintenance is heavy. rents are costly in desirable locations; the expense of carrying a large stock of merchandise makes it necessary to borrow capital on which interest must be paid; the obligations of a large pay-roll must be met at frequent intervals, whether business is good or bad. all these items are present in varying degree, whatever the size of the business, except where a merchant has capital enough of his own to carry on a small business and can attend to the wants of his customers alone or with the help of his family. the temptation of the merchant is strong to use every possible means to make a success of his business, paying wages as low as possible, in order to cut down expenses, and offering all kinds of inducements to customers in order to sell his goods. the ethics of trade need improvement. it is by no means true, as some agitators declare, that the whole business system is corrupt, that honesty is rare, and that the merchant is without a conscience. general corruption is impossible in a commercial age like this, when the whole system of business is built on credit, and large transactions are carried on, as on the stock exchange, with full confidence in the word or even the nod of an operator. of course, shoddy and impure goods are sold over the counter and the customer often pays more than an article is really worth, but every mercantile house has its popular reputation to sustain as well as its rated financial standing, and the business concern that does not deal honorably soon loses profitable trade. exchange constitutes an important division of the science of economics, but its social causes and effects are of even greater consequence. exchange is dependent upon the diffusion of information, the expansion of interests, and growing confidence between those who effect a transaction. when mutual wants are few it is possible to carry on business by means of barter; when trade increases money becomes a necessary medium; world commerce requires a system of credit which rests on social trust and integrity. conversely, there are social consequences that come from customs of exchange. it enlarges human interests. it stimulates socialization of habits and broader ideas. it encourages industry and thrift and promotes division of labor. it strengthens social organization and tends to make it more efficient. altogether, exchange of goods must be regarded as among the most important functions of society. 209. =business employees.=--the business ethics that are most open to criticism are those that govern the relations of the merchant and his employees. here the system of employment is much the same as in the factory. the merchant deals with his employees through superintendents of departments. the employment manager hires the persons who seem best qualified for the position, and they are assigned to a department. they are under the orders of the head of the department, and their success or failure depends largely on his good-will. wages and privileges are in his hand, and if he is morally unscrupulous he can ruin a weak-willed subordinate. there is little coherence among employees; there are always men and women who stand ready to take a vacant position, and often no particular skill or experience is required. there has been no such solidifying of interests by trade-unions as in the factory; the individual makes his own contract and stands on his own feet. on the other hand, there is an increasing number of employers who feel their responsibility to those who are in their employ, and, except in the department stores, they are usually associated personally with their employees. welfare work is not uncommon in the large establishments, and a minimum wage is being adopted here and there. one of the worst abuses of the department store is the low-paid labor of women and girls. it is possible for girls who live at home to get along on a few dollars a week, but they establish a scale of wages so low that it is impossible for the young woman who is dependent on her own resources to get enough to eat and wear and keep well. the physical and moral wrecks that result are disheartening. nourishing food in sufficient quantities to repair the waste of nerve and tissue cannot be obtained on five or six dollars a week, when room rent and clothing and necessary incidentals, like car-fare, have to be included. there are always human beasts of prey who are prepared to give financial assistance in exchange for sex gratification, and it is difficult to resist temptation when one's nervous vigor and strength of will are at the breaking-point. it is not strange that there is an economic element among the causes of the social evil; it is remarkable that moral sturdiness resists so much temptation. 210. =offices.=--the numerous office-buildings that have arisen so rapidly in recent years in the cities also have large corps of women workers. they have personal relations with employers much more frequently, for there are thousands of offices where a few stenographers or even a single secretary are sufficient. office work is skilled labor, is better paid, and attracts women of better attainments and higher ideals than in department store or factory. office relations are pleasant as well as profitable. the demands are exacting; labor at the typewriter, the proof-sheets, or the bookkeeper's desk is tiresome, but the society of the office is congenial, working conditions are healthful and cheerful in most cases, and there are many opportunities for increasing efficiency and promotion. the office has its hardships. everything is on a business basis, and there is little allowance for feelings or disposition. there are days when trials multiply and an atmosphere of irritation prevails; there are seasons when the constant rush creates a wearing nervous tension, and other seasons, when business is so poor that occasionally there are breakdowns of health or moral rectitude; but on the whole the office presents a simpler industrial problem than the factory or the store. 211. =transportation.=--a third industry that has its centre in the city but extends across continents and seas is the business of transportation. manufactured goods are conveyed from the factory to the warehouse and the store, goods sold in the mercantile establishment are delivered from door to door, but enormous quantities of the products of economic activity are hauled to greater distances by truck, car, and steamship. the city is a point to which roads, railways, and steamship lines converge, and from which they radiate in every direction. by long and short hauls, by express and freight, vast quantities of food products and manufactured goods pour into the metropolis, part to be used in its numerous dwellings, part to be shipped again to distant points. along the same routes passengers are transported, journeying in all directions on a multitude of errands, jostling for a moment as they hurry to and from the means of conveyance, and then swinging away, each on its individual orbit, like comet or giant sun that nods acquaintance but once in a thousand years. the business of transportation occupies the time and attention of thousands of workers, and its ramifications are endless. it is not limited to a particular region like agriculture, or to towns and cities like manufacturing; it is not stopped by tariff walls or ocean boundaries. an acre of wheat is cut by the reaper, threshed, and carted to the elevator by wagon or motor truck. the railroad-car is hauled alongside, and with other bushels of its kind the grain is transported to a giant flour-mill, where it is turned into a whitened, pulverized product, packed in barrels, and shipped across the ocean to a foreign port. conveyed by rail or truck to the bakery, the flour undergoes transformation into bread, and takes its final journey to hotel, restaurant, and dwelling-house. similarly, every kind of raw material finds its destination far from the place of its production and is consumed directly or as a manufactured product. this gigantic business of transportation is the means of providing for the sustenance and comfort of millions of human beings, and in spite of the extensive use of machinery it requires at every step the co-operative labor of human beings. 212. =growth of interdependence.=--it is the far-flung lines of commerce that bind together the peoples of the world. formerly there were periods of history, as in the european middle ages, when a social group produced nearly everything that it needed for consumption and commerce was small; but now all countries exchange their own products for others that they cannot so readily produce. the requirements of commerce have broken down the barriers between races, and have compelled mutual acquaintance and knowledge of languages, mutual confidence in one another's good intentions, and mutual understanding of one another's wants. the demands of commerce have precipitated wars, but have also brought victories of peace. they have stimulated the invention of improved means of communication, as the demands of manufacturing stimulated invention of machinery. the slow progress of horse-drawn vehicles over poor roads provoked the invention of improved highways and then of railroads. the application of steam to locomotives and ships revolutionized commerce, and by the steady improvements of many years has given to the eager trader and traveller the speedy, palatial steamship and the _train de luxe_. transportation depends, however, on the man behind the engine rather than on the mass of steel that is conjured into motion. successful commerce waits for the willingness and skill of worker and director. there must be the same division and direction of labor and the same spirit of co-operation; there must be intelligence in planning schedules for traffic and overcoming obstacles of nature and human frailty and incompetence. the teamster, the longshoreman, the freight-handler, and the engineer must all feel the push of the economic demand, keeping them steadily at work. a strike on any portion of the line ties up traffic and upsets the calculations of manufacturer, merchant, and consumer, for they are all dependent upon the servants of transportation. 213. =problems of transportation.=--there are problems of transportation that are of a purely economic nature, but there are also problems that are of social concern. the first problem is that of safe and rapid transportation. the comfort and safety of the millions who travel on business or for pleasure is a primary concern of society. if the roads are not kept in repair and the steamship lanes patrolled, if the rolling-stock is allowed to deteriorate and become liable to accident, if engine-drivers and helmsmen are intemperate or careless, if efficiency is not maintained, or if safety is sacrificed to speed, the public is not well served. many are the illustrations of neglect and inefficiency that have culminated in accident and death. or the transportation company is slow to adopt new inventions and to meet the expense that is necessary to equip a steamer or a railroad for speed, or to provide rapid interurban or suburban transit. poor management or single tracks delay fast freights, or congested terminals tie up traffic. these inconveniences not only consume profits and ruffle the tempers of working men, but they are a social waste of time and effort, and they stand in the way of improved living conditions. the congestion of population in the cities can easily be remedied when rapid and cheap transit make it possible for working men to live twenty or thirty miles out of town. the standard of living can be raised appreciably when fast trolley or steam service provides the products of the farms in abundance and in fresh condition. another problem is that of the worker. the same temptation faces the transportation manager that appears in the factory and the mercantile house. the expenses of traffic are enormous. railways alone cost hundreds of millions for equipment and service, and there are periods when commerce slackens and earnings fall away. it is easier to cut wages than to postpone improvements or to raise freight or passenger rates. in the united states an interstate commerce commission regulates rates, but questions of wages and hours of labor are between the management and the men. friction frequently develops, and hostility in the past has produced labor organizations that are well knit and powerful, so that the railroad man has succeeded in securing fair treatment, but there are other branches of transportation service where the servants of the public find their labor poorly paid and precarious in tenure. teamsters and freight-handlers find conditions hard; sailors and dock-hands are often thrown out of employment. whole armies of transportation employees have been enrolled since trolley-lines and automobile service have been organized. fewer persons drive their own horses and vehicles, and many who walked to and from business or school now ride. transportation service has been vastly extended, but there are continually more people to be accommodated, and motor-men, conductors, and chauffeurs to be adjusted to wage scales and service hours. 214. =monopoly.=--a persistent tendency in transportation has been toward monopoly. express service between two points becomes controlled by a single company, and the charges are increased. a street-railway company secures a valuable city franchise, lays its tracks on the principal streets, and monopolizes the business. service may be poor and fares may be raised, unless kept down by a railroad commission, but the public must endure inconvenience, discomfort, and oppression, or walk. railroad systems absorb short lines and control traffic over great districts; unless they are under government regulation they may adjust their time schedules and freight charges arbitrarily and impose as large a burden as the traffic will bear; the public is helpless, because there is no other suitable conveyance for passengers or freight. it is for these reasons that the united states has taken the control of interstate commerce into its own hands and regulated it, while the states have shown a disposition to inflict penalties upon recalcitrant corporations operating within state boundaries. it is the policy of government, also, to prevent control of one railroad by another, to the added inconvenience and expense of the public. but since 1890 there has been a rapid tendency toward a consolidation of business enterprises, by which railroads became united into a few gigantic systems, street railways were consolidated into a few large companies, and ocean-steamship companies amalgamated into an international combination. 215. =government ownership vs. regulation.=--nor did monopoly confine itself to transportation. the control of public utilities has passed into fewer hands. coal companies, gas and electric light corporations, telegraph and telephone companies tend to monopolize business over large sections of country. some of these possess a natural monopoly right, and if managed in the interests of the public that they serve, may be permitted to carry on their business without interference. but their large incomes and disposition to oppress their constituents has produced many demands for government ownership, especially of coal companies and railroads, and though for less reason of telephone and telegraph lines. government ownership has been tried in europe and in australasia, but experience does not prove that it is universally desirable. there are financial objections in connection with purchase and operation, and the question of efficiency of government employees is open to debate. enough experiments have been tried in the united states to render very doubtful the advisability of government ownership of any of these large enterprises where politics wield so large a power and democracy delights to shift office and responsibility. but it is desirable that the government of state and nation have power to regulate business associations that control the public welfare as widely as do railroads, telegraph-lines, and navigation companies. by legislation, incorporation, and taxation the government may keep its hand upon monopoly and, if necessary, supersede it, but the system which has grown up by a natural process is to be given full opportunity to justify itself before government assumes its functions. it is hardly to be expected that government regulation will be faultless, american experience with regulating commissions has not been altogether satisfactory, but society needs protection, and this the government may well provide. 216. =trusts.=--the tendency to monopoly is not confined to any one department of economic activity. manufacturing, mercantile, and banking companies have all tended to combine in large corporations, partly for greater economy, partly for an increase of profits through manipulating reorganization of stock companies, and partly for centralization of control. in the process, while the cost of certain products has been reduced by economy in operating expenses, the enormous dividend requirements of heavily capitalized corporations has necessitated high prices, a large business, and the danger of overproduction, and a virtual monopoly has made it possible to lift prices to a level that pinches the consumer. by a grim irony of circumstance, these giant and often ruthless corporations have taken the name of trusts, but they do not incline to recognize that the people's rights are in their trust. not every trust is harmful to society, and certainly trusts need not be destroyed. they have come into existence by a natural economic process, and as far as they cheapen the cost of production and improve the manufacture and distribution of the product they are a social gain, but they need to be controlled, and it is the function of government to regulate them in the interests of society at large. it has been found by experience that publicity of corporate business is one of the best methods of control. in the long run every social organization must obtain the sanction of public opinion if it is to become a recognized institution, and in a democratic country like the united states no trust can become so independent or monopolistic that it can afford to disregard the public will and the public good, as certain american corporations have discovered to their grief. 217. =the chances of progress.=--every economic problem resolves itself into a social problem. the satisfaction of human wants is the province of the manufacturer, the merchant, and the transporter, but it is not limited to any one or all of these, nor is society under their control. the range of wants is so great, the desires of social beings branch out into so many broad interests, that no one line of enterprise or one group of men can control more than a small portion of society. the whole is greater than any of its parts. there will be groups that are unfortunate, communities and races that will suffer temporarily in the process of social adjustment, but the welfare of the many can never long be sacrificed to the selfishness of the few. social revolution in some form will take place. it may not be accomplished in a day or a year, but the social will is sure to assert itself and to right the people's wrongs. the social process that is going on in the modern city has aggravated the friction of industrial relations; the haste with which business is carried on is one of its chief causes; but the very speed of the movement will carry society the sooner out of its acute distresses into a better adjusted system of industry. so far most of the world's progress has been by a slow course of natural adjustment of individuals and groups to one another; that process cannot be stopped, but it can be directed by those who are conscious of the maladjustments that exist and perceive ways and means of improvement. under such persons as leaders purposive progress may be achieved more rapidly and effectually in the near future. reading references hadley: _standards of public morality_, pages 33-96. nearing: _wages in the united states_, pages 93-96. nearing and watson: _economics_, pages 241-255, 314-320. vrooman: _american railway problems_, pages 1-181. bolen: _plain facts as to the trusts and the tariff_, pages 3-236. bogart: _economic history of the united states_, pages 186-216, 305-337, 400-418. montgomery: _vital american problems_, pages 3-91. chapter xxix the people who work 218. =economic vs. social values.=--economic interests may receive first attention in the city, but the work that is done is of less importance than the people who work. things may so fill the public mind that the real values of the various elements that enter into life may become distorted. a penny may be held so close to the eye as to hide the sun. making a living may seem more important than making the most of life. persons who are absorbed in business are liable to lose their sense of proportion between people and property; the capitalist overburdens himself with business cares until he breaks down under the nervous strain, and overworks his subordinates until they often become physical wrecks, but it is not because he personally intends to do harm. eventually the social welfare of every class will become the supreme concern and the study of social efficiency will fill a larger place than the study of economic efficiency. 219. =the social classes.=--there is a natural line of social cleavage that has made it a customary expression to speak of the upper, the middle, and the lower classes. it is impossible to separate them sharply, for they shade into one another. theoretically, in a democratic country like america there should be no class distinctions, but in colonial days birth and education had an acknowledged social position that did not belong to the common man, and in the nineteenth century a wealthy class came into existence that wrested supremacy from professional men and those who could rely alone on their intellectual achievements. it has never been impossible for individuals to push their way up the social path of success, but it has been increasingly difficult for a self-made man to break through into the circle of the _élite_. there are still young men who come out of the country without pecuniary capital but with physical strength and courage and, after years of persistent attack, conquer the citadel of place and power, but the odds are against the youth without either capital or a higher education than the high school gives. without unusual ability and great strength of will it is impossible to rise high if one lacks capital or influential friends, but with the help of any two of these it is quite possible to gain success. employers complain that the vast majority of persons whom they employ are lacking in energy, ambition, and ability. important as is the possession of wealth and influence it seems to be the psychic values that ultimately determine the individual's place in american society. we shall expect, therefore, to find an upper class in society composed of some who hold their place because of the prestige that belongs to birth or property, and of others who have made their own way up because they had the necessary qualities to succeed. below them in the social scale we shall expect to find a larger class who, because they were not consumed by ambition to excel, or because they lacked the means to achieve distinction, have come to occupy a place midway between the high and the low, to fill the numerous professional and business positions below the kings and great captains, and to hold the balance of power between the aristocracy and the proletariat. below these, in turn, are the so-called masses, who fill the lower ranks of labor, and who are essential to the well-being of those who are reckoned above them. 220. =the worth of the upper class.=--it is a common belief among the lowly that the people who hold a place in the upper ranks are not worthy of their lofty position, and there are many who hope to see such a general levelling as took place during the french revolution. they are fortified in their opinion by the lavish and irresponsible way in which the wealthy use their money, and they are tantalized by the display of luxury which, if times are hard, are in aggravating contrast to the hardship and suffering of the poor. the scale of living of the millionaire cannot justify itself in the eyes of the man who finds it difficult to make both ends meet. undoubtedly society will find it necessary some day to devise a more equitable method of distribution. but it is a mistake to suppose that most of the rich are idle parasites on society, or that their service, as well, as their wealth, could be dispensed with in the social order. in spite of the impression fostered by a sensational press that the average person of wealth devotes himself to the gaieties and dissipations of a pleasure-loving society, the truth is that after the self-centred years of callow youth are over most men and women take life seriously and only the few are idlers. if the investigator should go through the wealthy sections of the cities and suburbs, and record his observations, he would find that the men spend their days feeling the pulse of business in the down-town offices, directing the energies of thousands of individuals, keeping open the arteries of trade, using as productive capital the wealth that they count their own, making possible the economic activity and the very existence of the persons who find fault with their worthlessness. he would find the women in the nature of the case less occupied with public affairs, but interested and enlisted in all sorts of good enterprises, and, while often wasteful of time and money, bearing a part increasingly in the promotion of social reforms by active participation and by generous contributions. the immense gains that have come to society through philanthropy and social organization, as well as through the channels of industry, would have been impossible without the sympathetic activity of the so-called upper class. 221. =who belong to the city aristocracy?=--most of those who belong to the upper class are native americans. they may not be far removed from european ancestry, but for themselves they have had the advantage of a rearing in american ways in the home, the school, and society at large. they are both city and country bred. the country boy has the advantage of physical strength and better manual training, but he often lacks intellectual development, and usually has little capital to start with. the city youth knows the city ways and possesses the asset of acquaintances and friendships, if not of capital, in the place where he expects to make a living. he is helped to success if the way is prepared for him by relatives who have attained place and property, but he is as often cursed by having more money and more liberty than is good for him, while still in his irresponsible years. no place is secure until the young man has proved his personal worth, whether he is from the city or the country and has come up out of poverty or from a home of wealth. 222. =sources of wealth.=--the large majority of persons of wealth have won or inherited their property from the economic industries of manufacturing, trade, commerce, and transportation, or real estate. certain individuals have been fortunate in their mining or public-service investments; others make a large income as corporation officials, lawyers, physicians, engineers, and architects, but most of them have attained their success as capitalists, and they are able to maintain a position of prominence and ease because they use rather than hoard their wealth. it is easy to underestimate the usefulness of human beings who finance the world of industry, and in estimating the returns that are due to members of the various social classes this form of public service that is so essential to the prosperity of all must receive recognition. 223. =how they live.=--unfortunately, the possession of money furnishes a constant temptation to self-indulgence which, if carried far, is destructive of personal health and character, weakens family affection, and threatens the solidarity of society. the dwelling-house is costly and the furnishings are expensive. a retinue of servants performs many useless functions in the operation of the establishment. ostentation often carried to the point of vulgarity marks habits of speech, of dress, and of conduct both within and outside of the home. every member of the family has his own friends and interests and usually his own share of the family allowance. the adults of the family are unreasonably busy with social functions that are not worth their up-keep; the children are coddled and supplied with predigested culture in schools that cater to the trade, and if they are not spoiled in the process of preparation go on to college as a form of social recreation. there are exceptions, of course, to this manner of life, but those who follow it constitute a distinct type and by their manner of living exert a disintegrating influence in american society. 224. =the middle class.=--the middle class is not so distinct a stratum of society as are the upper and lower classes. it includes the bulk of the population in the united states, and from its ranks come the teachers, ministers, physicians, lawyers, artists, musicians, authors, and statesmen; the civil, mechanical, and electrical engineers, the architects, and the scientists of every name; most of the tradesmen of the towns and the farmers of the country; office managers and agents, handicraftsmen of the better grade, and not a few of the factory workers. they are the people who maintain the protestant churches and their enterprises, who make up a large part of the constituency of educational institutions and buy books and reviews, and who patronize the better class of entertainments and amusements. these people are too numerous to belong to any one race, and they include both city and country bred. the educated class of foreigners finds its place among them, assimilates american culture, and intermarries in the second generation. into the middle class of the cities is absorbed the constant stream of rural immigration, except the few who rise into the upper class or fall into the lower class. in the city itself grow up thousands of boys and girls who pass through the schools and into business and home life in their native environment, and who constitute the solid stratum of urban society. these people have not the means to make large display. they are influenced by the fashions of the upper class, sometimes are induced to applaud their poses or are hypnotized to do their bidding, but they have their own class standards, and most of them are contented to occupy their modest station. only a minority of them own their homes, but as a class they can afford to pay a reasonable rent and to furnish their houses tastefully, to hire one or two household servants, and to live in comfort. twenty years ago they owned bicycles and enjoyed century runs into the country on sunday: since then some of them have been promoted to automobiles and enjoy a low-priced car as much as the wealthy appreciate their high-priced limousines. as in rural villages, so in the city they form various groups of neighbors or friends based on a common interest, and find entertainment and intellectual stimulus from such companionship. on the roster of social organizations are musical societies and bridge clubs, literary and art circles, dramatic associations, women's clubs, and men's fraternities. the people meet at dances, teas, and receptions; they mingle with others of their kind at church or theatre, and co-operate with other workers in settlements and charity organizations. they educate their children in the public schools and in increasing numbers give them the benefit of a college education. people of the middle class are by no means debarred from passing up to a higher social grade if they have the ability or good fortune to get ahead, nor are they guaranteed a permanent place in their own native group unless they are competent to keep their footing. there is no surety to keep the independent tradesman from failing in business or the careless youth from falling into intemperate or vicious habits; many hazards must be crossed and hindrances overcome before an assured position is secured in the community, but the opportunities are far better than for the handicapped strugglers below. 225. =bonds of union between classes.=--though the middle class is distinct from the aristocracy of society in america, it is not shut off from association with it. the same is true in a less degree of the lowest class. party lines are vertical, not horizontal. religious and intellectual lines are only less so. the politician cannot afford to ignore a single vote, and the working man's counts as much as the plutocrat's. there are few churches that do not have representatives of all classes, from the gilded pew-holder to the workman with dingy hands who sits under the gallery. the school is no respecter of class lines. the store, the street-car, and the railroad are all common property, where one jostles another without regard to class. friendship oversteps all boundaries, even of race and creed. 226. =the lower class.=--the lower class consists of those who are dependent upon others for the opportunity to work or for the charity that keeps them alive. they commonly lack initiative and ambition; if they have those qualities they are hindered by their environment from ever getting ahead. sometimes they make an attempt in a small way to carry on trade on their own resources, but they seldom win success. their skill as factory operatives is not so great as to gain for them a good wage, and when business is slack they are the first to be laid off the pay-roll, and they help to swell the ranks of the unemployed. because of the american system of compulsory education they are not absolutely illiterate, but their ability is small; they leave school early, and what little education they have does not help them to earn a living. they do not usually choose an occupation, but they follow the line of least resistance, taking the first job that offers, and often finding later that they never can hope for advancement in it. frequently they are the victims of weak will and inherited tendencies that lead to intemperance, vice, and crime. thousands of them are living in the unwholesome tenements that lack comfort and attractiveness. there is no inducement to cultivate good habits, and no possibility of keeping the children free from moral and physical contamination. as a class they are continually on the edge of poverty and often submerged in it. they know what it is to feel the pinch of hunger, to shiver before the blasts of winter, and to look upon coal and ice as luxuries. they become discouraged from the struggle as they grow older, often get to be chronically dependent on charity, and not infrequently fall at last into a pauper's grave. 227. =the degenerate american.=--many of these people are americans, swarms of them are foreigners who have come here to better their fortunes and have been disappointed or, finding the difficulties more than they anticipated, have settled down fairly contented in the city. many persons think that it is the alien immigrant who causes the increase in intemperance and crime that has been characteristic of city life, but statistics lay much of the guilt upon the degenerate american. there are poor whites in the cities as there are in the south country. the riffraff drifts to town from the country as the roman proletariat gravitated to the capital in the days of decadence. a great many young persons who enter the city with high hopes of making a fortune fail to get a foothold or gradually lose their grip and are swept along in the current of the city's débris. illness, accident, and repeated failure are all causes of degeneration. along with misfortune belongs misconduct. those causes which produce poverty like intemperance, idleness, and ignorance, are productive of degeneracy, also. they render the individual unfit to meet the responsibilities of life, and tend not only to incompetence but also to sensuality and even crime. added to the various physical causes are such psychical influences as contact with degraded minds or with base literature or art, loss of religious faith, and loss of self-confidence as to one's ability to succeed. personal degeneracy tends to perpetuate itself in the family. drunken, depraved, or feeble-minded parents usually produce children with the same inheritances or tendencies; family quarrelling and an utter absence of moral training do not foster the development of character. a slum environment in the city strengthens the evil tendencies of such a home, as it counterbalances the good effects of a wholesome home environment. mental and moral degeneracy is always present in society, and if unchecked spreads widely; physical degeneracy is so common as to be alarming, resulting in dangerous forms of disease, imbecility, and insanity. society is waking to the need of protecting itself against degeneracy in all its forms, and of cutting out the roots of the evil from the social body. reading references nearing: _social religion_, pages 104-157. commons: "is class conflict in america growing?" art. in _american journal of sociology_, 13: 756-783. henderson: _social elements_, pages 276-283. nearing and watson: _economics_, pages 185-193. warner: _american charities_, pages 59-117, 276-292. patten: _social basis of religion_, pages 107-133. blackmar and gillin: _outlines of sociology_, pages 499-512. chapter xxx the immigrant 228. =the immigrant problem.=--an increasing proportion of the city's population is foreign born or of foreign parentage. for a hundred years america has been the goal of the european peasant's ambition, the magnet that has drawn him from interior hamlet and ocean port. migration has been one of the mighty forces that have been reshaping society. the american people are being altered by it, and it is a question whether america will maintain its national characteristics if the volume of immigration continues unchecked. europe has been deeply affected, and the people who constitute the migrating mass have been changed most of all. and the end is not yet. the immigrant constitutes one of the problems of society. never has there been in history such a race movement as that which has added to one nation a population of more than twenty million in a half century. it is a problem that affects the welfare of races and continents outside of america, as well as here, and that affects millions yet unborn, and millions more who might have been born were it not for the unfavorable changes that have taken place because of the shift in population. it is a problem that has to do with all phases of group life--its economic, educational, political, moral, and religious interests. it is a problem that demands the united wisdom of all who care for the welfare of humanity in the days to come. the heart of the problem is first whether the immigrant shall be permitted to crowd into this country unhindered, or whether sterner barriers shall be placed in the way of the increasing multitude; secondly, if restrictions are decided upon what shall be their nature, and whose interests shall be considered first--those of the immigrant, of the countries involved, or of world progress as a whole? the problem can be approached best by considering (1) the history of immigration, (2) the present facts about immigration, (3) the tendencies and effects of immigration. migrations have occurred everywhere in history, and they are progressing in these days in other countries besides the united states. canada is adding thousands every year, parts of south america are already german or italian because of immigration, in lesser numbers emigrants are going to the colonies that the european nations, especially the english, have located all over the world. european immigration to north america has been so prolonged and abundant that it constitutes the particular phenomenon that most deserves attention. other nations have fought wars to secure additional territory for their people; the immigrant occupation of america has been a peaceful conquest. 229. =the irish.=--although the early occupation of this continent was by immigration from europe, after the revolution the increase of population was almost entirely by natural growth. large families were the rule and a hardy people was rapidly gaining the mastery of the eastern part of the continent. it was not until 1820 that the new immigration became noticeable and the government took legislative action to regulate it (1819). between 1840 and 1880 three distinct waves of immigration broke on american shores. the first was irish. the irish peasants were starving from a potato famine that extended over several years in the forties, and they poured by the thousand into america, the women becoming domestic servants and the men the unskilled laborers that were needed in the construction camps. they built roads, dug canals, and laid the first railways. complaint was made that they lowered the standards of wages and of living, that their intemperate, improvident ways tended to complicate the problem of poverty, and that their catholic religion made them dangerous, but they continued to come until the movement reached its climax, in 1851, when 272,000 passed through the gates of the atlantic ports. the irish-american has become an important element of the population, especially in the eastern cities, and has shown special aptitude for politics and business. 230. =germans and scandinavians.=--the irishman was followed by the german. he was attracted by-the rich agricultural lands of the middle west and the opportunities for education and trade in the towns and cities. german political agitators who had failed to propagate democracy in the revolutionary days of 1848 made their way to a place where they could mould the german-american ideas. while the irish settled down in the seaboard towns, the germans went west, and constituted one of the solid groups that was to build the future cosmopolitan nation. the german was followed by the scandinavian. the people of norway, sweden, and denmark were increasing in number, but their rough, cold country could not support them all. as the norsemen took to the sea in the ninth century, so the scandinavian did in the nineteenth, but this time in a peaceful migration toward the setting sun. they began coming soon after the civil war, and by 1882 they numbered thirteen per cent of the total immigration. they were a specially valuable asset, for they were industrious agriculturists and occupied the valuable but unused acres of the northwest, where they planted the wheat belt of the united states, learned american ways and founded american institutions, and have become one of the best strains in the american blood. 231. =the new immigrants.=--if the united states could have continued to receive mainly such people as these from northern europe, there would be little cause to complain of the volume of immigration, but since 1880 the tide has been setting in from southern and eastern europe and even from asia, bringing in large numbers of persons who are not of allied stock, have been little educated, and do not understand or fully sympathize with american principles and ideals, and for the most part are unskilled workmen. these have come in such enormous numbers as to constitute a real menace and to compel attention. table of immigration for the year ending june 30, 1914 (races numbering less than 10,000 each are not included) +--------------------------------------------------------+ | south italians 251,612 | | jews 138,051 | | poles 122,657 | | germans 79,871 | | english 51,746 | | greeks 45,881 | | russians 44,957 | | north italians 44,802 | | hungarians 44,538 | | croatians and slovenians 37,284 | | ruthenians 36,727 | | scandinavians 36,053 | | irish 33,898 | | slovaks 25,819 | | roumanians 24,070 | | lithuanians 21,584 | | scotch 18,997 | | french 18,166 | | bulgarians, servians, and montenegrins 15,084 | | mexicans 13,089 | | finns 12,805 | | dutch and flemings 12,566 | | spanish 11,064 | +--------------------------------------------------------+ 232. =italians and slavs.=--most numerous of these are the italians. at home they feel the pressure of population, the pinch of small income, and heavy taxation. here it costs less to be a citizen and there are more opportunities for a livelihood. gangs of italian laborers have taken the place of the irish. italians have established themselves in the small trades, and some of them find a place in the factory. two-thirds of them are from the country, and they find opportunity to use their agricultural knowledge as farm laborers. in california and louisiana they have established settlements of their own, and in the east they make a foreign fringe on the outskirts of suburban towns. north italy is more progressive than the south and the qualities of the people are of higher grade, but the bulk of emigration is from the region of naples and sicily. among the southern italians the percentage of illiteracy is high, they have the reputation of being slippery in business relations, and not a few anarchists and criminals are found among them. it is not reasonable to expect that these people will measure up to the level of the steady, reliable, and hard-working american or north european, especially as large numbers of them are birds of passage spending the winter in italy or going home for a time when business in america is depressed. yet the great majority of those who settle here are peaceable, ambitious, and hard-working men and women. alongside the italian is the slav. there are so many varieties of him that he is confusing. he comes from the various provinces of russia, from the conglomerate empire of austro-hungary, and from the balkan states. in physique he is sturdier than the italian and mentally he is less excitable and nervous, but he drinks heavily and is often murderous when not sober. the slav has come to america to find a place in the sun. at home he has suffered from political oppression and poverty; he has had little education of body or mind; he is subject to his primitive impulses as the west european long ago ceased to be. it is not easy for america to assimilate large numbers of such backward peoples, but the slav is coming at the rate of three hundred thousand a year. the slav is depended upon for the hard labor of mine and foundry, of sugar and oil refineries, and of meat-packing establishments. hundreds and thousands are in the coal and iron regions of pennsylvania, illinois, ohio, and west virginia. the bohemians and poles more frequently than the others bring their families with them, and to some extent settle in the rural districts, but the bulk of the slavs are men who herd in congested boarding-houses, move frequently from one industrial centre to another, and naturally are very slow to become assimilated. 233. =the jews.=--of all the races that have found asylum in america none have felt abroad the heavy hand of oppression more than the jew. he has been the world's outcast through nineteen centuries, but in america he has found freedom to expand. one-fifth of all the jews are already in america, and the rate of immigration is not far from 140,000 a year. the immigrant jews are of different grades, some are educated and well-to-do, but the masses are poor, and the most recent immigrants have low ideals of living. few of those who come settle in the country districts; the large majority herd in the city tenements and engage in small trades and manufacturing. jewish masters are unmerciful as sweaters, unprincipled as landlords, and disreputable as white slavers, but no man rises above limitations that others have set for him like the jew, and with ambition, ability, and persistence the race is pushing its way to the front. the young people are eager for an education, and are often among the keenest pupils in their classes. later they make their mark in the professions as well as in business. the jew has found a new canaan in the west. 234. =the lesser peoples.=--besides these great groups that constitute the bulk of the incoming millions, there are representatives from all the nations and tribes of europe. all parts of great britain have sent their people, and from canada so many have come as almost to impoverish certain sections. french-canadians are numerous in the mill cities of new england. from the netherlands there has always been a small contingent. portugal has sent islanders from the azores and cape verde. the finns are here, the lithuanians from russia, the magyars from hungary. the greeks are pouring in from their sunny hills and valleys; they rival the italians in the fruit trade, and monopolize the bootblack industry in certain cities. with the twentieth century have come the turks and their asiatic subjects, the syrians and the armenians. all these peoples have race peculiarities, prejudices, and superstitions. most of their members belong in the lower grades of society and their coming is a distinct danger to the nation's future. there can be no question, of course, that individuals among them possess ability and even talent, and that certain groups like those from great britain and the netherlands are exceptions to the general rule, but there is a strong conviction among social workers and students that those who are here should be assimilated before many more arrive. definite measures are advocated by which it is expected that the government or private agencies may be able to make over these latest aliens into reputable, useful american citizens. 235. =public attitude toward immigration.=--although interest in national and immigrant welfare is far less keen than it well might be, the tremendous consequences of the wide-spread movement have not passed unnoticed. wage-earners already here have felt the effects of low-grade competition and have clamored for restrictive legislation. on race rather than economic grounds asiatics have been excluded except for the few already here. federal regulation has been increased with reference to all immigrant traffic. this has been based increasingly on investigation by private effort and government commission, and governments and churches have established bureaus on immigration. aid associations maintain agents to safeguard the newcomer from exploitation, both on the journey and in port. from all these sources a body of information has been gathered that throws light on the causes and effects of immigration. 236. =causes and effects.=--the primary cause is industrial. the desire of the people to improve their economic and social condition is the compelling motive that drives them, in spite of homesickness and ignorance, to venture into an unknown country and to face dangers and difficulties that could not be foreseen. three out of four who come are males, pioneers oftentimes of a family that looks forward to a larger migration later on. friends on this side encourage others and commonly supply the necessary funds. eighty per cent of all who come into massachusetts make the venture in hope of finding better industrial conditions or to join relatives or friends. in some countries, like russia, religious and political oppression are expelling causes, and the military service required by the european powers drives young men away. it has been demonstrated that forty per cent of the immigration is not permanent, but that for various reasons individuals return for a season, some permanently. immigration has its good and bad effects. there are certain good qualities in many of the immigrant strains that are valuable to american character, and it cannot be denied that the exploitation of national resources and the execution of public works could not have been accomplished so rapidly without the immigrant. but the bad effects furnish a problem that is not easily solved. immigrants come now in such large numbers that they tend to form alien groups of increasing proportions in the midst of the great cities. there is danger that the city will become a collection of districts--little italy, little hungary, and little syria--and the sense of civic unity be destroyed. even more significant is the high birth-rate of the foreigner. statistics show that with the greater birth-rate of the immigrants there is a corresponding decline in the native birth-rate, so that the alien is supplanting the native american stock. along with race degeneracy goes lack of industrial skill and declining wages, for the foreigner is ignorant, often unorganized, and willing to work and live under worse conditions than the native american. among the disastrous social effects are increasing poverty and crime, lack of sanitation, and an increase of diseases that thrive in filth. illiteracy and slow mentality lower the general level of intelligence. lack of training in democracy renders the average immigrant a poor citizen, though some state laws give him the ballot without delay. in morals and religion there is more loss than gain by immigration. american liberty tends to become license, scores of thousands lose all interest in the church, and moral restraint is thrown off with the ecclesiastical yoke. plainly when the immigrant population is predominant in a great city the problem of immigration becomes vital not only to the local municipality but also to the nation, which is fast becoming urban. 237. =americanizing the alien.=--after all is said, the immigrant problem is not insoluble. there is much in the situation to make one optimistic. thus far the native stock has been able to survive and to give its best to the newcomer. the immigrant himself has no desire to destroy american institutions. he comes longing to share in their benefits. america is to him an eldorado, a promised land flowing with milk and honey. his children, through the schools and other contacts, learn the language that his tongue is slow to acquire, and absorb the ideas and ideals that are typically american. after all, it is the spirit rather than the form of the institutions that make them valuable. the upper-class american, who is too indifferent to go to the polls on election day, is less patriotic and more harmful to american institutions than the italian who is too ignorant to vote, but would die on the battle-field for the defense of his adopted country. many agencies are at work to help the alien adjust himself to american ways and to make him into a good citizen. in the last resort the americanization of the foreigner rests with the attitude of the native american toward him rather than with the immigrant himself. reading references ross: _the old world in the new_, pages 24-304. fairchild: _immigration_, pages 213-368. commons: _races and immigrants in america_, pages 198-238. roberts: _the new immigration._ jenks and lauck: _immigration._ woods: _americans in process._ willis: "findings of the immigration commission," art. in _the survey_, 25: 571-578. chapter xxxi how the working people live 238. =in europe.=--a large proportion of the immigrants from europe have been peasants who have come out of rural villages to find a home in the barracks of american cities. in the old world they have lived in houses that lacked comfort and convenience; they have worked hard through a long day for small returns; and a government less liberal and more burdened than the united states has mulcted them of much of their small income by heavy taxes. young men have lost two or three years in compulsory military training, and their absence has kept the women in the fields. from the barracks men often return with the stigma of disease upon them, which, added to the common social evils of intemperance and careless sex relations, keeps moral standards low. thousands of them are illiterate, few of them have time for recreation, and those who do understand little of its possibilities. religion is largely a matter of inherited superstition, and as a superior force in life is quite lacking. to people of this sort comes the vision of a land where government is democratic, military conscription is unknown, wages are high, and there is unlimited opportunity to get ahead. encouraged by agents of interested parties, many a man accumulates or borrows enough money to pay his passage and to get by the immigration officer on the american side, and faces westward with high hope of bettering his condition. 239. =in america.=--on the pier in america he is met by a friend or finds his way by force of gravity into the immigrant district of the city. usually unmarried, he is glad to find a boarding place with a compatriot, who cheerfully admits him to a share of his small tenement, because he will help to pay the rent. with assistance he finds a job and within a week regards himself as an american. later if it seems worth while he will take steps to become a citizen, but recently immigrants are less disposed to do this than formerly. many immigrants do not find their new home in the port of landing; they are booked through to interior points or locate in a manufacturing town within comfortable reach of the great city; but they find a place in the midst of conditions that are not far different. unskilled italians commonly join construction gangs, and for weeks at a time make their home in a temporary shack which quickly becomes unsanitary. wherever the immigrant goes he tends to form foreign colonies and to reproduce the low standards of living to which he has been accustomed. if he could be introduced to better habits and surrounded with improved conditions from the moment of his arrival he would gain much for himself, and far more speedily would become assimilated into an american; as it is, he is introducing foreign elements on a large scale into a city life that is overburdened with problems already. changes in the manner of living are often for the worse. instead of their village houses set in the midst of the open fields here, they herd like rabbits in overpopulated, unhealthy warrens, frequently sleeping in rooms continually dark and ill-ventilated. they still work for long hours, but here under conditions that breed discouragement and disease, in the sweat-shop or the dingy factory, and often in an occupation dangerous to life or limb. though they are free from the temptations of the military quarters, they find them as numerous at the corner saloon and the brothel, and even in the overcrowded tenement itself. if they bring over their families or marry here, they can expect no better home than the tenement, unless they have the courage to get out into the country, away from all that which is familiar. rather than do that or knowing no better way, they swarm with others of their kind in the immigrant hive. 240. =tenement house conditions.=--in new york large tenements from five to seven stories high, with three or four families on each floor, shelter many thousands of the city's workers. these are often built on lots too small to permit of air and light space between buildings. some of them contain over a hundred individuals. three-fourths of the population of manhattan is in dwellings that house not less than twenty persons each. the density of population is one hundred and fifty to the acre. twelve to eighteen dollars a month are charged for a suite of four rooms, some of them no better than dark closets. instances can be multiplied where adults of both sexes and children are crowded into one or two rooms, where they cook, eat, and sleep, and where privacy is impossible. thousands of children grow up unmoral, if not immoral, because their natural sense of modesty and decency has been blunted from childhood. the poorest classes live in cellars that reek with disease germs of the worst kind, and sanitary conditions are indescribable. if these conditions were confined to the immigrant population, americans might shrug their shoulders and dismiss the subject with disparaging remarks about the dirty foreigner, but housing conditions like these are not restricted to the immigrant, whether he be jew or gentile. the american working man who finds work in the factory towns is little better off. the natural desire of landlords to spend as little as possible on their property, and to get the largest possible returns, makes it very difficult for the worker to find a suitable home for his family that he can afford to pay for. yet he must live near his work to save time and expense. old and dilapidated houses are ready for his occupancy, but though they are often not so bad as the large tenements, with their more attractive exteriors, they are not fit dwellings for his growing family. a flat in a three-decker may be obtained at a moderate rental, but such houses are usually poorly built, of the flimsiest inflammable material, and they, too, lack privacy and modern conveniences. 241. =effects of these conditions.=--it must not be supposed that these evils have been overlooked. building associations and private philanthropists have erected improved tenements, and have proved that the right sort of structures may be made paying investments. state and municipal governments have appointed commissions and departments on housing, fire protection has been provided, better sanitary conditions have been enforced, and hopelessly bad buildings have been destroyed. but slums grow faster than they can be improved, and the rapidly growing tenement districts need more drastic and comprehensive measures than have yet been taken. the housing problem affects the tenant first of all, and in countless instances his unwholesome environment is ruining his health, ability, and character; but it also affects the community and the nation, for persons produced by such an environment do not make good citizens. the roots of family life are destroyed, gaunt poverty and loathsome disease hold hands along dark and dirty stairways and through the halls, foul language mingles with the foul air, and drunkenness is so common as to excite no remark. sexual impurity finds its nest amid the darkness and ill-endowed children swarm in the streets. 242. =possible improvements.=--there must be some way out of these evil conditions that is practicable and that will be permanent. those who are interested in housing reform favor two kinds of measures--first, the prevention of building in the future the kind of houses that have become so common but so unsatisfactory, and the improvement of those already in existence; second, provision of inexpensive, attractive, and sanitary dwellings outside of the city, and cheap and rapid transit to and from the places of labor. both of these methods are practicable either by voluntary association or state action, and both are called for by the social need of the present. there are definite principles to be observed in the redistribution of population. the principle of association calls for group life in a neighborhood, and it is as idle to think that people from the slums can be contented on isolated farms as it is to suppose that they can be converted readily into prosperous american agriculturists. close connection with the town is indispensable. the principle of adaptation demands that the new homes shall answer to the needs of the people for whom they are provided, and that the neighborhood shall be suited to those needs. the houses will need to be enough better than those in town to offset the greater effort of travel. the principle of control demands that the new life of the people be regulated as effectively as it can be by municipal authority, and if necessary that such municipal authority be extended or state authority be localized. there are difficulties in the way of all such enterprises, but social welfare requires improvements in the way the working people live. it is notorious that immigrants and working people generally have larger families than the well-to-do. the children of the city streets form a class of future citizens that deserve most careful attention. the problem of the tenement and the flat is especially serious, because they are the factories of human life. there the next generation is in the making, and there can be no doubt about the quality of the product if conditions continue as they are. it is important to inquire how the children live, what are their occupations and means of recreation, their moral incentives and temptations, and their opportunities for the development of personality. 243. =how the children live.=--the best way to understand how the children live is to put oneself in their place. imagine waking in the morning in a stuffy, overcrowded room, eating a slice of bread or an onion for breakfast and looking forward to a bite for lunch and an ill-cooked evening meal, or in many cases starting out for the day without any breakfast, glad to leave the tenement for the street, and staying there throughout waking hours, when not in school, using it for playground, lunch-room, and loafing-place, and regarding it as pleasanter than home. imagine going to school half fed and poorly clothed, sometimes the butt of a playmate's gibes because of a drunken father or a slatternly mother, required to study subjects that make no appeal to the child and in a language that is not native, and then back to the street, perhaps to sell papers until far into the night, or to run at the beck and call of the public as a messenger boy. many a child, in spite of the public opposition to child labor, is put to work to help support the family, and department store and bootblack parlor are conspicuous among their places of occupation. mills and factories employ them for special kinds of labor, and states are lax in the enforcement of child-labor laws after they are on the statute books. 244. =the street trades.=--employment in the street trades is very common among the children of the tenements. there are numerous opportunities to peddle fruit and small wares at a small wage; messenger and news boys are always in demand, and the bootblacking industry absorbs many of the immigrant class. by these means the family income is pieced out, sometimes wholly provided, but the ill effects of such child labor are disturbing to the peace of mind of the well-wishers of children. street labor works physical injury from exposure to inclement weather and to accident, from too great fatigue, and from irregular habits of eating and sleeping. it provokes resort to stimulants and sows the seeds of disease, vice, and petty crime. moral deterioration follows from the bad habits formed, from the encouragement to lawbreaking and independence of parental authority, and from the evil environment of the people and places with which they come into contact. children are susceptible to the influence of their elders, and easily form attachments for those who treat them well. saloons and disorderly houses are their patrons, and when still young the children learn to imitate those whom they see and hear. even for the children who do not work, the street has its influence for evil. the street was intended as a means of transit, not for trade or play, but it is the most convenient place for games and social enjoyments of all sorts. the little people become familiar with profane and obscene language, with quarrelling and dishonesty, and even with more serious crime, and no intellectual education in the schoolroom can counteract the moral lessons of the street. 245. =playgrounds.=--various experiments for keeping children off the street have been proposed and tried. vacation schools in the summer provide interesting occupations and talks for those who can be induced to attend; their success is assured, but they reach only a small part of the children. gymnasiums in the winter attract others of the older class, but the most useful experiments are equipped and supervised playgrounds. for the small children sand piles have met the desire for occupation, and kindergarten games have satisfied the instinct for association. the primitive nature of the child demanded change, and one kind of game after another was added for those of different ages. swings, climbing ladders, and poles are always popular, and for the older boys opportunities for ball playing, skating, and coasting. all these activities must be under control. the characteristics of children on the playground are the same as those of their elders in society. authority and instruction are as necessary as in school; indeed, playgrounds are a supplement to the indoor education of american children. 246. =the city school.=--the school is expected to be the foster-mother of every american child, whether native or adopted. it is expected to take the children from the avenue and the slum, those with the best influences of heredity and environment, and those with the worst, those who are in good health and those who are never well, and putting them all through the same intellectual process, to turn out a finished product of boys and girls qualified for american citizenship. it is an unreasonable expectation, and the american school falls far short of meeting its responsibility. it often has to work with the poorest kind of material, sometimes it has to feed the pupil before his mental powers can get to work. it has to see that the physical organs function properly before it can get satisfactory intellectual results. the school is the victim of an educational system that was made to fit other conditions than those of the present-day city; the whole system needs reconstructing, but the management is conservative, ignorant, or parsimonious in many cases, or too radical and given to fads and experiments. yet, in spite of all its faults and delinquencies, the public schools of the city are the hope of the future. the school is the melting-pot of the city's youth. it is the training-school of municipal society. in the absence of family training it provides the social education that is necessary to equip the child for life. it accustoms him to an orderly group life and establishes relations with others of similar age from other streets or neighborhoods than those with which he is familiar. it teaches him how intelligent public opinion is formed, and brings him within the circle of larger interests than those with which he is naturally connected. he learns how to accommodate himself to the group rather than to fight or worm his way through for a desired end, as is the method of the street. he learns good morals and good manners. he finds out that there are better ways of expressing his ideas than in the slang of the alley, and in time he gains an understanding of a social leadership that depends on mental and moral superiority instead of physical strength or agility. as he grows older he becomes acquainted with the worth of established institutions, and his hand is no longer against every man and every man's hand against him. he likes to share in the social activities that occur as by-products of the school--the musical and dramatic entertainments, the athletic contests, and the debating and oratorical rivalries. by degrees he becomes aware that he is a responsible member of society, that he is an individual unit in a great aggregation of busy people doing the work of the world, and that the school is given him to make it possible for him to play well his part in the activities of the city and nation to which he belongs. reading references veiller: _housing reform_, pages 3-46. riis: _how the other half lives._ clopper: _child labor in the city streets._ martin: "exhibit of congestion," art. in _the survey_,20: 27-39. goodyear: "household budgets of the poor," art. in _charities_, 16: 191-197. "the pittsburgh survey," arts, in _the survey_, vol. 21. lee: _constructive and preventive philanthropy_, pages 109-184. chapter xxxii the diversions of the working people 247. =the demand for recreation.=--the natural instinct for recreation is felt by the working people in common with persons of every class. they cannot afford to spend on the grand scale of those who patronize the best theatres and concerts, nor can they relax all summer at mountains or seashore, or play golf in the winter at pinehurst or palm beach. they get their pleasures in a less expensive way in the parks or at the beach resorts in the summer, and at the "movies," dance-halls, and cheap theatres in the winter. they have little money to spend, but they get more real enjoyment out of a dime or a quarter than thousands of dollars give to some society buds and millionaires who are surfeited with pleasure. recreation to the working people is not an occupation but a diversion. their occupation is usually strenuous enough to furnish an appetite for entertainment, and they are not particular as to its character, though the more piquant it is the greater is the satisfaction. craving for excitement and a stimulus that will restore their depleted energies, they flock into the dance-halls and the saloons, where they find the temporary satisfaction that they wanted, but where they are tempted to lose the control that civilization has put upon the primitive passions and to let the primitive instincts have their sway. it is a prerogative of childhood to be active. if activity is one of the striking characteristics of all social life, it is especially so of child life. the country child has all out-of-doors for the scope of his energies, the city boy and girl are cramped by the tenement and the narrow street, with occasional resort to a small park. it requires ingenuity to devise methods of diversion in such small areas, but necessity is the mother of invention, and the children of the city become expert in outwitting those whose business it is to keep them within bounds. this kind of education has a smack of practicality in that it sharpens the wits for the struggle for existence that makes up much of the experience of city folk, but it also tends to develop a crookedness in mental and moral habits through the constant effort to get ahead of the agents of social control. 248. =street games.=--to understand how the youth of the city get their diversions it is well to examine a cross-section of city life on saturday afternoon or sunday. family quarters are crowded. tenements and apartments have little spare space inside or outside. children find it decidedly irksome indoors and naturally gravitate to the street, to the relief of their elders and their own satisfaction. there they quickly find associates and proceed to give expression to their restless spirits. it is the child's nature to play, and he uses all his wits to find the materials and the room for sport. his ingenuity can adapt sticks and stones to a variety of uses, but the street makes a sorry substitute for a ball-field, and while the girl may content herself with the sidewalk and door-steps, the boy soon looks abroad for a more satisfying occupation. among the gangs of city boys no diversion is more enjoyable than the game of craps, learned from the southern negro. with a pair of dice purchased for a cent or two at the corner news-stand and a few pennies obtained by newspaper selling or petty thieving the youngster is equipped with the necessary implements for gambling, and he soon becomes adept in cleaning out the pockets of the other fellows. 249. =young people's amusements.=--meantime the older boys and girls are seeking their diversions. at fourteen or fifteen most of them have found work in factory or store, but evenings and sundays they, too, are looking for diversion. the girls find it attractive to walk the streets, while the boys frequent the cheap pool-room, where they find a chance to gamble and listen to the tales of the idlers who find employment as cheap thieves and hangers-on of immoral houses. from these headquarters they sally forth upon the streets to find association with the other sex, and together they give themselves up to a few hours' entertainment. a few are contented to promenade the streets, but amusement houses are cheap, and the "movies" and vaudeville shows attract the crowd. for a few dimes a couple can have a wide range of choice. if the tonic of the playhouse is not sufficient, a small fee admits to the public dance-hall, where it is easy to meet new acquaintances and to find a partner who will go to any length in the mad hunt for pleasures that will satisfy. from the dance-hall it is an easy path to the saloon and the brothel, as it is from the game of craps and the pool-room to the gambling-den and the criminal joint. it is the lack of proper means for diversion and proper oversight of places of entertainment that is increasing the vice, drunkenness, and crime that curse the lives of thousands and give to the city an evil reputation. 250. =the saloon as the poor man's club.=--the saloon is an institution peculiar to america, but it is the successor of a long line of public drinking houses. there were cafés among the ancients, public houses among the anglo-saxons, and taverns in the colonies. at such places the traveller or the working man could find social companionship along with his glass of wine or grog, and by a natural evolution the saloon became the poor man's club. it is successful as a place of business, because it caters to primitive wants and social interests in considerable variety. it is a never-failing source of supply of the strong waters that bring the good cheer of intoxication, and lull into torpid content the mind that wants to forget its worry or its misery. it is a place where conventionality is laid aside and human beings meet on the common level of convivial good-fellowship. it is the avenue to fuller enjoyment in billiard-room, at card-table, in dance-hall, and in house of assignation, but though the door is open to them there is no obligation to enter. it is first aid to the sporting fraternity, the resort of those who delight in pugilism, baseball, and the racetrack, the dispenser of athletic news of all sorts that is worth talking about. it frequently provides a free lunch, music, and games. it is the agent of the political boss who mixes neighborhood charity with the dispensing of party jobs. "the saloon is a day-school, a night-school, a vacation-school, a sunday-school, a kindergarten, a college, a university, all in one. it runs without term ends, vacations, or holidays.... it influences the thoughts, morals, politics, social customs, and ideals of its patrons." 251. =substitutes for the saloon.=--an institution that fills a place as large as this in the social life of the american city must be given careful consideration, and cannot be impatiently dismissed as an unmitigated social evil. the saloon is unsparingly denounced as the cause of intemperance, prostitution, poverty, and crime, and much of the charge is a fair indictment, but it is easier to condemn its abuses than to find a satisfactory substitute for the social service that it performs. if the saloon must go, something must be put in its place to perform its helpful functions. it may have to be legislated out of existence in order to check intemperance, for the satisfaction of thirst is its principal attraction, and its prime function is to furnish drink, but the law can be more easily enforced if other social centres are available where the average man can feel equally at home. a model saloon managed by church people or labor unionists has been tried, but has failed to solve the problem. the young men's christian association on its present basis does not reach the class of men that frequents the saloon. coffee-houses, reading-rooms, municipal gymnasiums, and baths, may each provide a small part, but none of these nor all together fill the gap that is left after the saloon is abolished. attractive quarters, recreational facilities, and a spirit of democracy and freedom appear absolutely essential to any successful experiment in substitution. the patrons wish to be consulted as to what they want and what they will pay for, and unless the substitute is self-supporting it is sure to fail. the most promising experiment is an athletic club maintained by regular dues, where there is abundant room for sport and conversation, and where it is possible to secure food at a moderate price and to enjoy lively music at the same time. under a reasonable amount of regulation such an establishment cannot become a public nuisance, and it supplies a social need on a sound economic basis. 252. =monopoly experiments.=--it has been proposed to draw the virus of the saloon by removing the element of private profit and placing the traffic under state management. the south carolina dispensary system was such an attempt. it broke up the saloon as a social centre, for drinking was not allowed on the premises, but it did not stop the consumption of liquor, the profits went to the public, and the saloon element became a vicious element in politics. the norwegian or gothenburg system was another experiment of a similar sort. the liquor traffic was made respectable by the government chartering a monopoly company and by putting business on the basis not of profit, but of supplying a reasonable demand of the working class. fifty years' trial has reduced consumption one-half, has improved the character of the saloon, and has removed the immoral annexes. the system is not compulsory, but the people must choose between it and prohibition. the main objection raised against state monopoly or charter is that the government makes an alliance with a traffic that is injurious to society, and that is contrary to the fundamental principle of government. at best it can be regarded as only a half measure toward the abolition of the trade in intoxicants. 253. =the seriousness of the liquor problem.=--there can be no doubt that the liquor problem is one of the serious menaces to modern health, morals, and prosperity. intemperance is closely bound up with the home, it is a regular accompaniment of unchastity, it is both the cause and the result of poverty, it vitiates much charity, it is a leading cause of imbecility and insanity, and a provocative of crime. it stands squarely in the way of social progress. it is a complex problem. it is first a personal question, affecting primarily the drinker; secondly, a social question, affecting the family and the community; thirdly, an economic and political question, affecting society at large. consequently the solution of the problem is not simple. different phases of the problem demand a variety of methods. intemperance may be approached from the standpoint of disease or immorality. it may be treated in medical or legislative fashion. it may receive the special condemnation of the churches. one of the most effective arguments against it is on the basis of economic waste. the best statistics are incomplete, but the conservative estimate of a national trade journal gave as the total direct expense in 1912, $1,630,000,000. this minimum figure means eighteen dollars for every man, woman, and child in the country. the indirect cost to society of the wretchedness and crime that result from intemperance is vastly greater. united states internal-revenue statistics indicate an increased consumption in all kinds of liquor between 1900 and 1910, although the territory under prohibition was steadily enlarging. 254. =causes and effects of the traffic.=--the leading causes of intemperance are the natural craving of appetite and the pleasure of mild intoxication, the congenial society of the saloon and the habit of treating, and the presence of the public bar on the streets of the poorer districts of the city. the mere presence of the saloon is a standing invitation to the men and boys of the neighborhood, and it grows to seem a natural part of the environment. it is far more attractive than the cheerless tenement and the tiresome street. the sedative to tired nerves and stimulant for weary muscles is there; the social customs of the past or of the homeland re-enforce the social instincts of the present and draw with the power of a magnet. the effects of intemperance may be classified as physical losses, economic losses, and social losses. the immediate physical effect is exhilaration, but this is succeeded by lassitude and incompetency. the stimulus gained is momentary, the loss is permanent. it is well established that even small quantities of alcohol weaken the will power and benumb the mental powers. habitual use depletes vitality and so predisposes to disease. life-insurance policies consider the alcoholic a poor risk. the economic effect is a great preponderance of loss over gain. somebody makes money out of the consumer, but it is not the farmer who produces the grain, the railroad company that transports it, or the government that taxes it; less than formerly is it the individual saloon-keeper, but the brewer and distiller who in increasing numbers own the local plant as well as manufacture the liquor. neither the nation that taxes the manufacture for the sake of the internal revenue, nor the city or town that licenses the sale, gets enough to compensate for the economic loss to society. among the specific losses to consumers are irregularity and cessation of employment, due to the unreliability of the intemperate workman and the consequent reluctance of employers to hire him--a reluctance increased since employers are made liable to compensate workmen for accidents; the poverty and destitution of the families of habitual drinkers; and the enormous waste of millions of dollars that, if not thus wasted, might have gone into the channels of legitimate trade. finally, there is a wide-spread social effect. intemperance ranks next to heredity as the cause of insanity. one-third to one-half of the crime in the country is charged to intemperance. alcohol makes men quarrelsome, upsets the brain balance, and introduces the user to illegal and immoral practices. the saloon corrupts politics. it has been estimated that the liquor traffic controls two million votes, and some of it is easily purchasable. when it is remembered that the saloon is in close alliance with the gambling interest, the white-slave interest, the graft element, the political bosses, and the corrupt lobbies, it is easy to see that it constitutes a serious danger to good government throughout the nation. 255. =the temperance crusade.=--intemperance has grown to be so wide-spread and serious an evil that a crusade against it has gathered strength through the nineteenth century. in colonial days the use of liquors was universal and excited little comment, but groups of persons here and there, especially the church people, opposed the common practice of tippling and began to organize in order to check it. it was not a total-abstinence movement at first, but was designed particularly to check the use of spirituous liquors. temperance revivals swept over whole states, but were too emotional to be permanent. when the second half of the century began organization became more thorough and the good templars and woman's christian temperance union assumed the leadership of the cause. these organizations stood for total abstinence and state prohibition, and by temperance evangelism and temperance education the women especially pushed their campaign nationally and abroad. among all temperance agencies the anti-saloon league organized in ohio in 1893, and extending through the united states, has been most effective. it has federated existing agencies and enlisted organized religion. it has pushed no-license campaigns in states that had an optional law, has secured the extension of prohibition to scores of counties in the south and west, and has extended the area of state-wide prohibition, an experiment begun in maine in 1851, until eighteen states are now under a prohibitory law (1915). 256. =remedies for intemperance.=--there is a general agreement among people who reflect upon social ills that intemperance is a curse upon large numbers of individuals and families through both its direct and indirect effects. it seems well established that even moderate drinking produces physical and mental weakness and even as a temporary stimulant is of small value. it is not so clear how to check the evil without injuring personal interests and violating the liberty which every citizen claims for himself as a right. three methods have been proposed and tried as remedies for intemperance. the first of these is public appeal and education. public addresses in which arguments are presented and an appeal made to the emotions have led to the signing of pledges, and sometimes to the control of elections, but they have to be repeated frequently to keep the individual who is moved by his impulses up to the standard. slower is education through the press and through the school, where the evil effects of alcohol are demonstrated scientifically, but it has been tried patiently, and there is continually a large output of temperance literature. 257. =regulation.=--a second method that has been used extensively is regulation. it seems to many persons that the use of liquor cannot be stopped, and if it is to be manufactured and sold, it is best to regulate it by a form of license. in many of the american states the people are allowed local option and vote periodically, whether they will permit the legal manufacture and sale of intoxicants, or will attempt to prevent it for a time. local option has kept a great many towns and counties "dry" for years, and it is a step toward wide-spread prohibition. it is regarded by many as a better method than a state prohibition that is ineffective. those who oppose all licensing on principle, do so on the ground that there should be no legal recognition of that which is known to be a social evil. 258. =prohibition.=--prohibition is to most temperance advocates the master key that will unlock the door to happiness and prosperity. the enforcement of prohibition in russia after the european war began in 1914 had very impressive results in the better conduct and enterprise of the people. where it has been carried out effectively in the united states, the results soon appear in diminished poverty and wretchedness and in a decrease of vice and crime. the legitimacy of this method is recognized even by liquor manufacturers, and they are willing to spend millions of dollars to prevent national prohibition, realizing that though it would not destroy their business it would greatly lessen the profits. the prohibition policy has bitter enemies among some who are not personally interested in the business. they think it is too drastic and call attention to the sociological principle that prohibitions are a primitive method of social control, but the trend of public opinion is strongly against them on the ground that prohibitions are necessary in an imperfect human society. government increases its regulation of business of all kinds, and the police their regulation of individuals. the failure of half-way measures has added to the conviction that prohibition rigidly enforced is likely to be the only effective method for the solution of the liquor problem. reading references stelzle: _the workingman and social problems_, pages 21-50. moore: "social value of the saloon," art. in _american journal of_ _sociology_, 3: 1-12. melendy: "the saloon in chicago," art. in _american journal of_ _sociology_, 6: 289-306, 433-464. calkins: _substitutes for the saloon._ _regulation of the liquor traffic_ (american academy), pages 1-127. peabody: _the liquor problem: a summary._ grant: "children's street games," art. in _the survey_, 23: 232-236. partridge: _the psychology of intemperance_, pages 222-239. chapter xxxiii crime and its cure 259. =the problem of crime.=--habitual self-indulgence is at odds with the idea of social control. the man who resents interference with his diversions and pleasures is disposed to defy law, and if he feels that society is not treating him properly he is liable to become a lawbreaker. this is one of the reasons for the prevalence of crime, which on the whole increases rather than diminishes, and is a factor of disturbance in city life. statistics in the united states show that in thirty years, from 1880 to 1910, the criminal population increased relative to population by one-third. this is only partly due to immigration, nor is it mainly because a large majority of criminals escape punishment. two facts are to be kept constantly in mind: (1) crime depends upon certain subjective and objective elements, and tends to increase or decrease without much regard to police protection. (2) as long as there are persons whose habits and character predispose them to crime, as long as there are social inequalities and wants that provoke to criminal acts, and as long as there are attractive or easy victims, so long will thieving and arson, rape and murder take place. the problem of crime is not a simple one. the individual and his family and his social environment are all involved and changes in economic conditions affect the amount of crime. the task of the social reformer is to determine the causes of crime and to apply measures of reform and prevention. the science of the phenomena of crime is called criminology, that of punishment is named penology. 260. =its causes.=--if there is to be any effective prevention of crime there is needed a clearer understanding of its causes. criminologists are not agreed about these; one school emphasizes physical abnormalities as characteristic of the criminal, another considers environment the controlling influence. the removal of physical defect has repeatedly made an antisocial person normal in his conduct, and it seems plain, especially from the investigations of european criminologists, that certain individuals are born with a predisposition to crime, like the alcoholic inheriting a weak will, or with insane or epileptic tendencies that may lead early to criminal conduct; but it is not yet proven that a majority of offenders are hereditary perverts. a stronger reason for crime is the unsatisfied desire or the uncontrolled impulse that drives a man to take by force that to which he has no lawful claim. this desire is strengthened by the social conditions of the present. in all grades of society there are individuals who resort to all sorts of means to get money and pleasure, and those who are brought up without moral and social training, and who feel an inclination to disregard the interests of others are ready to justify themselves by illegal examples in high life. given a tenement home, the streets for a playground, the saloon as a social centre, hard, unpleasant, and poorly paid labor, a yellow press, and a prevailing spirit of envy and hatred for the rich, and it is not difficult to manufacture any amount of crime. 261. =special reasons for crime.=--certain special circumstances have tended to encourage crime within the last few generations. the freedom and natural roughness of frontier life gave an opportunity for lawlessness and appealed to those who are scarcely to be reckoned as friends of society. in the mining and lumber camps gambling and drinking were common, and robbery and murder not infrequent. the american civil war, like every war, stimulated the elemental passions and nourished criminal tendencies. human life and rights were cheapened. the brute in man was evoked when it became lawful to kill and plunder. the moral effects of war are among the most lasting and the most pernicious. more recently the conditions of existence in the cities have generated crime and are certain to continue to do so as long as slums exist. the liberty that is characteristic of america easily becomes license, especially if restraint has been thrown off suddenly, as in the case of the immigrant, or of the country youth arriving in the city for the first time and dazzled by the opportunities of his new freedom or with a grudge against society because it has not been hospitable to him. the amount of crime is increased also by the constant increase of legislation. the social regulations that are necessary in the city tend to become confused with the more serious violations of the moral code, and because the first are frequently broken with impunity acts of crime seem less iniquitous. all these reasons help to explain the increase of crime in the cities. it is worth noticing that the blame for it is not to be placed on the immigrant. in spite of his misunderstanding of american law and custom, his overcrowding in houses and streets, his ill-treatment economically and socially, and his common disappointment and discouragement because his dreams of wealth and progress have not materialized, the immigrant as a rule is law-abiding when sober and is less responsible for crime than the degenerate american. it is important to remember that there is a constant inflow of undesirable elements of american population into the cities, as well as an influx of aliens from europe. the proletariat is not all foreign. 262. =measures of prevention.=--crime calls for prevention and punishment. improvements in both are taking place. various methods of prevention are being proposed and these should be considered systematically. the first step is to prevent the reproduction of the bad. it has even been proposed to take away the life of all who are regarded as hopeless delinquents. less severe but still radical is the proposal, actually in practice in several states, to sterilize such persons as idiots, rapists, and confirmed criminals. the same end demanded by eugenics may be accomplished by segregating in life confinement all but the occasional criminals. a second step is the right training of children by the improvement home conditions, to include pensioning the mother if necessary, that she may hold the family together and bring the children up properly. the school helps to train the children, but industrial training is needed to take the place of the street trades. a third step is provision for specific moral and religious education. many persons think that however good may be the moral influence of a school, there is need of supplementary instruction in the home and the church. in the school itself character study in history and literature helps, and attention to the noble deeds in current life; the introduction of forms of self-government and the study of the life and organization of society are also useful; but some way should be devised for the definite training of children in social and moral principles that will act as an antidote to antisocial tendencies. experiments have been tried in the affiliation of church and school, and it has been urged that the state should appropriate money for religious training in the church, but the objection is made that such procedure is contrary to the american principle of the separation of church and state. the need of such education awaits a satisfactory solution. 263. =the big brother idea.=--the most hopeful method of prevention is to provide a friend for the human being who needs safeguarding. many a grown person needs this help, but especially the boy who is often tempted to go wrong. the big brother movement, starting in new york in 1905, befriended more than five thousand boys in six years, and branches were formed in cities all over the country. in europe the minister is often made a probation officer by the state, to see that the boy or youth keeps straight. in this country through the agency of court or charitable society in some cities each boy in need has his special adviser, as each family has its friendly visitor; sometimes it is a probation officer, sometimes the judge of a juvenile court, sometimes only a charitably minded individual who loves boys. through this friend work is found, to him difficulties are brought and intimate thoughts confided, and the boy is encouraged to grow morally strong. the immigrant, whether boy or man, often ignorant and stupid, especially needs such friendly assistance. the boy scout movement may be extended, or a substitute found for it, but some such organization is needed for the immigrant boy and the native american who is compelled to rely on his own resources. the fear of the law is undoubtedly a deterrent from crime, but it is inferior to the inspiration that comes from friendliness. 264. =educating public opinion.=--one of the important preventives of crime is work--steady, well-paid, and not disagreeable work, with proper intervals of recreation; added to this a social interest to take the place of the saloon and the dance-hall. with these belong improved housing, a better police system, and cleaner politics. the education of public opinion will eventually lead to a general demand for all of these. the press has the great opportunity to mould public opinion, but in its search for news, especially of a sensational character, it discusses crime in such a way as to excite a morbid interest in its details, and sometimes in its repetition, and the newspaper rarely discusses measures of crime prevention. many believe that a large responsibility rests upon the church to educate public opinion with regard to social obligation. they declare that the people need to be taught that certain social conditions are turning out criminals as regularly as the factory machine turns out its particular product, and then they need to be aroused in conscience until the will to prevent the evil is fixed. the minister, priest, or rabbi is summoned by the age to be both a prophet and a teacher of ways and means to a people too often unheeding and careless. 265. =theories of punishment.=--the old theory of punishment was that the state must punish the criminal in proportion to the seriousness of his crime, and that the penalty must be sufficiently severe to deter others from similar crime. this primitive theory has been giving way to the new theory of reformation. this theory is that the object of arrest and imprisonment is not merely the safety of the public during the criminal's term of imprisonment, but even more the reformation of the guilty man that he may be turned into a useful member of society. the reformatory method has been introduced with conspicuous success into a number of the american states, and is being extended until it seems likely to supplant the old theory altogether. 266. =three elements in the method of reformation.=--the reformatory system includes three elements that are comparatively new. the first of these is the indeterminate sentence now generally in practice in the united states. according to this principle, the sentence of a prisoner is not for a fixed period, but maximum and minimum limits are set, and the actual length of imprisonment is determined by the record the prisoner makes for himself. the second element is reformatory discipline. the whole treatment of the prisoner, his assignment to labor, his participation in mental, moral, and religious class exercises, are all designed to stimulate manhood and to work a complete reformation of character. the third element is conditional liberation, or the dismissal of the prisoner on parole. according to this method, the prisoner is freed on probation, if his record has been good, before his full term has expired, and is under obligation to report to the probation officer at stated intervals until his final discharge. if his conduct is not satisfactory he can be returned to prison at any time. this probation principle has been extended in application, so that most first offenders are not sent to a penal institution at all, but are placed on their good behavior under the watchful eye of the probation officer. experience with the reformatory method shows that about eighty per cent of the cases turn out well. in the sifting process of the reformatory there are always a few incorrigibles who are turned over to the penitentiary, and most recidivists, or old offenders, are sentenced there directly. 267. =helping the discharged prisoner.=--two experiments have been tried to help the discharged prisoner and to improve the treatment of the juvenile criminal. it is a part of the reformatory system to prepare the way for a prisoner's return to society by teaching him a trade while in confinement, and finding him a place to work when he goes out, but under the old system a man was turned loose from prison with a small sum of money, to redeem himself, when he felt the timidity natural to an ex-convict and the stigma of his reputation, and in most cases took the easiest road and returned to crime. to aid him friendly societies were organized, and even now they prove necessary to get a man on his feet. the volunteer prison league was organized by mrs. ballington booth to help in the reformation of men in prison and to aid them when they return to society, and homes have been established to give them temporary refuge. through these efforts not a few criminals that seemed incurable have been reformed. 268. =the juvenile court.=--the juvenile court is the result of the enlightened modern policy of dealing with the criminal. it was the old custom to conduct the trial of the juvenile offender in the same way as older men were tried, and to commit them to the same prisons. they soon became hardened criminals through their associations. but experience proves that with the right treatment a majority of those who fall into crime before the age of sixteen can be redeemed to normal social conduct. experiments with boys showed that there was a better way of trial and punishment than that which had been in vogue, and the juvenile courts that they devised have been widely adopted. the new plan is based on the principle of making friends with the boy. personal inquiry into the conditions of his life is made before the trial, then the judge hears the case in private conference with the boy, and after consultation gives directions for his future conduct. it is plain that the right principle of dealing with crime is to secure the reformation of the criminal and the protection of society with a minimum amount of punishment. retaliation is no longer the accepted principle; reformation has taken its place. fundamental to all the rest is the prevention of crime by providing for the needs of children and youth. methods of reform and reclamation are made necessary, because youthful impulses are not gratified in a way that would be beneficial, and habits are allowed to develop that lead to antisocial practices. society can protect itself only by providing means for comfortable living, suitable employment, wholesome recreation, and social education. reading references henderson: _cause and cure of crime._ wines: _punishment and reformation_, pages 1-265. barrows: _reformatory system in the united states_, pages 17-47. eliot: _the juvenile court and the community_, pages 1-185. travis: _the young malefactor_, pages 100-183. chapter xxxiv agencies of control 269. =characteristics of city government.=--the activities and associations of such large groups as the people who live in cities must be under social control. it is a principle of american life that the individual be permitted to direct his own energies as long as he does not interfere with the comfort and happiness of others, and in the country there is a large measure of freedom, but in the close contacts of city life constraint has to be in force. in contrast to the strict surveillance that is practised in certain countries, americans, even in the cities, have seldom been watched or interfered with. the police have been guardians of peace and safety at street crossings and on the sidewalks; occasionally it has been necessary to arrest the doings of disorderly persons, to the annoyance of convivial spirits and small boys, but their functions as petty guardsmen have not given police officers great dignity in the eyes of citizens. city officials have confined their efforts to the routine affairs of their office, and have so often spent their spare time and the city's money freely for the satisfaction of their personal interests that municipal government has gained the reputation of being notoriously corrupt, and has been left to ward politicians by the better class of citizens. nevertheless, municipal government represents the principle of control and stands in the background as the preserver of the interests of all the people. 270. =the relation of the city to the state.=--the american city is almost universally a creature of the state. town and county government were transplanted from england and naturally accompanied the settlers into the interior, but the city came as a late artificial arrangement for the better management of large aggregations of population, and the form and details of government were prescribed by state charter. the state has continued to be the guardian of the city, often to the detriment of municipal interests. if a city wishes to change the form of local administration, it must ask permission from the state legislature, and every such question becomes entangled with state politics, and so is not likely to be judged on the merits of the question. indeed, the whole history of city government condemns the intense partisanship that has directed the affairs of the city in its own interest when the real interests of all the people irrespective of party should have been cared for with business efficiency. 271. =functions of the city government.=--among the recognized functions of the city government is, first, the normal function of operation. this includes the activity of the various municipal departments like the maintenance of streets, the prosecution of various public works, and the care of health by inspection and sanitation. secondly, there are the regulative and reformatory functions, which make it necessary to organize and maintain a police and judicial force and to provide the necessary places of detention and punishment. thirdly, there are educational and recreational functions represented by schools, public libraries, parks, and playgrounds. the tendency is for the city government to extend its functions in order to promote the various interests of its citizens. it is demanded that the city provide musical entertainments, theatres, and athletic grounds, that it open the schools as social centres and equip them for that purpose, that it beautify itself with the most approved adornments for twentieth-century cities; in short, that it regard itself as the agent of every kind of social welfare at whatever cost. obviously, this programme involves the city in large expense, and there is a limit to the taxation and bonded indebtedness to which it can resort, but better financial management would save much waste and make larger funds available for social purposes without the necessity of raising large additional sums. 272. =how the regulative function works.=--doubtless it will be always true that the regulative function in its largest sense will be the main business of the city government. the interests of individuals clash. the self-interest of one often runs counter to the interests of another, and the city government is their mediator. at every turn one sees evidences of public oversight. the citizen leaves home to go to work in the morning. a sidewalk is provided for his convenience and safety if he needs or prefers to walk. the abutters must keep it in a safe condition; open coal scuttles, heaps of sand or gravel, or other obstructions must not remain there, and in winter ice must not threaten hurt. a street is kept clear for the citizen's carriage or automobile if he drives down-town, and a franchise is given a street-railway on certain conditions to provide cheap and rapid transit. for the convenience of the public the street is properly drained and paved, at night it is lighted and patrolled. no householder is permitted to throw ashes or garbage upon the public thoroughfare, no landowner can rear a building above a certain height to shut out light and air. the citizen arrives down-town. the public building in which he works or where he trades is inspected by the city authorities, the market where he buys his produce is subject to regulation, the street hawker who calls his own wares must procure a license to sell goods--law is omnipresent. 273. =the police.=--the offender who violates city ordinances must expect to be arrested. policemen are on the watch to detect such violations and promptly give warning that they cannot be permitted. repeated violation leads to arrest and trial before a police-court justice, with the probable penalty of a fine or temporary detention in jail. in case of serious crime, the trial is before a higher court, and the punishment is more severe. such control is necessary for the preservation of order because there are always social delinquents ready to take advantage of too great freedom. a certain class of offenses seems to require different handling. moral obliquity such as the maintenance of disorderly houses is a corrupting influence, and the police departments of cities have frequently been charged with conniving at immoral practices. police officials have been found to have their price, and graft has become notorious. for this reason a special morals police has been proposed to have charge of such cases, and experiments have been tried already on that plan. 274. =organization of the city government.=--(1) _in america._ the police department is but one of several boards or official departments for the management of municipal affairs. the administrative officers are appointed or elected, and are usually under the supervision of the city executive. the usual form of city government is modelled upon the state; a mayor corresponds to the governor and a city council of one or two chambers usually elected by wards is parallel to the state legislature. the mayor is the executive officer and the head of the administrative system, the council assists or obstructs him, appropriates funds, and attends to the details of municipal legislation. political considerations rather than fitness for office have usually determined the choice of persons for positions. (2) _in europe._ in europe municipal government is treated as a business or professional matter, not one of politics, and the results have been so much more satisfactory that american cities have begun to reform their governments. in england cities are governed according to the local government act of 1888, by which cities of more than fifty thousand people become counties for administrative purposes, and control of administration is vested in a council elected by voters of the city. councillors are regarded with high honor, but their work is a work of patriotism, for they are unpaid, with the result that the best men enter the city councils. administration is carried on through various committees and through department officials who are retained permanently. in germany the cities are managed like large households, and their officials are free to undertake improvements without specific legislative permission. the mayor or burgomaster is usually one who makes a profession of magistracy, and he need not be a citizen of the city that he serves. in administration he is assisted by a board of experts known as magistrates, who are elected by the council, usually for life. the council is the real governing body, and its members are elected by the people for six years, one-third of them retiring periodically, as in the united states senate. the activities of the german cities are more numerous than in this country, yet they are managed economically and efficiently. 275. =organizing municipal reform.=--the earliest reform movements in the united states were spasmodic uprisings of outraged citizens who were convinced of the corruption of city government. among the pioneers in organization were leagues of reform in chicago, baltimore, and boston, organized between 1874 and 1885. in 1887 the massachusetts society for promoting good citizenship was formed. the weakness of the early movements was the temporary enthusiasm that soon died away after a victory for reform was gained at the polls; within a short time the grafters were in the saddle again. the year 1892 marked an epoch, for in that year the first city club was organized in new york, followed by good government clubs in many cities, and finally by the national municipal league in 1894. two hundred reform leagues in the larger cities united in the national reform league, with its centre in philadelphia. after 1905 a new impetus was given to civic reform by the new moral emphasis in business and politics. better officials were elected and others were reminded that they were responsible to the people more than to the political machine. an extension of reform effort through direct primary nominations came into vogue on the principle that government ought to be by the people themselves: that democracy means self-control. the extension of municipal ownership was widely discussed on the principle that the people's interests demanded the better control of public utilities. there was apparent a new recognition that the city government was only an agent of popular control, not an irresponsible bureau for the enrichment of a few officials at the public expense. 276. =commission government.=--in a number of cases radical changes were made in the charter of the city. galveston and several other texas cities tried the experiment of substituting a commission for the mayor and council. the galveston idea originated in 1901, after a hurricane had devastated the city, and the mayor and aldermen proved unable to cope with the situation. upon request of an existing civic committee the state legislature gave to the city a new charter, with provision for a commission of five, including a mayor who ordinarily has no more power than any other commissioner. each man was to manage a department and receive a salary. in four years the commission saved the city a million dollars. des moines, iowa, added to the galveston plan the initiative, the referendum, and the recall, put in force a merit system for subordinate officials, and adopted the non-partisan open primary. these experiments proved so popular that in 1908-9 not less than one hundred and thirty-eight cities, including most of the large ones, proposed to make important changes in their charters, adopting the most prominent features of the new plan, or adapting the new to the old system. commission government has been defined as "that form of city government in which a small board, elected at large, exercises substantially the entire municipal authority, each member being assigned as head of a rather definite division of the administrative work; the commission being subject to one or more means of direct popular control, such as publicity of proceedings, recall, referendum, initiative, and a non-partisan ballot." commission government is less cumbersome and less partisan than the old system and tends to be more efficient, but the public needs to remember that it is the men in office and not the form of government that make the control of municipal affairs a success or failure. in a few cases only disappointment has resulted from the changes made, and commission government is still in its experimental stage. 277. =the city manager.=--a modification of the commission plan was tried in several cities of the south and middle west in 1913-14. this has been called the city-manager plan. it is founded on the belief that the city needs business administration, and that a board of directors is not so efficient as a single manager employed by the commission, who shall have charge of all departments, appoint department heads as his subordinates, and thus unify the whole administration of municipal affairs. the manager is responsible to the commission, and through it to the people, and may be removed by the commission, or even by popular recall. such a plan as this is, of course, liable to abuse, unless the commissioners are high-minded, conscientious men, and it has not been tried long enough to prove its worth. the best element in the whole history of recent municipal changes is the earnest effort of the people to find a form of administrative control that will work well, and this gives ground for belief that the experiments will continue until the american city will cease to be notorious for misgovernment and become, instead, a model for the whole nation. reading references _commission government and the city manager plan_ (american academy), pages 3-11, 103-109, 171-179, 183-201. goodnow: _city government in the united states_, pages 69-108. bryce: _the american commonwealth_ (abridged edition), pages 417-427. shaw: _municipal government in continental europe_, pages 1-145. zueblin: _american municipal progress_ (revised edition), pages 376-394. chapter xxxv difficulties of the people who work 278. =the fact of misery.=--a brief study of the conditions in which a city's toilers live and work and play makes it plain that the people have to contend with numerous difficulties. large numbers of them are in misery, and there are few who are not living in constant fear of it. to a foreigner who did not understand america, it would seem incredible that misery should be prevalent in the midst of wealth and unbounded natural resources, when mines and factories are making record-breaking outputs, when harbors are thronged with ships and the call for workers goes across the sea. but no one who visits the tenements and alleys of the city fails to find abundant evidence of misery and want. people do not live in dark rooms and dirty surroundings from choice, sometimes as many as two thousand in a single block. they do not willingly pay a large percentage of their earnings in rent for a tenement that breeds fever and tuberculosis. they do not feed their babies on impure milk and permit their children to forage among the garbage cans because they care nothing for their young. they do not shiver without heat or lose vitality for lack of food until they have struggled for a comfortable existence to the point of exhaustion. misery is here as it is in the old world cities, and it leads to weakness and disease, drunkenness, vice, and crime. 279. =easy explanations.=--it is impossible to unravel completely the skein of difficulties in which the people are enmeshed, or to simplify the causes of the tangle. it is easy to blame a person's wretchedness on his individual misconduct and incompetency, to say, for example, that a man's family is sick and poor because he is intemperate. there might be truth in the charge, but it would probably not be the whole truth. it is easy to go back of the circumstance to the weak will of the man that made him a prey to impulse and appetite and kept him primitive in his habits, but that alone would not explain conditions. it is easy to charge misery upon the ignorance of the woman in the home who is wasteful of food and does not know how to provide for her family, or to charge lack of common sense to the home-makers when they try to raise six children on an income that is not enough for two. it is very common to lay all misery at the door of the capitalist who underpays labor and feels no responsibility for the life conditions of his employee. no one of these explains the presence of misery. it is easy to propose to society a simple remedy like better housing, prohibition, or socialism, when the only correct diagnosis of conditions demands a prolonged and expensive course of treatment that involves surgical action in the social body. it is easy to raise money for charity, to endow hospitals, and to talk about made-to-order schemes for ending unemployment, poverty, and panic, but it is soon discovered that there is no panacea for the evils that infest society. back of all personal misconduct or misfortune, of all social specific or cure-all, is the fundamental difficulty that misery exists, that its causes are complex, and that all efforts to provide efficient relief on a large scale have failed, as far as history records. 280. =poverty and its extent.=--misery appears commonly in the form of sickness, vice, and poverty. one of these reacts upon another, and is both the cause and the result of another. mental and moral incapacity, ignorance of hygiene, weakness of will, habits that seem incurable, all of these produce the first two in a seemingly hopeless way; poverty appears to be incurable above the rest. it is poverty that prevents fortifying the will by increasing physical stamina and moral courage, it is poverty that drives a man; to drink or desperation, and it is poverty that prescribes the unfavorable surroundings that do so much to keep a man down. poverty is a danger flag that indicates the probability of deeper degradation and calls for the individual or group that is better off to lend a hand. poverty is a goad, a thorn in the flesh of society, that is pushing it along the road of social reform. private philanthropy, legislative enactment, and much talking are being tried as experiments to find a solution of the difficulty, but theorists and practitioners are not yet in full agreement as to the way out. there are, of course, different degrees of poverty, ranging from the helpless incompetents at the bottom of the scale to those who are in a fair degree of comfort, but who have so little laid aside for a rainy day that they live in constant fear of the poorhouse. some struggle harder than others, and maintain an existence on or just above the poverty line--these are technically the poor. charles booth defines the poor as those "living in a state of struggle to obtain the necessaries of life." a few cease to struggle at all and, if they continue to live, manage it only by living on permanent charity--these are the paupers. this is a distinction that is carefully made by sociologists and is always convenient. it is difficult to estimate the extent of poverty with any accuracy, but a few estimates of skilled observers indicate its wide extent. charles booth thought that thirty per cent of the people of london were on or below the poverty line. robert hunter has declared that in 1899 eighteen per cent of the people in new york state received aid, and that ten per cent of those who died in manhattan received pauper burial. alongside these statements are the various estimates of 80,000 persons in almshouses in the united states, 3,000,000 receiving public or private aid, with a total annual expense of $200,000,000. the number of those who have small resources in reserve are many times as great, but industrious, frugal, and self-respecting, they manage to take care of themselves. 281. =causes of poverty.=--it is still more difficult to speak exactly of the relative importance of the causes of poverty. investigation of hundreds of cases in certain localities makes it plain that poverty comes through a combination of several factors, including personal incompetence or misconduct, misfortune, and the effects of environment. in boston out of one thousand cases investigated twenty-five years ago (1890-91), twenty per cent was due to drink, a figure nearly twice as much as the average found in other large cities; nine per cent more was due to such misconduct as shiftlessness, crime, and vagrancy; while seventy per cent was owing to misfortune, including defective employment and sickness or death in the family. five thousand families investigated at another time in new york city showed that physical disability was present in three out of four families, and unemployment was responsible in two out of three cases. in nearly half the families there was found defect of character, and in a third of the cases there was widowhood or desertion or overcrowding. added to these were old-age incapacity, large families, and ill adjustment to environment due to recent arrival in the city. taking these as fair samples, it is proper to conclude that the causes commonly to be assigned to poverty are both subjective and objective, or individual and social. it was formerly customary to throw most of the blame on the poor themselves, to charge them with being lazy, intemperate, vicious, and generally incompetent, and it is useless to deny that these appear to be the direct causes in great numbers of instances, but as much of the negro and poor white trash in the south was found to be due to hookworm infection, so very many of the faults of the shiftless poor in the cities are due more indirectly to lack of nourishment, of education, and of courage. over and over again, it may be, has the worker tried to get on better, only to get sick or lose his job just as he was improving his lot. the tendency of opinion is in the direction of putting the chief blame upon the disposition of the employer to exploit the worker, and the indifference of society to such exploitation; it is the discouraging conditions in which the working man lives, the uncertainty of employment and the high cost of living, the danger of accident and disease that constantly hangs over the laborer and his family, that devitalizes and disheartens him, and casts him before he is old on the social scrap heap. summing up, it is convenient to classify the causes of poverty as individual and social, including under the first head ignorance, inefficiency, illness or accident, intemperance, and immorality, and under the second unemployment, widowhood, or desertion, overcrowding and insanitation, the high cost of living versus low wages, and lack of adjustment to environment. poverty is one of those social conditions that appear in all parts of the country, even in the smaller villages, but it is more dreadful and wide-spread in the great cities. in smaller communities the cases are few and can be taken care of without great difficulty; to the larger centres have drifted the poor from the rural regions, and there congregate the immigrants who have failed to make good, until in large numbers they drain the vitals of the city's strength. yet the problem of poverty is not new. it would be difficult to find any ancient city that did not have its rabble or mediæval village without its "ne'er-do-weel"; and in every period church or state or feudal group has taken its turn in providing relief. in recent years the principle of bestowing charity has been giving way to the principle of destroying poverty at the roots by removing the causes that produce it. this is no easy task, but experience has shown that it is the only effective way to get rid of the difficulty. 282. =proposed methods of solution.=--the solution of the problem of poverty cannot be found in charity. properly administered charity is a helpful means of temporary relief, but if it becomes permanent it pauperizes. it never will cure poverty. in spite of all charity organization, poverty increases as the cities grow, until it is clear that the causes must be removed if there is to be any hope of permanent relief. a better education is proposed as an offset to ignorance. women need instruction in cooking, home making, and the care of children, for girls graduating from a machine or the counter of a department store into matrimony cannot reasonably be expected to know much about housekeeping. such evils as divorce, desertion, intemperance, and poverty are due repeatedly to failure to make a home. proper hygienic habits, care of sanitation, simple precautions against colds, coughs, and tuberculosis, make a great difference in the amount of misery. it is a question worth considering whether the home end of the poverty problem is not as important as the employment end. for the man's ignorance and inefficiency it is proposed that the vocational education of boys be widely extended. the social causes of poverty lead into other departments of sociological study, like the industrial problem, and it is useless to talk about a cure for poverty as an isolated phenomenon, yet there are certain principles that are necessarily involved. the whole subject of the poor needs thorough study. organizations like the charity societies already have much data. the russell sage foundation in new york city is making invaluable contributions to public knowledge. the reports of the national and state bureaus of labor contain a vast amount of statistical information. all this needs digestion. then on the basis of investigation and digestion of information comes prompt and intelligent legislation for the amelioration of poverty, until the most shameful conditions in employment and housing are made impossible. only persistent legislation and enforcement of law can make greedy landlords and capitalists do the right thing by the poor, until all society is spiritualized by the new social gospel of mutual consideration and educated to apply it to community life. 283. =pauperism.=--pauperism is poverty become chronic. when a family has been hopelessly dependent so long that self-respect and initiative are wholly gone, it seems useless to attempt to galvanize it into activity or respectability, and when a group of such families pauperizes a neighborhood, heroic measures become necessary. the families must be broken up, their members placed in institutions where they cannot remain sodden in drink or become violent in crime, and the neighborhood cleansed of its human débris. pauperism is a social pest, and it must be rooted out like any other pest. if it is allowed to remain it festers; nothing short of eradication will suffice. but when once it is destroyed living conditions must be so reformed that pauperism will not recur, and that can be only by constant vigilance to prevent a continuance of poverty. the problem is one, and its solution must involve both poverty and pauperism. 284. =unemployment.=--one of the causes of wide-spread poverty is unemployment. this is due sometimes to physical weakness or lack of ability or character, but as often to industrial depression or lack of adjustment between the labor supply and the employer. there is always an army of the unemployed, and it has increased so greatly through immigration and otherwise that it has demanded the serious attention of sociologists and legislators. charitable organizations have given relief, but it is not properly a question of charity; private agencies have made a business of bringing together the employer and the employee, but not always treating fairly the employee; permanent free labor exchanges are now being tried by governments. the national conference on unemployment, meeting in 1914, recommended three constructive proposals, which include most of the experiments already tried in europe and america. these are first the regularizing of business by putting it on a year-round basis instead of seasonal; second, the organization of a system of labor exchanges, local and state, to be supervised and co-ordinated by a national exchange; and third, a national insurance system for the unemployed, such as has been inaugurated successfully in germany and great britain. the problem of unemployment is less complicated than many social problems, and there is every reason to believe that through careful legislation and administration it can be largely removed. the problem of those who are unable to work or unwilling to work is solved by means of public institutions. the whole problem of poverty awaits only intelligent, energetic, and united action for its successful solution. reading references devine: _misery and its causes_, pages 3-50. hunter: _poverty_, pages 66-105, 318-340. henderson: _dependents, defectives, and delinquents_, second edition, pages 12-97, 160-209. carlton: _history and problems of organized labor_, pages 431-445. martin: "remedy for unemployment," art. in _the survey_, 22: 115-117. booth: _pauperism._ chapter xxxvi charity and the settlements 285. =the impulse to charity.=--the first impulse that stirs a person who sees another in want is immediately to relieve the want. this impulse to charity makes public begging profitable. it is an impulse creditable to the human heart, but its effects have not been approved by reason, for indiscriminate charity provokes deception, and is certain to result in chronic dependency. wise methods of charity, therefore, constitute a problem as truly as poverty itself. experience has proved so conclusively that the old methods of relief are unsatisfactory, that it has become necessary to determine and formulate true principles of relief for those who really desire to exercise their philanthropy helpfully. how to help is the question. 286. =history of relief.=--some light is thrown on the subject from the experience of the past. the whole notion of charity as a social duty was foreign to ancient thought. families and clans had their own dependents, and benefit societies helped their own members. the hebrew prophets called for mercy and kindness, jesus spoke his parable of the good samaritan, and the primitive christians went so far as to organize their charity, so that none of their members would fail of a fair share. the church taught alms-giving as a deed of merit before god, and all through its history the catholic church has done much for its poor. in the middle ages it was a part of the feudal theory that the lord would care for his serfs, but in reality they got most help at the doors of a monastery. in modern times the church has shifted its burden to the state. this was inevitable in countries where there was no state church, and it was in accordance with the modern principle that the state is organized society functioning for the social welfare of all the people. in america the colonies and then the states adopted the english custom of relieving extreme need. at first it was possible for local committees to take care of their poor by doles furnished sparingly in their homes, and to place the chronic dependents in almshouses. the former practice is known as outdoor relief, the latter as indoor relief. such relief was not administered scientifically, and did not help to reduce the amount of poverty. the almshouses were the dumping-ground of a community's undesirables, including idiots and even insane, cripples and incurables, epileptics, old people, and orphan children, constituting a social environment that was anything but helpful to human development. after a time it became necessary for the state to relieve the local authorities. the defectives and dependents became too numerous for the local community to take care of, and enlightened philanthropy was learning better methods. the result has been the gradual extension of state care and the segregation of the various classes of incompetents in various state institutions, including hospitals for the insane, the epileptic, and the morally deficient, sanitaria for those who suffer from alcoholic and tuberculous diseases, and schools for the proper training of the youth who have come under public oversight. 287. =voluntary charity.=--public relief has been supplemented extensively by voluntary charity. this has become increasingly scientific. indeed popular ideas have been largely transformed during the last generation. in the small towns and villages where there was little destitution, and where all knew one another's needs, there was no special need of scientific investigation or charitable organization, but in the large cities it became necessary. thomas chalmers in scotland and edward denison and octavia hill in england demonstrated the conditions and the advantages of organized effort. the first charity organization society was organized in 1869 in london. its fundamental principle was to help the poor to help themselves rather than to give them alms. its aim was to federate all the charitable efforts of london, and while this has not proved practicable, it has greatly increased efficiency and has helped to bind together philanthropic effort all over england. the income of the various charitable agencies of london alone was reported to be $43,000,000 in 1906. in the united states the first organization on the english model was the charity organization society of buffalo, founded in 1877; boston followed with a similar organization the next year. these were followed by the organization of a national conference of charities and corrections, which holds annual meetings and publishes reports that are a valuable storehouse of information. many charitable agencies of various kinds contribute to the work of relief, some of them really helpful, others actually blocking the way of genuine progress, but all showing the strength of the philanthropic motive in american cities. the closer their alliance with the associated charities the more effective are their measures of charity. three stages have marked the history of the charitable organization societies, as they have learned from experience. the first has been called the repressive stage. the fear of pauperizing recipients of charity made the societies too strict in their alms-giving, so that hardships resulted that were unnecessary, but such a course was the natural reaction against the indiscriminate charity that had been in vogue. this stage was succeeded by the discriminative, in which help is given discriminatingly, as investigation shows a real need at the same time that efforts are being put forth to make prolonged giving unnecessary. closely combined with this discrimination, which is in constant use, is the third method of construction. by this constructive method the worker tries to get at the cause of the particular case of poverty and to alter the social conditions so that the cause shall no longer act. experience and experiment have produced numerous specific measures of a constructive sort, like the establishment of playgrounds and public parks, kindergartens and schools for specific purposes, social settlements and school centres, municipal baths and gymnasiums, tenement-house reforms and the prevention of disease. 288. =friendly visiting.=--the functions of charity organization societies have been described as the co-ordination and co-operation of local societies rather than direct relief from the central organization, thorough investigation of all cases, with temporary relief where necessary, the establishment of friendly relations between the poor and the well-to-do, the finding of work for those who need it, and the accumulation of knowledge on poverty conditions. the actual contact of charitable societies with the people has been mainly through friendly visitors who voluntarily engage to call on the needy, and who meet at regular intervals to discuss concrete cases as well as general methods. these visitors have the advantage of bringing their spontaneous sympathy to bear upon the specific instances that come to their personal attention, whereas the officials of the charity organization society inevitably become more callous to suffering and tend to look upon each family as a case to be pigeonholed or scientifically treated, but the conviction is growing, nevertheless, that the situation can be effectively handled only by men and women who are genuinely experts, trained in the social settlements or in the schools of philanthropy. whether a voluntary church worker or a charity expert, it is the business of the visitor to make thorough investigation of conditions, not merely inquiring of landlord or neighbors, or taking the hurried testimony of the family, but patiently searching for information from those who have known the case over a long period, preferably through the charity organization society. actual relief may be required temporarily and must be adequate to the occasion, but the problem of the visitor is to devise a method of self-help, and to furnish the courage necessary to undertake and carry it through. it is important to consider in this connection the character and ancestry of the family, its environment and the social ideals and expectations of its members, if the steps taken are to be effective. the two principles that underlie the whole practice of relief are, first, to restore the individual or family to a normal place in society from which it has fallen, or to raise it to a normal standard of living which it has never before reached; secondly, to make all charity discriminative and co-operative, that it may accomplish the end sought without pauperizing the recipient. 289. =public and private agencies.=--institutions and agencies of relief are of two kinds, public and private. it is one of the functions of every social group to promote the welfare of its members. it is to be expected, therefore, that the church and the trade-union will help their own poor, but it is just as proper to expect that the whole community, and even the whole state, will take care of its own needy. the distinction between public and private agencies is not one of fundamental sociological principle, but one of convenience and efficiency of administration. where the state has extended its activities, as in germany, relief by such a method as the elberfeld system is practicable; where public opinion, as in the united states, is not favorable to remanding as much as possible to the government, it is thought best that private agencies should supplement state aid, and in most cases make it unnecessary. 290. =arguments for and against private agencies of relief.=--some argue that private agencies should do it all. in spite of the large resources at the command of the state and the frequent necessity of legislation to handle the problem, they claim that public aid humiliates and degrades the recipient, while private assistance may put him on his feet without destroying his self-respect; and that public charity is too often unfeeling and tends to become a routine affair, while private aid can deal better with specific cases, show real interest and try experiments in the improvement of methods. there are those who would have all charity given back to the church. they believe the responsibility would stimulate the church's own life, extend its influence among the unchurched, show that it had an interest in the bodies as well as the souls of the people, and bring about co-operation between churches in the districts of town or city. it is of the genius of true religion to be helpful, and the church could soon learn wise methods. in answer to this argument the reply is that at present the indiscriminate charity of the church is doing real harm; that the church does not like to co-operate with other agencies; that it does not have adequate resources to deal with the problem or legal authority to restrain mendicants or segregate the various classes of dependents; and that all persons in the community ought to share in the responsibility of poor relief, and not all are in the church. they recognize the valuable aid of such organizations as the hebrew charities and the work of the st. vincent de paul society of the catholics, but they believe that such as these at best can be only auxiliary to the state. an illustration of the usefulness of private associations appears in a group of seven boys of foreign parentage in new york city, who organized themselves in 1903 into a quick-aid-to-the-hungry committee. they were only thirteen years old and poor. they lived on the east side, and pennies and nickels did not make a full treasury. but they knew the need and had an instinct for helping the right people. in seven years these boys helped in more than two hundred and fifty emergency cases; their pennies grew to dollars as they earned more; their charity developed their self-respect; they held weekly meetings for debate, and several of them made their way through college. funds were supplied, also, from friends outside, who were glad to aid such a worthy enterprise. the great need among private agencies is fuller co-operation with one another and with public boards and institutions. then duplication of effort, misunderstandings, and wastefulness are avoided, and the hope of a decline in conditions of poverty increases. there are limits, however, to the ability of private agencies to control the situation. there are cases where the organized community or state must take a hand. there are lazy persons who will not support themselves or their families; there are certain persons who are chronically ill or dependent; there are various types of defectives and delinquents. all these need the authority of the public agencies. then there are constructive activities that require the assistance and sanction of government, like parks and playgrounds, industrial schools, employment bureaus, the establishment and administration of state institutions, and the enforcement of health, sanitary, and building laws. of course there is often inefficiency in government management. the local almshouse needs reforming, and the overseers of the poor should be trained experts. the organization and superintendence of state institutions is not ideal, and building arrangements need improvement, but there is a steady gain in the efficiency of boards of trustees and local managers. there is a willingness to learn from experience and a disposition to raise the standards in all departments of administration. 291. =the social settlement.=--however efficient an official board may be in the discharge of its duties, it cannot expect to call out from the beneficiary so enthusiastic a response as can a real friend. the best friends of the poor are their neighbors. it is well known that a group of families in a tenement house will help one of their number that is in specific difficulty, and that the poor give more generously to help their own kind than do those who are more well-to-do. it was a conviction of these principles of friendliness and neighborliness that led to the first social settlements. because a person lives in an undesirable part of the city he is not necessarily a subject for charity, and the settlement is in no sense to be thought of as a charitable agency. it is a home established among the less-favored part of the population by educated, refined, sympathetic people who want to be neighborly and to bring courage and cheer and helpfulness to the struggling masses. the original residents of hull house in chicago believed that class alienation could be overcome best by the establishment of intimate social relationships, and they were willing to sacrifice their natural social advantages for the larger good. settlements are not exclusively of the city, but the stress of life is sternest in the cities, and most of the experiments have been made there. they are oases in the desert of the buildings and pavements of brick, with their grime and monotony, and if the people of the desert will camp for an hour and drink of the spring, those who have planted the oasis will be well pleased. to attract them the settlement workers have organized clubs and classes for united study and activity in matters that naturally interest the people of the neighborhood; they have music and dancing and amateur theatricals, and often they supply domestic or industrial training in a small way for the young people who frequent the settlement. the residents aim to give the people what they want; they do not impose anything upon them. they try to satisfy economic and social wants. they try to stimulate the people of the neighborhood to desire the best things that they can get. they co-operate with the police and other departments of the city government, with the library, and with the school. they assist in procuring work for those who want it; they encourage the people to be thrifty and temperate; they help them to get baths and gymnastic facilities, playgrounds, and social centres. they frequently carry on investigations that are of great value and assist charitable agencies in their inquiries and beneficence. they call frequently upon the people in their homes and encourage them to ask for counsel and help if they are in trouble. the settlement idea grew out of a growing interest in the common people. it was stimulated by maurice's establishment at london of a working man's college, with recent cambridge graduates as teachers, and by university extension work in cambridge; it was suggested further by the location of edward denison in the east end of london in 1867. in 1885 canon barnett, of st. jude's church, london, founded toynbee hall under oxford auspices. the first settlement in the united states was established in new york in 1887, and soon became known as the university settlement. hull house in chicago was started two years later; the first settlement in boston was founded under the auspices of the andover theological seminary. most settlements avoid church connections, because of the danger of misunderstandings among people of widely differing faiths. the settlement has existed long enough to become a true social institution. it has remained true to its original principle of neighborliness, but it has increased its activities as occasion demanded. it has been a useful object-lesson to churches and city governments; some of its methods have been imitated, and in some of the cities its efforts have become unnecessary in certain directions because the city government itself has adopted its plans. the settlement has its critics and its devoted supporters; it is one of the voluntary experiments that shows the spirit of its promoters and that helps along social progress, and it must be estimated among the assets of a community. here and there in the country among certain groups, as lumbermen, miners, or construction workers, or even in a settled town, many of the methods of the settlement are likely to find acceptance, and the settlement idea of neighborliness is fundamental to all happy and successful social life. reading references devine: _principles of relief_, pages 10-28, 171-181. warner: _american charities_, pages 301-393. conyngton: _how to help_, pages 56-219. henderson: _modern methods of charity_, pages 380-511. henderson: _social settlements._ addams: _twenty years at hull house_, pages 89-153. chapter xxxvii educational agencies 292. =the schools of the city.=--an important function of city government and of other institutions is the education of the people who make their home in the city or come to it to broaden their culture. the city provides for its young people as the country community does, by locating school-buildings within convenient reach of the people of every district, but on a much larger and usually a more efficient scale. better trained teachers, better grading, a more modern equipment and well-proved methods give an advantage in education to the city child, though there are drawbacks in overcrowded buildings and narrow yards for play. the opportunities for social education are broader in the city, for the child comes into contact with many types of people, with a great variety of social institutions, and with all sorts of activities. it is these advantages, together with the higher institutions for study, that attract hundreds and sometimes thousands of students to the prominent social centres. the colleges and universities, the normal schools, the music and art institutes and lecture systems are numerous and attract correspondingly. 293. =the press as an educator.=--the institutions directly concerned with instruction are supplemented by other educational agencies. among these is the press. the press is an institution that exerts a mighty force upon every department of the city's life. it is at the same time a business enterprise and a social institution. it is a public misfortune that the newspaper, the magazine, and the book publishing house is a private business undertaking, and often stands for class, party, or sectarian interests before those of the whole of society. there is always a temptation to sacrifice principle to policy, to publish distorted or half-true statements from selfish interest, and to prostitute influence to individuals or groups that care little for the public welfare. the publication of a statement or narrative of a crime or other misdemeanor tends by suggestion to the imitation of the wrong by others; it is a well-known fact that a sensational story of suicide or murder is likely to provoke others in the same manner. it is a grave question whether the realistic fiction so much in vogue and published in such quantities is not a baneful text-book on modern society. but when it chooses the press becomes an instrument of immense value to the public. it can turn the light of publicity on dark and dirty places. it can and does provide a means of wise utterance on questions of the day. it keeps a record of the good as well as the evil that is done. it is a means of communication between local groups everywhere, for it publishes what everybody wants to know about everybody else. it introduces the antipodes to each other, and makes it possible for far-sundered groups to unite even internationally for a good cause. as the railroad binds together portions of a continent, so the press links the minds of human beings. 294. =a metropolitan newspaper.=--take a metropolitan newspaper and see how it reflects the current life of society. economic interests of buyer and seller are exploited in the advertising columns. in no other way could a merchant so persuasively hawk his wares or a purchaser learn so readily about the market. the wholesaler and jobber find their interests attended to in special columns provided particularly for them. financial interests are cared for by stock-exchange quotations, news items, and advertisements. all kinds of social concerns are taken care of in the news columns, items collected at great expense from the four quarters of the globe. gatherings for a great variety of purposes are recorded. educational and religious interests are given space, as well as sports and amusements; last sunday's sermon jostles the latest scandal on monday morning; weather probabilities and shipping news have their corners, as well as the fashion department and the cartoon. the newspaper is a moving picture of the world. 295. =the value of the press.=--the most valuable service rendered by the press is its education of the public mind, so that public opinion may register itself in intelligent action. it provides a forum for the discussion of issues that divide sects and parties, and helps to preserve religious freedom and popular government. except that it is so frequently trammelled in uttering itself frankly on important public questions, it gives an indication of the trend of sentiment and so makes possible a forecast of future public action. the very variety of printed publications, from the sensational daily sheet to the published proceedings of a learned society, insures a healthy interchange of ideas that helps to level social inequalities and promotes a mutual understanding among all groups and grades of society. the cheapened process of book publication on a large scale, and the investment of large sums of money in the publishing business, with its mechanics of sale management as well as printing, has made possible an enormous output of literature on all subjects and has widened the range of general information in possession of the public. the whole system of modern life would be impossible without the press. 296. =the library and the museum.=--in spite of the efficient methods used for selling the output of the press, large numbers of books would be little read were it not for the collections of books that are available to the public, either free or at small cost. the public library is an educative agency that serves its constituency as faithfully as the school and the press. its presence for use is one of the advantages that the city has over the country, though the public library has been extended far within one or two decades. the child goes from home to school and widens the circle of his acquaintances in the community; through the daily newspaper the adult gets into touch with a far wider environment, reaching even across the oceans; in the library any person, without respect to age, color, or condition, if only he possess the key of literacy to unlock knowledge, can travel to the utmost limits of continents and seas, can dig with the geologist below the surface, or soar with the astronomer beyond the limits of aviation, can hob-nob with ancient worthies or sit at the feet of the latest novelist or philosopher, and can learn how to rule empires from as good text-books as kings or patriarchs possess. what the library does for intellectual satisfaction the museum and art-gallery do for æsthetic appreciation. they make their appeal to the love of beauty in form, color, or weave, and call out oftentimes the best efforts of an individual's own genius. often the gift of one or more public-spirited citizens, they register a disposition to serve society that is sometimes as useful as charity. philanthropy that uplifts the mind of the recipient is as desirable as benevolence that plans bodily relief; the soul that is filled has as much cause to bless its minister as the stomach that is relieved of hunger. the picture-galleries of europe, the tapestries, the metal and wood work, the engravings, and the frescoes, are the precious legacy of the past to the present, not easily reproduced, but serving as a continual incentive to modern production. they set in motion spiritual forces that uplift and expand the human mind and spur it to future achievement. 297. =music and the drama.=--music and the drama have a similar stimulating and refining influence when they are not debauched by a sordid commercialism. they strengthen the noblest impulses, stir the blood to worthy deeds by their rhythmic or pictorial influence, unite individual hearts in worship or play, throb in unison with the sentiments that through all time have swayed human life. often they have catered to the lower instincts, and have served for cheap amusement or entertainment not worth while, but concert-hall and theatre alike are capable of an educative work that can hardly be equalled elsewhere. when in combination they appeal to both eye and ear, they provide avenues for intellectual understanding and activity that neither school nor press can parallel. recent mechanical inventions, such as automatic musical instruments and moving pictures, have added greatly to the range and effectiveness of music and the drama, but they only intensify and popularize the appeal to the senses. it is to be remembered that individual and social stimuli must be varied enough to touch men at all points and call out a response from every faculty of their nature. these arts, therefore, that make life real and socialize it and cheer men and women on their way, play a vital part in the education of society and deserve as serious consideration as the other educational agencies and institutions that find a place in the social economy of the community. numerous amateur musical and dramatic societies testify to the interest of the people in these refined arts. 298. =the need of social centres.=--books and pictures, music and the drama are so many mild stimulants to those who use and appreciate them, but there are large numbers of people who rarely read anything but the newspaper, and who attend only cheap entertainments. these people need a spur to high thoughts and noble action, but they do not move in the world of culture. they need a stronger stimulant, the tang of virile debate about questions that touch closely their daily concerns, discussions in which they can share if they feel disposed. in large circles of the city's population there is a lack of facilities for such public discussion, and for that reason the people fall back on the prejudices of the newspapers for the formation of their opinions on public questions. disputes sometimes wax warm in the saloon about the merits of a pugilist or baseball-player; questions of the rights of labor are aired in the talk of the trade-union headquarters; but the vital issues of city, state, and nation, and the underlying principles that are at stake find few avenues to the minds of the mass of the people. in the country the town meeting or the gathering at the district schoolhouse provides an occasional opportunity, or the grange meeting supplies a forum for its members, but even there the rank and file of the people do not talk over large questions often enough. in the city the need is great. 299. =the city neighborhood.=--it is well understood that large cities have most of their public buildings and business structures in one quarter, and their residences in another; also that the character of the residential districts varies according to the wealth and culture of their inhabitants or the nationality and occupation to which they belong. the city is a coalition of semidetached groups, each of which has a unity of its own. the necessities of work draw all the people together down-town along the lines of streets and railways; now and then the different classes are shaken together in elevators and subways; but when they are free to follow their own volition they flow apart. those who are on terms of intimacy live in a neighboring street; the grocer from whom they buy is at the corner; the school where their children go is within a few blocks; the theatre they patronize or the church they attend is not far away; the physician they employ lives in the neighborhood. except the few who get about easily in their own conveyances and have a wide acquaintance, city dwellers have all but their business interests in the district in which they live, and which is seldom over a square mile in extent. some municipalities are coming to see that each district is a neighborhood in itself and needs all the democratic institutions of a neighborhood. among these belongs the assembly hall for free speech. it may well become a centre for a variety of social purposes, but it is fundamentally important that it provide a forum for public discussion. as the rich man has his club where he may meet the globetrotter or the leader of public affairs distinguished in his own country, and as the woman's club of high-minded women has its own lecturers and celebrities of all kinds, so the working man and his wife have a right to come into contact with stimulating personalities who will talk to them and to whom they can talk back. 300. =forum for public discussion.=--such democratic gatherings fall into two classes. there is the public lecture or address, after which an opportunity for questions and public discussion is given, and there is the neighborhood forum or town meeting, at which a question of general interest is taken up and debated in regular parliamentary fashion. in a number of cities both plans have been adopted. on a sunday afternoon or evening, or at a convenient time on another evening of the week, a popular speaker addresses the audience on a theme of social interest, after it has been entertained for a half hour with music; following the address a brief intermission allows for relaxation, and then for an hour the question goes to the house, and free discussion takes place under the direction of the leader of the meeting. sometimes series of this sort are supplied by churches or other social organizations; in that case many of the speakers are clergymen, and in some forums the topics are connected with religious or strictly moral interests; but even then the discussion is on the broad plane of the common concerns of humanity, and there is a zest to the occasion that the ordinary religious gathering does not inspire. the second plan is modelled after the old-fashioned town meeting that was transplanted from the mother country to new england, and has spread to other parts of the united states. it is a gathering of all who wish to discuss freely some question that interests them all, and it is more strictly co-operative than the first plan, for there is no one speaker to contribute the main part of the debate, but each may make his own contribution, and by the power of his own persuasion win for his argument the decision of the meeting. besides stimulating the interest of those who take part, such a debate is a most effective educator of the public mind in matters of social weal. reading references henderson: _social elements_, pages 228-253. king: _social aspects of education_, pages 65-97, 264-290. ward: _the social center_, pages 212-251. wolfe: _the lodging house problem_, pages 109-114. _addresses and proceedings of the national education association, 1905_, pages 644-650, "music as a factor in culture." chapter xxxviii the church 301. =the place of the church in the urban community.=--in the city, as in the country, the religious instinct expresses itself socially through the institution of the church or synagogue. spiritual force cannot be confined within the limits of a single institution; religion is a dynamic that permeates the life of society; yet in this age of specialization, and especially in a country like the united states, where religion is a voluntary affair, not to be entangled with the school or the state, religion has naturally exerted its influence most directly through the church. charity and settlement workers are inspired by a religion that makes humanitarianism a part of its creed, and a large majority of them are church members, but as a rule they do not attempt to introduce any religious forms or exercises into their programmes. most public-school teachers have their religious connections and recognize the important place of religion in moulding character, but religious teaching is not included in the curriculum because of the recognized principle of complete religious liberty and the separation of church and state. the result has been that religion is not consciously felt as a vital force among many people who axe not directly connected with an ecclesiastical institution. those who are definitely connected with the church in america contribute voluntarily to its expenses, sometimes even at personal sacrifice. most people who have little religious interest realize the value of the mere presence of a meeting-house in the community as a reminder of moral obligations and an insurance against disorder. its spire seems to point the way to heaven, and to make a mute appeal to the best motives and the highest ideals. the decline of the church is, therefore, regarded as a sign of social degeneracy. 302. =worship and church attendance.=--the church exists in the city because it has certain specific functions to perform. to maintain public worship, to persuade to definite convictions and inspire to noble conduct, to furnish religious education, and to promote social reform are its essential responsibilities. worship is a natural attitude to the individual who is prompted by a desire to adjust himself to the universe and to obtain the peace of mind that follows upon the establishment of a right relationship. to most people it is easier to get into the proper atmosphere and spirit of worship in a public assembly, and they therefore are accustomed to meet at stated intervals and bow side by side as if in kinship together before the unseen. long-established habit and a superstitious fear of the consequences that may follow neglect keep some persons regular in church attendance when they have no sense of spiritual satisfaction in worship. others go to church because of the social opportunities that are present in any public gathering. in recent years church attendance has not kept pace with the increasing population of the city. a certain pride of intellect and a feeling of security in the growing power of man over nature has produced an indifference to religion and religious teachers. multiplicity of other interests overshadows the ecclesiastical interests of the aristocracy; fatigue and hostility to an institution that they think caters to the rich keeps the proletariat at home. in addition the tendency of foreigners is to throw off religion along with other compulsory things that belonged to the old world life and to add to the number of the unchurched. 303. =evangelism and the history of religious conviction.=--a second function of the church is to exert spiritual and moral suasion. it is a social instinct to communicate ideas; language developed for that purpose. it is natural, therefore, that a church that has definite ideas about human obligation toward god and men should try to influence individuals and even send out evangelists and missionaries to propagate its faith widely. those churches that think alike have organized into denominations, and have arranged extensive propaganda and trained and ordained their preachers to reason with and persuade their auditors to receive and act upon the message that is spoken. several of the large cities of the united states contain denominational headquarters where world-wide activities receive direction, veritable dynamos for the generation of one of the vital forces of society. the convictions that prompt evangelism and missionary zeal are the result of centuries of race experience. the catholic, the protestant, and the jewish churches have all grown out of religious experience and religious thinking that have their roots in early human history. the very forms of worship and of creed that constitute the framework of religion in a modern city church date far back in their origins. the religious instinct appears to be common to the whole human race. in primitive times religious interest was prompted by fear, and the early customs of sacrifice and worship were established by the group to bring its members into friendly relations with the power outside themselves that might work to their undoing. temples and shrines testified to man's devotion and stirred his emotions by their symbols and ceremonies. a special class of men was organized, a priesthood to mediate with the gods for mankind. children were taught to respect and fear the higher powers, and their elders were often warned not to stir the anger of deity. as the human mind developed, impulse and emotion were supplemented by intellect. as man ruminated upon nature and human experience he was satisfied that there was intelligence and power in the universe, divine personality similar to but greater than himself, and his reason sanctioned the religious acts to which he had become accustomed. he added a creed to his cult. he did not associate his moral ideas and habits with his religious obligations; these ideas and habits grew out of the customs that had been found to work best in social relations. pagan religions were slow to develop any kinship between religion and morals. it was among the hebrews that the loftier idea of a god of holiness and justice, who demanded right and kindly conduct among men, came into prominence, and a few religious prophets went so far as to declare that sacrifice was less important than conduct. the fundamental teachings of christianity were based on the same conception of social duty and on the religious conception of god as benevolent and loving, calling out loving fealty of heart rather than external rite and sacrifice. in christian times religion has become a spiritual and moral motive power throughout the world. 304. =church organization.=--throughout its long history society has adjusted the organization of its religious activities to social custom and social need. the church in any country is a name for an organized system, with its nerve-centres and its ganglia ramifying into the remotest localities. in the local community it binds together its members in mutual relations, even though they live on different sides of a city, or even in the suburbs. it has its relations to young and old, and plans for the spiritual welfare of human beings of every age through its boards and committees, classes and clubs. it presents a variety of group types to match the inclinations and opinions of different types of mind. one type is that of a closely knit, centralized organization, claiming ecclesiastical authority over individual opinions and practices on the principle that religion is a static thing, a law fixed in the eternal order, and not to be improved upon or questioned. another type is that of loosely federated ecclesiastical units, flexible in organization and creed, cherishing religion as a dynamic thing, suiting itself to the changing mind of man and adjusting itself to individual and social need. it is a social law that both theology and organization conform in a degree to the prevailing social philosophy and constitution, and therefore no type can remain unchanged, but relatively one is always conservative and the other always liberal, with a blending of types between the two extremes. denominational divisions are due partly to variety of opinion, partly to ancestry, and partly to historical circumstance; some of these divisions are international in extent; but through every communion runs the line of cleavage between conservatism and liberalism in the interpretation of custom and creed. the tendency of the times is to minimize differences and to bring together divergent types in federation or union on the ground that the church needs unity in order to use its strength, and that religion can exert its full energy in the midst of society only as the friction of too much machinery is removed. 305. =religious education.=--a third function of the church is religious education. this function of education in religion belongs theoretically to the church, in common with the home and the school, but the tendency has been to turn the religious education of children over to the school of the church. the minister, priest, or rabbi is the chief teacher of faith and duty, but in the sunday-school the laity also has found instruction of the young people to be one of its functions. instruction by both of these is supplemented by schools of a distinctly religious type and by a religious press. as long as society at large does not undertake to perform this function of religious education, the church conceives it to be one of its chief tasks to teach as well as to inspire the human will, by interpreting the best religious thought that the centuries of history have handed down, and for this purpose it uses the latest scientific knowledge about the human mind and tries to devise improved methods to make education more effective. education is the twin art of evangelization. 306. =promotion of social reform.=--as an institution hoary with age, the church is naturally conservative, and it has been slow to champion the various social reforms that have been proposed as panaceas. it has been quite as much concerned with a future existence as with the present, and has been prompt to point to heavenly bliss as a balance for earthly woe. it has concerned itself with the soul rather than the body, and with individual salvation rather than social reconstruction. it is only within a century that the modern church has given much attention to promoting social betterment as one of its principal functions, but within a few years the conscience of church people has been goading them to undertake a campaign of social welfare. other institutions have needed the help of the church, and in some cases the church has had to take upon itself the burden that belonged to other organizations; moral movements, like temperance, have asked for the powerful sanction of religion, and the church has used its influence to persuade men. what has been spontaneous and intermittent is now becoming regular and continuous, until a social gospel is taking its place alongside individual evangelism. the biblical phrase, "the kingdom of god," is being interpreted in terms of an improved social order. religion, therefore, becomes a present-day force for progress, and the church an agency for social uplift. 307. =adapting the church to the twentieth century city.=--the church in the country has a comparatively simple problem of existence. it fits into the social organization of the community, and in most cases seldom has to readjust itself by radical changes to fit a swift change in the community. it is different with the church in the city. urban growth is one of the striking phenomena of recent decades; local churches find themselves caught in the swirl, grow rapidly for a time, and then are left high and dry as the current sweeps the crowd farther along. often the particular type that it represents is not suited to the newer residents who settle in the section where the church stands. it has the option of following the crowd or attempting a readjustment. to decamp is usually the easier way; readjustment is often so difficult as to be almost impossible. financial resources have been depleted. the existing organization is not geared to the customs of the newcomers. forms of worship must be improved if the church is to function satisfactorily. the popular appeal of religion must be couched in a new phraseology, often in a new language. religious educational methods must be revised. social service must be fitted to the new need. small groups of workers must be organized to manage classes and clubs, and to get into personal contact with individuals whose orbit is on a different plane. the church must become a magnet to draw them within the influence of religion. it finds itself compelled to adopt such methods as these if it is not to become a mere survival of a better day. if, however, a locally disabled church can call upon the resources of a whole denomination, it may be able to make the necessary adjustments with ease, or even to continue its spiritual ministry along the old lines by means of subsidies. it is reasonable to believe that society will find a way to adjust the church to the needs of city people. it cannot afford to do without it. the church has been the conserver and propagator of spiritual force. it has supplied to thousands of persons the regenerative power of religion that alone has matched the degenerating influence of immoral habits. it has produced auxiliary organizations, like the young men's christian association and the young women's christian association. it has found a way, as in the salvation army, to get a grip upon the weak-willed and despairing. missions and chapels in the slums and synagogues in the ghettos have carried religion to the lowest classes. these considerations argue for a wider co-operation among city people in strengthening an institution that represents social idealism. reading references trawick: _the city church and its social mission_, pages 14-22, 50-76, 95-99, 122-160. strayer: _reconstruction of the church_, pages 161-249. menzies: _history of religion_, pages 19-78. rauschenbusch: _christianizing the social order_, pages 7-29, 96-102. mcculloch: _the open church for the unchurched_, pages 33-164. coe: _education in religion and morals_, pages 373-388. chapter xxxix the city in the making 308. =experimenting in the mass.=--the modern city is a gigantic social experiment. never before have so many people crowded together, never has there been such a close interlocking of economic and social and religious associations, never has there been such ease of communication and transit. modern invention has given its aid to the natural effort of human beings to get together. the various interests that produce action have combined to make settlement compact. the city is a severe test of human ability to live peaceably and co-operatively at close quarters. in the country an unfriendly man can live by himself much of the time; in the city he is continually feeling somebody's elbows in his ribs. it is not strange that there is as yet much crudeness about the city. its growth has been dominated by the economic motive, and everything has been sacrificed to the desire to make money. dirty slums, crowded tenements, uncouth business blocks, garish bill-boards and electric signs, dumped rubbish on vacant lots, constant repairs of streets and buildings--these all are marks of crudity and experimentation, evidences that the city is still in the making. many of the weaknesses that appear in urban society can be traced to this situation as a cause. the craze for amusement is partly a reaction from the high speed of modern industry, but partly, also, a social delirium produced by the new experience of the social whirl. naturally more serious efforts are neglected for a time, and institutions of long standing, like the family, threaten to go to pieces. a thought-provoking lecture or a sermon on human obligation does not fit in with the mood of the thousands who walk or ride along the streets, searching for a sensation. the student who looks at urban society on the surface easily becomes pessimistic. 309. =reasons for optimism.=--this new experience of society will run its course. undoubtedly there will go with it much of social loss, but there is firm ground for believing that there will be more of social gain. it is quite necessary for human beings to learn to associate intimately, for population is steadily increasing and modern civilization makes all classes and all nations more and more dependent on one another. the pace of life will slow down after a time, there will be less of social intoxication, and men and women will take their pleasures more sanely. eventually they will listen to a message that is adapted to them, however serious it may be. one of the most hopeful factors in the situation is the presence of individuals and organized groups who are able to diagnose present conditions, and who are working definitely for their improvement. much of modern progress is conscious and purposeful, where formerly men lived blindly, subject, as they believed, to the caprice of the gods. we know much about natural law, and lately we have learned something about social law; with this knowledge we can plan intelligently for the future. there is less excuse for social failure than formerly. cities are learning how to make constructive plans for beautifying avenues and residential sections, and making efficient a whole transportation system; they will learn how to get rid of overcrowding, misery, and disease. what is needed is the will to do, and that will come with experience. 310. =reasonable expectations of improvement.=--any soundly constructive plan waits on thorough investigation. such an organization as the russell sage foundation, which is gathering all sorts of data about social conditions, is supplying just the information needed on which to base intelligent and effective action. on this foundation will come the slow process of construction. there will be diffusion of information, an enlistment of those who are able to help, and an increased co-operation among the numerous agencies of philanthropy and reform. the most obvious evils and those that seem capable of solution will be attacked first. intelligent public opinion will not tolerate the continued existence of curable ills. pure water, adequate sewerage, light, and air, and sanitary conveniences in every home will be required everywhere. community physicians and nurses will be under municipal appointment to see that health conditions are maintained, and to instruct city families how to live properly. vocational schools and courses in domestic science will prepare boys and girls for marriage and the home, and will tend to lessen poverty. undoubtedly the time will come when it will be seen clearly that the interests of society demand the segregation of those who cannot take care of themselves and are an injury to others. hospitals and places of detention for mental and moral defectives, and the victims of chronic vice and intemperance, as well as criminals of every sort, will seem natural and necessary. larger questions of immigration, industrial management, and municipal administration will be studied and gradually solved by the united wisdom of city, state, and nation. 311. =agencies of progress and gains achieved.=--an examination of what has been achieved in this direction by almost any one of the larger cities in the united states shows encouraging progress. smaller cities and even villages have made use of electricity for lighting, transportation, and telephone service. the water and sewerage systems of larger centres are far in advance of what they were a few years ago. bathrooms with open plumbing and greater attention to the preservation of health have supplemented more thorough efforts to the spread of communicable diseases. increasing agitation for more practical education has led to the creation of various kinds of vocational schools, including a large variety of correspondence schools for those who wish specific training. there are still thousands of boys and girls who enter industrial occupations in the most haphazard way, and yield to irrational impulse in choosing or giving up a particular job or a place to live in; similar impulse induces them to mate in the same haphazard way, and as lightly to separate if they tire of each other; but the very fact that enlightened public opinion does not countenance these practices, that there are social agencies contending against them, and that they are contrary to the laws of happiness, of efficiency, and even of survival, makes it unlikely that such irrational conduct can persist. as for the social ills that have seemed unavoidable, like sexual vice, current investigation and agitation, followed by increasing legislation and segregation of the unfit, promises to work a change, however gradual the process may be. numerous organizations are at work in the fields of poverty, immigration, the industrial problem, reform of government, penology, business, education, and religion, and thousands of social workers are devoting their lives to the betterment of society. 312. =conference and co-operation.=--improvement will be more rapid when the various agencies of reform have learned to pull together more efficiently. it is frequently charged that the friction between different temperance organizations has delayed progress in solving the problem of intemperance. it is often said that there would be less poverty if the various charitable agencies would everywhere organize and work in association. the independent temper of americans makes it difficult to work together, but co-operation is a sound sociological principle, and experience proves that such principles must be obeyed. if the principle of combination that has been applied to business should be carried further and applied to the problems of society, there can be no question that results would speedily justify the action. perhaps the greatest need in the city to-day is a union of resources. if an honest taxation would furnish funds, if the best people would plan intelligently and unselfishly for the city's future development, if boards and committees that are at odds would get together, there is every reason to think that astonishing changes for the better would soon be seen. suppose that in every city of our land representatives of the chamber of commerce, of the city government, of the associated charities, of the school-teachers, of the ministers of the city, of the women's clubs, of the young men's christian association and the young women's christian association, of the labor-unions, and of the agencies that cater to amusement should sit together once in two weeks in conference upon the interests of all the people of the city, and should honestly and frankly discuss the practical questions that are always at the fore in public discussion, and then should report back for further conference in their own groups, there can be no doubt that the various groups would have a far better understanding and appreciation of one another, and in time would find ways and means to adopt such a programme as might come out of all the discussion. 313. =the crucial test of democracy.=--world events have shown clearly since the outbreak of the european war that intelligent planning and persistent enforcement of a political programme can long contend successfully against great odds, when there is autocratic power behind it all. democracy must show itself just as capable of planning and execution, if it is to hold its own against the control of a few, whether plutocrats, political bosses, or a centralized state, but its power to make good depends on the enlistment of all the abilities of city or nation in co-operative effort. there is no more crucial test of the ability of democracy to solve the social problems of this age than the present-day city. the social problem is not a question of politics, but of the social sciences. it is a question of living together peaceably and profitably. it involves economics, ethics, and sociological principles. it is yet to be proved that society is ready to be civilized or even to survive on a democratic basis. the time must come when it will, for associated activity under the self-control of the whole group is the logical and ethical outcome of sound sociological principle, but that time may not be near at hand. if democracy in the cities is to come promptly to its own, social education will soon change its emphasis from the material gain of the individual to co-operation for the social good, and under the inspiration of this idea the various agencies will unite for effective social service. reading references howe: _the modern city and its problems_, pages 367-376. goodnow: _city government in the united states_, pages 302-308. eldridge: _problems of community life_, pages 3-7. ely: _the coming city._ _boston directory of charities_, 1914. part v--social life in the nation chapter xl the building of a nation 314. =questions of the larger group.=--in any study of social life we have to find a place for larger groups than the family and the neighborhood or even the city. there are national units and even a certain amount of international unity in the world. how have they come to exist? what are the interests that hold them together? what are the forms of association that are practicable on such a large scale? is there a tendency to stress the control of the group over its individual members, even its aristocracy 01 birth or wealth? these are questions that require some sort of an answer. beyond them are other questions concerning the relations between these larger groups. are there common interests or compelling forces that have merged hitherto sovereign states into federal or imperial union? is it conceivable that such mutually jealous nations as the european powers may surrender willingly their individual interests of minor importance for the sake of the larger good of the whole? can political independence ever become subordinate to social welfare? are there any spiritual bonds that can hold more strongly than national ambitions and national pride? such questions as these carry the student of society into a wider range of corporate life than the average man enters, but a range of life in which the welfare of every individual is involved. 315. =the significance of national life.=--the nation is a group of persons, families, and communities united for mutual protection and the promotion of the general welfare, and recognizing a sovereign power that controls them all. some nations have been organized from above in obedience to the will of a successful warrior or peaceful group; others have been organized peacefully from below by the voluntary act of the people themselves. the nation in its capacity as a governing power is a state, but a nation exercises other functions than that of control; it exists to promote the common interests of mankind over a wider area than that of the local community. the historic tendency of nations has been to grow in size, as the transmission of ideas has become easy, and the extension of control has been made widely possible. the significance of national life is the social recognition at present given to community of interest by millions of individuals who believe that it is profitable for them to live under the same economic regulations, social legislation, and educational system, even though of mingled races and with various ideals. 316. =how the nation developed.=--the nation in embryo can be found in the primitive horde which was made up of families related by ties of kin, or by common language and customs. the control was held by the elderly men of experience, and exercised according to unwritten law. the horde was only loosely organized; it did not own land, but ranged over the hunting-grounds within its reach, and often small units separated permanently from the larger group. when hunting gave place to the domestication of animals, the horde became more definitely organized into the tribe, strong leadership developed in the defense of the tribe's property, and the military chieftain bent others in submission to his will. as long as land was of value for pasturage mainly, it was owned by the whole tribe in common. when agriculture was substituted for the pastoral stage of civilization, the tribe broke up by clans into villages, each under its chief and advisory council of heads of families. so far the mode of making a living had determined custom and organization. village communities may remain almost unchanged for centuries, as in china, or here and there one of them may become a centre of trade, as in mediæval germany. in the latter case it draws to itself all classes of people, develops wealth and culture, and presently dominates its neighbors. small city states grew up in ancient time along the nile in egypt, and by and by federated under a particularly able leader, or were conquered by the band of an ambitious chieftain, who took the title of king. in such fashion were organized the great kingdoms and empires of antiquity. social disintegration and foreign conquest broke up the great empires, and for centuries in the middle ages society existed in local groups; but common economic and racial interests, together with the political ambition of princes and nobles, drew together semi-independent principalities and communes, until they became welded into real nations. at first the state was monarchical, because a few kings and lords were able to dominate the mass, and because strength and authority were more needed than privileges of citizenship; then the economic interest became paramount, and merchants and manufacturers demanded a share in government for the protection of their interests. education improved the general level of intelligence, and invention and growing commerce improved the condition of the people until eventually all classes claimed a right to champion their own interests. the most progressive nations racially, politically, and economically, outstripped the others in world rivalry until the great modern nations, each with its own peculiar qualities of efficiency, overtopped their predecessors of all time. 317. =the story of the united states.=--the story of national life in the united states is especially noteworthy. within a century and a half the people of this country have passed through the economic stages, from clearing the forests to building sky-scrapers; in government they have grown from a few jealous seaboard colonies along the atlantic to a solidly welded federal nation that stretches from ocean to ocean; in education and skill they have developed from provincial hand-workers to expert managers of corporate enterprises that exploit the resources of the world; and in population they have grown from four million native americans to a hundred million people, gathered and shaken together from the four corners of the earth. in that century and a half they have developed a new and powerful national consciousness. when the british colonies asserted their independence, they were held together by their common ambition and their common danger, but when they attempted to organize a government, the incipient states were unwilling to grant to the new nation the powers of sovereignty. the confederation was a failure. the sense of common interest was not strong enough to compel a surrender of local rights. but presently it appeared that local jealousies and divisions were imperilling the interests of all, and that even the independence of the group was impossible without an effective national government. then in national convention the states, through their representatives, sacrificed one after another their sovereign rights, until a respectable nation was erected to stand beside the powers of europe. it was given power to make laws for the regulation of social conduct, and even of interstate commerce, to establish executive authority and administrative, judicial, and military systems, and to tax the property of the people for national revenue. to these basic functions others were added, as common interests demanded encouragement or protection. 318. =tests of national efficiency.=--two tests came to the new nation in its first century. the first was the test of control. it was for a time a question whether the nation could extend its sovereignty over the interior. state claims were troublesome, and the selfish interests of individuals clashed with revenue officers, but the nation solved these difficulties. the second test was the test of unity, and was settled only after civil war. out of the struggle the nation emerged stronger than it had ever been, because henceforth it was based on the principle of an indissoluble union. with its second century have come new tests--the test of absorbing millions of aliens in speech and habits, the test of wisely governing itself through an intelligent citizenship, the test of educating all of its people to their political and social responsibilities. whether these tests will be met successfully is for the future to decide, but if the past is any criterion, the american republic will not fail. national structures have risen to a certain height and then fallen, because they were not built on the solid foundations of mutual confidence, co-operation, and loyalty. building a self-governing nation that will stand the test of centuries is possible only for a people that is conscious of its community of interests, and is willing to sacrifice personal preferences and even personal profits for the common good. reading references bryce: _the american commonwealth_ (abridged edition), pages 3-21. dealey: _development of the state_, pages 26-48. bluntschli: _theory of the state_, pages 82-102. mulford: _the nation_, pages 37-60. bagehot: _physics and politics_, pages 81-155. usher: _rise of the american people_, pages 151-167, 182-195, 269-281. chapter xli economic and social functions of the people as a nation 319. =the reality of the nation.=--ordinarily the individual is not pressed upon heavily by his national relationships. he is conscious of them as he reads the newspaper or goes to the post-office, but except at congressional or presidential elections they are not brought home to him vividly. he thinks and acts in terms of the community. the nation is an artificial structure and most of its operations are centralized at a few points. the president lives and congress meets at the national capital. the departments of government are located there, and the supreme court holds its sessions in the same city. here and there at the busy ports are the custom-houses, with their revenue officers, and at convenient distances are district courts and united states officers for the maintenance of national order and justice. the post-office is the one national institution that is found everywhere, matched in ubiquity only by the flag, the symbol of national unity and strength. but though not noticeably exercised, the power of the nation is very real. there is no power to dispute its legislation and the decisions of its tribunals. no one dares refuse to contribute to its revenues, whether excise tax or import duties. no one is unaware that a very real nation exists. 320. =the social nature of the nation.=--in thinking of the nation it is natural to consider its power as a state, but other functions belong to it as a social unit that are no less important. its general function is not so much to govern as to promote the general welfare. the social nature of national organization is well expressed in the preamble to the national constitution: "we the people of the united states, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the united states of america." the general welfare is a somewhat vague term, but it includes all the interests of the people, and so indicates the scope of the national function. 321. =the economic function.=--the nation has an economic function. it is its business to encourage trade by means that seem most likely to help, whether by subsidies, tariffs, or expert advice; to protect all producers, distributers, and consumers by just laws and tribunals, so that unfair privileges shall not be enjoyed by the few at the expense of the many, and to provide in every legitimate way for the spread of information and for experimentation that agriculture, mining, and manufacturing may be improved. evidences of the attempt of the united states to measure up to these responsibilities are the various tariffs that have been established for protection as well as revenue, the interstate and trade commissions that exist for the regulation of business, and the individuals and boards that are maintained for acquiring and disseminating information relating to all kinds of economic interests. the united states patent office encourages invention, and american inventors outnumber those of other nations. the united states department of agriculture employs many experimenters and expert agents and even distributes seeds of a good quality, in order that one of the most important industries of the american people may flourish. at times some of the national machinery has been prostituted to private gain, and there is always danger that the individual will try to prosper at the expense of society, but the people more than ever before are conscious that it is the function of the nation to promote the _general_ welfare, and private interests, however powerful, must give heed to this. 322. =manufacturing in corporations and associations.=--back of all organization and legislation lies a real national unity, through which the nation exercises indirectly an economic function. in spite of a popular jealousy of big business in the last decade, there is a pride in the ability of american business men to create a profitable world commerce, and middle-class people in well-to-do circumstances subscribe to the purchase of stocks and bonds in trusted corporations. without this general interest and participation such a rapid extension of industrial enterprise could not have taken place. without the lines of communication that radiate from great commercial and financial centres, without the banking connections that make it possible for the fiscal centres to support any particular institution that is in temporary distress, without the consciousness of national solidarity in the great departments of business life, economic achievement in america would have come on halting feet. this unity is fostered but not created by government, and no hostile government can destroy it altogether. to further economic interests throughout the nation all sorts of associations exist and hold conventions, from american poultry fanciers to national banking societies. occasionally these associations pool their interests and advertise their concerns through a national exposition. in this way they find it possible to make an impression upon thousands of people whom they are educating indirectly through the printing-press. it would be an interesting study and one that would throw light on the complexity and ubiquity of national relations, if it could be ascertained locally how many individuals are connected with such national organizations, and what particular associations are most popular. if this examination were extended from purely economic organizations to associations of every kind, we should be able to gauge more accurately the strength of national influence upon social life. 323. =health interests.=--if this national unity exists in the economic field it is natural to expect to find it in the less material interests of society. the sense of common interests is all-pervasive. national health conditions bring the physicians together to discuss the causes and the therapeutics. how to keep well and to get strong, how to dress the baby and to bring up children are perennial topics for magazines with a national circulation. insurance companies with a national constituency prescribe physical tests for all classes. government takes cognizance of the physical interest of all its citizens, and passes through congress pure-food and pure-drug acts. national societies of a voluntary nature also cater to health and happiness. long-named organizations exist for moral prophylaxis and for the prevention of cruelty to children and animals. vigilance associations of all sorts stand guard to keep children and their elders from contamination. society protects itself over wide areas through such associated recognition of the mutual interests of all its members. 324. =national sport.=--recreation and sport also present national features. every new phase of recreation from playgrounds to philately presently has its countrywide association. there is a conscious reaching out for wide fellowship with those who are interested in the same pursuits. the attraction of like-mindedness is a potent force in every department of life. certain forms of relaxation or spirited rivalry have attained to the dignity of national sports. england has its football, scotland its golf, canada its lacrosse, the united states its baseball. the enthusiasm and excitement that hold whole cities in thrall as a national league season draws to its close, is a more striking phenomenon than roman gladiatorial shows or spanish bull-fights. persons who seldom if ever attend a game, who do not know one player from another, wax eloquent over the merits of a team that represents their own city, while individuals who attain to the title of "fans" handle familiarly the details of the teams throughout the league circuit. why should olympic contests held in recent years between representatives of different nations, or international tennis championships, arouse universal interest? it is inexplicable except as evidence of collective consciousness and a national pride and loyalty. the same spirit has entered into university athletics. the great universities have their "rooters" scattered all over the land, and the whole nation is interested in the thames or henley races and the poughkeepsie regattas. there are intercollegiate tennis championships and chess tournaments, football contests between the leaders east and west, all-america teams, and even international rivalries. 325. =the function of education.=--nation-wide ties and loyalties in sport do not call for the official action of the nation, though national officials as individuals are often devoted to certain sports, but the nation has other functions that may be classed as social. no duty is more pressing, not even that of efficient government, than the task of education. the national bureau of education supplemented by state boards, officially takes cognizance of society's educational interests. in education local independence plays a large part, but it is the function of government to make inquiry into the best theories and methods anywhere in vogue, to extend information to all who are interested, and to use its large influence toward the adoption of improvements. government in certain states of the american union even goes so far as to co-operate with local communities in maintaining joint school superintendents of towns or counties. it is appropriate that a democratic nation should give much attention to the education of the people because the success of democracy depends on popular intelligence. the efforts of the government are seconded by voluntary organization. it is not unusual for college presidents or ordinary teachers to meet in conference and discuss their difficulties and aspirations, but a national education association is cumulative evidence that americans think in terms of a continent, and that their interests are the same educationally in all parts of the land. it is no less true of other agencies of culture than the schools. cultural associations of all kinds abound. some of them are limited by state boundaries, not a few are national in their scope. there is a national chautauqua; institutes with the same name hold their sessions all over the land. music, art, and the drama, sometimes the same organized group of artists, appeal to appreciative audiences in boston, new orleans, chicago, and san francisco. popular songs from the opera, popular dances from the music-halls sweep the country with a wave of imitative enthusiasm. there are national whims and national tastes that chase each other from ocean to ocean, almost as fast as the sun moves from meridian to meridian. 326. =national philanthropy.=--so much of national life is voluntary in direction and organization in america, as compared with germany or russia, that it is easy to overlook its national significance. as a national state the united states does not attempt philanthropy. the separate states have their asylums as they have penitentiaries and reformatories, but the nation performs no such function. yet philanthropic organization girdles the continent. the national conference of charities and corrections is one instance of a society that meets annually in the interest of the depressed classes, discusses their problems, and reports its findings to the public as a basis for organized activity. such an organization not only represents the humanitarian principles and interest of individuals here and there, but it helps to bind together local groups all over the country that are working on an altruistic basis. whole sections of territory join in discussing still wider human interests. the southern sociological conference appeals to the whole south and calls upon the rest of the country for speakers of reputation and wisdom. 327. =the federal council of churches.=--it is fundamental to the spirit and word of the american constitution that church and state shall not be united, but this does not prevent religious interests from being cherished nationally, and ecclesiastical organizations from having national affiliations. modern churches are grouped first of all in denominations, because of certain peculiarities, but most of the denominations have spread over the country and propagated their type as opportunity offered. national conferences and conventions, therefore, take place regularly, bringing together episcopalians, presbyterians, baptists, or methodists, as the case may be, to consider the interests that are most vital to the denomination as a whole, or which the denomination as a whole, in place of the local churches, holds within its sphere of control. politics and sectional interests have sometimes divided denominations, large bodies have sometimes split along conservative or radical lines, but the national ideal has never been lost sight of, and national organizations enjoy dignity and prestige. one of the most recent illustrations of a still broader interest and deeper consciousness is the federation of more than thirty evangelical protestant denominations for better acquaintance and larger achievement. temporary movements and even a definite evangelical alliance have been in evidence before, but now has come a permanent organization, to include all the religious interests that can be held in common, and especially to stress the more ambitious programme of social regeneration. the federal council of the churches of christ in america has yet to prove that it is not ahead of the times, but it is an earnest of a religious interest that oversteps the bounds of creed and denominational organization and calls upon the various divisions of the protestant church to unite for a national campaign. 328. =the scope of national life.=--social life in the nation is not confined to any organization. it does not wait upon government to perform its various functions. it goes on because of the constant flow and counterflow of population through all the channels of acquaintance and correspondence, of travel and trade. people feel the need of one another, are in constant touch with one another, and inevitably are continually exchanging commodities and ideas. barriers of race and language, of tariff walls and national conventions stand in the way of exchange between individuals of different nations, though a strenuous commercial age succeeds in making breaches in the barriers, but opportunity within the nation is free, and such natural barriers as language and race differences speedily give way before the mutual desires of the native and the hyphenated american. reading references dealey: _development of the state_, pages 63-115. _reports of the commissioner of education._ _american year book_, 1914, _passim._ ward: _year book of the church and social service_, 1916, pages 24-29. chapter xlii the state 329. =the state and its sovereignty.=--the various economic and social functions that are exercised by the people as a nation can be performed in an orderly and effective way only when the people are organized politically, and the nation has full powers of sovereignty. when the nation functions politically it is a state. states may be large like russia, or small like montenegro; they may have full sovereignty like great britain, or limited sovereignty like new york; the fact that they exercise political authority makes them states. it is conceivable that this political authority may be exercised through the sheer force of public opinion, but the experience of the newly organized united states under the articles of confederation showed that national moral suasion was not effective. history seems to prove that society needs a machinery of government able to legislate and enforce its laws, and the tendency has been for a comparatively small number of states to extend their authority over more and more of the earth's surface. this has become possible through the maintenance of efficient military forces and wise local administration, aided by increasing ease of communication and transportation. once it was a question whether the united states could enforce its law as far away as western pennsylvania; now great britain bears unquestioned sway over the antipodes. many persons look forward to the time when the people of all nations will unite in a universal state, with power to enforce its will without resort to war. 330. =why the state is necessary.=--there are some persons, commonly known as anarchists, who do not believe that government is necessary. they would have human relations reduced to their lowest terms, and then trust to human nature to behave itself properly. there are other persons known as socialists, who would have the people in their collective capacity exercise a larger control than now over human action. neither of these classes represents the bulk of society. common sense and experience together seem to demand a government that will exercise a reasonable control, and by reasonable is meant a control that will preserve the best interests of all and make general progress possible. the political function of the nation is both coercive and directive. when we think of a state we naturally think of the power that it possesses to make peace or war with foreign powers, to keep order within the nation, to enforce its authority over any individual or group that breaks the laws that it has made; but while such power of control is essential and its exercise often spectacular, it is paralleled by the directive power. there are many social relations that need definition and much social conduct that needs direction. a man and a woman live together and bring up a family of children. who is to determine their legal status, the terms of marriage, the rights of parenthood, the claims of childhood, the rights and obligations of the family as a part of the community? the family accumulates property in lands, houses, and movable possessions. who will make the acquisition legal, insure property protection, and provide legally for inheritance? every individual has his personal relation to the state, and privileges of citizenship are important. who shall determine the right to vote and to hold office, or the duty to pay taxes or serve in the army or navy? in these various ways the state is no less functioning politically for the benefit of the people than when coercing recalcitrant citizens, warning or fighting other nations, or legislating in its congressional halls. its opportunity to regulate the social interests of its citizens is almost illimitable, for while a written constitution may prescribe what a state may and may not do, those who made the constitution have the power to revise it or to override its provisions. 331. =theories of the state.=--archæological and historical evidence point to the family as the nursery of the state. there was a time when the contract theory was popular. it was believed that the state became possible when individuals agreed to give up some of their own individual rights for the sake of living in peace with their neighbors and enjoying mutual protection. there is no doubt that such a mutual arrangement was made in the troublous feudal period of mediæval european history, just as the original thirteen american colonies gave up some of their individual powers to make possible a real american state, but the social-contract theory is no longer accepted as a satisfactory explanation of the origin of government. there was no _mayflower_ compact with the bushmen when englishmen decided to live with the natives in australia. there is another theory that eminently wise men, with or without divine assistance, formulated law and government for cities and tribes, and that their codes were definitely accepted by the people, but the work of these men, as far as it is historical at all, seems to have been a work of codifying laws which had grown out of custom rather than of making new laws. still another theory that was once held strenuously by a few was that of the divine right of kings, as if god had given to one dynasty or one class the right to rule irresponsibly over their fellows. individual political philosophers, like the greek aristotle and the german bluntschli have published their theories, and have influenced schools of publicists, but the political science of the present day, basing its theories on observed facts, is content to trace the gradual changes that have taken place in the unconscious development of the past, and to point out the possibilities of intelligent progress in future evolution. 332. =how the state came to be.=--the true story of the development of the state seems to have been as follows. the roots of the state are in the family group. when the family expanded into the tribe, family discipline and family custom easily passed over to tribal discipline and tribal custom, strengthened by religious superstition and the will of the priest. but not all chieftains and all tribes have the same ability or the same disposition, so that while political custom and religious sanctions tended in the main to remain unchanged, an occasional exception upset the social equilibrium. race mixture and conflicting interests compelled organization on a civil rather than a tribal basis. or an ambitious prince or a restless tribe interfered with the established relations, and presently a powerful military state was giving law to subjugated tribes. egypt, persia, rome, turkey have been such states. on a larger scale, something of the same sort has happened in the conquest of outlying parts of the world by the european powers, until one man in petrograd can give law to kamchatka, a cabinet in london can determine a policy for the government of india, or the united states congress can change the administration of affairs in the philippines. military power has been the weapon by which authority has been imposed from without, legislative action the instrument by which authority has been extended within. 333. =the government of great britain.=--the government of great britain is one of the best concrete examples of the growth of a typical state. its teutonic founders learned the rudiments of government in the german forests, where the principles of democracy took root. military and political exigencies gave the prince large power, but the people never forgot how to exert their influence through local assembly or national council. in the thirteenth century, when the king displeased the men of the nation, they demanded the privileges of magna carta, and when king and lords ruled inefficiently, the common people found a way to enlarge their own powers. representatives of the townsmen and the country shires took their places in parliament, and gradually, with growing wisdom and courage, assumed more and more prerogatives. three times in the seventeenth century parliament demanded successfully certain rights of citizenship, though once it had to fight and once more to depose a king. in the nineteenth century, by a succession of reform acts, king and parliament admitted tradesmen, farmers, and working men to a full share in the workings of the state, and only recently the commons have supplanted the lords as the leading legislative body of the nation. the story of great britain is a tale of growing democracy and increasing efficiency. the story of local government and the story of imperial government might be placed side by side with the story of national government, and each would reveal the political principles that have guided british progress. social need, patient experiment, and growth in efficiency are significant phrases that help to explain the story. every nation has worked out its government in its own way, interfered with occasionally by interested parties on the outside, but the general line of progress has been the same--local experimentation, federation or union more often imposed than agreed upon by popular consent, and a slow growth of popular rights over government by a privileged few. present tendency is in the direction of safeguarding the interests of all by a fully representative government, in which the individual efficiency of prince or commoner alike shall have due weight, but no one sovereign or class shall rule the people as a whole. 334. =the organization of government.=--the political organization depends upon the functions that the state has to perform, as the structure of any group corresponds to its functions. the modern national machinery is a complicated system, and is becoming more so as constitutional conventions define more in detail the powers and forms of government, and as legislatures enter the field of social reform, but the simplest attempt at regulation involves several steps, and so naturally there are several departments of government. the first step is the election of those who are to make the laws. practically all modern states recognize the principle that the people are at least to have a share in government; this is managed by the popular election of their representatives in the various departments of government. the second step is lawmaking by the representative legislature, congress, or parliament, usually after previous deliberation and recommendation by a committee; in some states the people have the right by referendum to ratify or reject the legislation, and even to initiate such legislation as they desire. the third step is the arrangement for carrying out the law that has been passed. this is managed by the executive department of the government. the fourth step is the actual administration of law and government by officials who are sometimes elected and sometimes appointed, and who constitute the administrative department of the political organization. a fifth step is the passing upon law and the relation of an individual or group to it by judicial officers attached to a system of courts. these departments of the state, with whatever auxiliary machinery has been organized to assist in their working, make up the political organization of the typical modern state. 335. =the electoral system.=--there is great variety in the degree of self-government enjoyed by the people. in the most advanced nations the electoral privileges are widely distributed, in the backward nations it is only recently that the people have had any voice in national affairs. usually suffrage is reserved for those who have reached adult manhood, but an increasing number of states of the american union and several foreign nations have admitted women to equal privileges. lack of property or education in many countries is a bar to electoral privilege. pauperism and crime and sometimes religious heterodoxy disfranchise. the variety and number of officials to be elected varies greatly. the head of the nation in the states of the old world generally holds his position by hereditary right, and he has large appointive power directly or indirectly. in some states the judiciary is appointed rather than elected on the ground that it should be above the influence of party politics. the chief power of the people is in choosing their representatives to make the laws. most of these representatives are chosen for short terms and must answer to the people for their political conduct; by these means the people are actually self-governing, though the execution of the law may be in the hands of officers whom they have not chosen. democratic government is nevertheless subject to all the forces that affect large bodies exerted through party organizations, demagogues, and a party press, but even opponents of democracy are willing to admit that the people are learning political lessons by experience. 336. =the legislative system.=--legislation by representatives of all classes of the people is a new political phenomenon tried out most thoroughly among the large nations by great britain, france, and the united states. even now there is much distrust of the ability of the ordinary man in politics, and considerably more of the ordinary woman. but there have been so many extraordinary individuals who have risen to political eminence from the common crowd, that the legislative privilege can no longer be confined to an aristocracy. the old aristocratic element is represented to-day by a senate, or upper house, composed of men who are prominent by reason of birth, wealth, or position, but the upper house is of minor importance. the real legislative power rests with the lower chamber, which directly represents the middle and lower classes, professional, business, and industrial. the action of lawmaking bodies is usually limited in scope by the provisions of a written constitution, and is modified by the public opinion of constituents. important among the necessary legislation is the regulation of the economic and social relations of individuals and corporations, provision for an adequate revenue by means of a system of taxation, appropriation for the maintenance of departments of government and necessary public works, and the determination of an international policy. in the united states an elaborate system of checks and balances gives the executive a provisional veto on legislation, but gives large advisory powers to congress. in great britain the executive is the chief of the dominant party in parliament, and if he loses the confidence of the legislative body he loses his position as prime minister unless sustained in a national election. in all legislative bodies there are inevitable differences of opinion and conflicts of interests resulting in party divisions and such opposite groups as conservatives and radicals. the formulation and pursuance of a national policy is, therefore, not an easy task, and the conflict of interests often necessitates compromise, so that a history of legislation over a series of years shows that national progress is generally accomplished by liberalism wresting a modicum of power from conservatism, then giving way for a little to a period of reaction, and then pushing forward a step further as public opinion becomes more intelligent or more courageous. 337. =the executive department.=--legislative bodies occasionally take vacations; the executive is always on duty in person or through his subordinates. popularly considered, the executive department of government consists of the president, the king, or the prime minister; actually it includes an advisory council or cabinet, which is responsible to its chief, but shares with him the task of the management of national affairs. the executive department of the government stands in relation to the people of the nation as the business manager of a corporation stands in relation to the stockholders. he must see that the will of the people, as expressed by their representatives, is carried into effect; he must appoint the necessary administrative officials for efficient service; he must keep his finger upon the pulse of the nation, and use his influence to hold the legislature to its duty; he must approve or veto laws which are sent to him to sign; above all, he must represent his nation in all its foreign relations, appoint the personnel of the diplomatic force, negotiate treaties, and help to form the international law of the world. it is the business of the executive to maintain the honor and dignity of the nation before the world, and to carry out the law of his own nation if it requires the whole military force available. 338. =administrative organization.=--the executive department includes the advisers of the head, who constitute the cabinet. in europe the cabinet is responsible to the sovereign or the parliament, and the members usually act unitedly. in the united states they are appointed by the president, and are individually responsible to him alone. in their capacity as a cabinet they help to formulate national policy, and their influence in legislation and in moulding public opinion is considerable, but their chief function is in administering the departments of which they have charge. it is the custom for the heads of the chief departments of government to constitute the cabinet, but their number differs in different states, and titles vary, also. in general, the department of state or foreign affairs ranks first in importance, and its secretary is in charge of all correspondence with the diplomatic representatives of the nation located in the world's capitals; the department of the treasury or the exchequer is usually next in importance; others are the departments of the army and navy, of colonial possessions, of manufacturing and commerce, mining, or agriculture, of public utilities, of education or religion, and for judicial business. each of these has its subordinate bureaus and an army of civil-service officials, some of whom owe their appointment to personal influence, others to real ability. the civil officials with which the public is most familiar are postal employees, officers of the federal courts, and revenue officials. such persons usually hold office while their party is in power or during good behavior. long tenure of office tends to conservative measures and the spirit of bureaucracy, while a system by which civil office is regarded as party spoil tends to corruption and inefficiency. the business of administration is becoming increasingly important in the modern state. 339. =the judicial system.=--there is always danger that law may be misinterpreted or prove unconstitutional. it is the function of the judicial department of government to make decisions, interpreting and applying the law of the nation in particular cases brought before the courts. the law of the nation is superior to all local or sectional law; so is the national judiciary supreme in its authority and national in its jurisdiction. the judicial system of the united states includes a series of courts from the lowest district courts, which are located throughout the country, to the supreme court in washington, which deals with the most momentous questions of national law. in the united states the judicial system is complicated by a system of lesser courts, state and local, independent of federal control, attached to which is a body of police, numerous judges, juries, and lawyers; the higher courts also have their justices and practising lawyers, but there is less haste and confusion and greater dignity and ability displayed. there has been much criticism in recent years of antiquated forms of procedure, cumbrous precedent, and unfair use of technicalities for the defeat of justice, but however imperfect judicial practice may be, the system is well intrenched and is not likely to be changed materially. 340. =the relation of national to district governments.=--in some nations there are survivals of older political divisions which once possessed sovereignty, but which have sacrificed most, if not all, of it for the larger good. this is the case in such federal states as the german empire, switzerland, and the united states. each state in the american nation retains its own departments of government, and so has its governor and heads of departments, its two-chambered legislature, and its state judiciary. state law and state courts are more familiar to the people than most of the national legislation. in the german empire each state has its own prince, and in many respects is self-governing, but has been more and more sinking its own individuality in the empire. in the british empire there is still another relation. england, wales, scotland, and ireland were once independent of each other, but military and dynastic events united them. for local legislation and administration they tend to separate, and already ireland has obtained home rule. beyond seas a colonial empire has arisen, and certain great dominions are united by little more than ties of blood and loyalty to the mother country. canada, australia, and south africa have gained a larger measure of sovereignty. india is held as an imperial possession, but even there experiments of self-government are being tried. the whole tendency of government, both here and abroad, seems to be to leave matters of local concern largely to the local community and matters that belong to a section or subordinate state to that district, and to centralize all matters of national or interstate concern in the hands of a small body of men at the national capital. in every case national or imperial authority is the court of last resort. reading references bliss: _new encyclopedia of social reform_, art. "anarchism." dealey: _development of the state_, pages 127-234. wilson: _the state_, pages 555-571. bluntschli: _theory of the state_, pages 61-73. _constitution of the united states._ bryce: _the american commonwealth_ (abridged edition), pages 22-242, 287-305. chapter xliii problems of the nation 341. =government as the advance agent of prosperity.=--it is common philosophy that society owes every man a living, and it seems to be a common belief that the government owes every man a job. there are, of course, only a few government positions, and these are rushed after by a swarm of office-seekers, but campaign orators have talked so much about a full dinner pail and the government as the advance agent of prosperity, that there seems to be a popular notion that the government, as if by a magician's wand, could cure unemployment, allay panics, dispel hard times, and increase a man's earning power at will. a little familiarity with economic law ought to modify this notion, but it is difficult to eradicate it. society cannot, through any one institution, bring itself to perfection; many elements enter into the making of prosperity. it depends on individual ability and training for industry, on an understanding of the laws of health and keeping the body and brain in a state of efficiency, on peaceful relations between groups, on the successful balancing of supply and demand, and of wages and the cost of living, on personal integrity and group co-operation. all that the government can do is to instruct and stimulate. this it has been doing and will continue to do with growing effectiveness, but it has to feel its way and learn by experience, as do individuals. 342. =how it has met its responsibility.=--this problem of prosperity which is both economic and social, is the concern of all the people of the nation, and any attempt to solve it in the interest of one section or a single group cannot bring success. that is one reason for many of the social weaknesses everywhere visible. government has legislated in the interests of a group of manufacturers, or the courts have favored the rich, or trusts have been attacked at the demands of a reforming party, or labor has been immune from the application of a law against conspiracy when corporations were hard hit. these weaknesses, which are characteristic of american democracy, find their parallels in all countries where modern industrial and social conditions obtain. but government has lent its energies to the upbuilding of a sound social structure. it has recognized the need of education for the youth of the land at a minimum cost, and the states of the american union have made liberal grants for both academic and special training to their state universities, agricultural colleges, and normal schools. it encourages the country people to enrich their life and to increase their earnings for their own sake and for the prosperity of the people who are dependent upon them. it stimulates improved processes in manufacturing and mining, and protects business against foreign competition by a tariff wall; it tries to prevent recurring seasons of financial panics by a stable currency and the extension of credits. it provides the machinery for settling labor difficulties by conciliation and arbitration, and tries to mediate between gigantic combinations of trade and transportation and the public. it has pensioned liberally its old soldiers. it has attempted to find a method of taxation that would not bear heavily on its citizens, but that at the same time would provide a sufficient revenue to meet the enormous expense of catering to the multifarious interests of a population of a hundred million people. 343. =the problem of democracy.=--the problem of prosperity is complicated by the problem of democracy. if by a satisfactory method a body of wise men could be selected to study carefully each specific problem involved, could experiment over a term of years in the execution of plans worked out free from fear of being thrown out at any time as the result of elective action by an impatient people, prosperity might move on more rapid feet. in a country where power is in the hands of a few a specific programme can be worked out without much friction and rapid industrial and social progress can be made, as has been the case during the last fifty years in germany; but where the masses of the people must be consulted and projects depend for success upon their sustained approval, progress is much more spasmodic and uncertain. everything depends on an intelligent electorate, controlled by reason rather than emotion and patient enough to await the outcome of a policy that has been inaugurated. this raises the question as to the education of the electorate or the establishment of an educational qualification, as in some states. is there any way by which the mass of the working people, who have only an elementary education, and never see even the outside of a state university, can be made intelligent and self-restrained? they will not read public documents, whether reports of expert commissions or speeches in congress. shall they be compelled to read what the government thinks is for their good, or be deprived of the suffrage as a penalty? they get their political opinions from sensational journals. shall these publications be placed under a ban and the nation subsidize its own press? these are questions to be considered by the educational departments of state and nation, with a view to a more intelligent citizenship. democracy cannot be said to be a failure, but it is still a problem. government will not be any better than the majority of the citizens want it to be; hence its standards can be raised only as the mental and moral standards of the electorate are elevated. education, a conscious share in the responsibility of legislation, and sure justice in all controverted cases, whether of individuals or classes, are necessary elements in winning even a measure of success. 344. =the race problem.=--the difficulties of american democracy are enormously enhanced by the race problem. if common problems are to be solved, there must be common interests. the population needs to be homogeneous, to be seeking the same ends, to be conscious of the same ideals. not all the races of the world are thus homogeneous; it would be difficult to think of englishmen, russians, chinese, south americans, and africans all working with united purpose, inspired by the same ideals, yet that is precisely what is expected in america under the tutelage and leadership of two great political parties, not always scrupulous about the methods used to obtain success at the polls. it is rather astonishing that americans should expect their democracy to work any better than it does when they remember the conditions under which it works. to hand a man a ballot before he feels himself a part of the nation to which he has come, before he is stirred to something more than selfish achievement, before he is conscious of the real meaning of citizenship, is to court disaster, yet in being generous with the ballot the people of america are arming thousands of ignorant, irresponsible immigrants with weapons against themselves. the race problem of america is not at all simple. it is more than a problem of immigration. the problem of the european immigrant is one part of it. there is also the problem of the relation of the american people to the yellow races at our back door, and the problem of the negro, who is here through no fault of his own, but who, because he is here, must be brought into friendly and helpful relation with the rest of the nation. 345. =the problem of the european immigrant.=--the problem of the european immigrant is one of assimilation. it is difficult because the alien comes in such large numbers, brings with him a different race heritage, and settles usually among his own people, where american influence reaches him only at second hand. environment may be expected to change him gradually, the education of his children will modify the coming generation, but it will be a slow task to make him over into an american in ideals and modes of thinking, as well as in industrial efficiency, and in the process the native american is likely to suffer loss in the contact, with a net lowering of standards in the life of the american people. to see the danger is not to despair of escaping it. to understand the danger is the first step in providing a safeguard, and to this end exact knowledge of the situation should be a part of the teaching of the schools. to seek a solution of the problem is the second step. the main agency is education, but this does not mean entirely education in the schools. education through social contact is the principal means of assimilating the adult; for this purpose it is desirable that some means be found for the better distribution of the immigrant, and as immigration is a national problem, it is proper for the national government to attack that particular phase of it. then it belongs to voluntary agencies, like settlements, churches, and philanthropic and educational societies to give instruction in the essentials of language, civics, industrial training, and character building. for the children the school provides such education, but voluntary agencies may well supplement its secular training with more definite and thorough instruction in morals and religion. it cannot be expected that the immigrant problem will settle itself; at least, a purposeful policy wisely and persistently carried out will accomplish far better and quicker results. nor is it an insoluble problem; it is not even necessary that we should severely check immigration. but there is need of intelligent and co-operative action to distribute, educate, and find a suitable place for the immigrant, that he may make good, and to devise a restrictive policy that will effectually debar the most undesirable, and will hold back the vast stream of recent years until those already here have been taken care of. 346. =the problem of the asiatic immigrant.=--the problem of the asiatic immigrant is quite different. it is a problem of race conflict rather than of race assimilation. the student of human society cannot minimize the importance of race heredity. in the case of the european it holds a subordinate place, because the difference between his heritage and that of the american is comparatively slight. but the asiatic belongs to a different race, and the century-long training of an entirely different environment makes it improbable that the asiatic and the american can ever assimilate. each can learn from the other and co-operate to mutual advantage, but race amalgamation, or even a fusion of customs of thought and social ideals is altogether unlikely. it is therefore not to the advantage of either american or asiatic that much asiatic immigration into the united states should take place. to agree to this is not to be hostile to or scornful of the yellow man. the higher classes are fully as intelligent and capable of as much energy and achievement as the american, but the vast mass of those who would come here if immigration were unrestricted are undesirable, because of their low industrial and moral standards, their tenacity of old habits, and with all the rest because of their immense numbers, that would overrun all the western part of the united states. when the chinese exclusion act passed congress in 1882, the chinese alone were coming at the rate of nearly forty thousand a year, and that number might have been increased tenfold by this time, to say nothing of japanese and hindoos. while, therefore, the united states must treat asiatics with consideration and live up to its treaty obligations, it seems the wise policy to refuse to admit the asiatic masses to american residence. a part of the asiatic problem, however, is the political relation of the united states and the asiatic powers, especially in the pacific. this is less intimately vital, but is important in view of the rapidly growing tendency of both china and japan to expand in trade and political ambitions. this is a problem of political rather than social science, but since the welfare of both races is concerned, and of other peoples of the pacific islands, it needs the intelligent consideration of all students. it is desirable to understand one another, to treat one another fairly and generously, and to find means, if possible, of co-operation rather than conflict, where the interests of one impinge upon another. all mediating influences, like christian missions, are to be welcomed as helping to extend mutual understanding and to soften race prejudices and animosities. 347. =the negro problem.=--not a few persons look upon the negro problem as the most serious social question in america. whatever its relative merits, as compared with other problems, it is sufficiently serious to call for careful study and an attempt at solution. the negro race in america numbers approximately ten millions, twice as many as at the close of the civil war. the negro was thrust upon america by the cupidity of the foreign slave-trader, and perpetuated by the difficulty of getting along without him. his presence has been in some ways beneficial to himself and to the whites among whom he settled, but it has been impossible for two races so diverse to live on a plane of equality, and the burden of education upon the south has been so heavy and the race qualities of the negro so discouraging, that progress in the solution of the negro problem has been slow. the problem of the colored race is not one of assimilation or of conflict. in spite of an admixture of blood that affects possibly a third of the american negroes, there never will be race fusion. assimilation of culture was partly accomplished in slave days, and it will go on. there is no serious conflict between white and colored, when once the question of assimilation is understood. the problem is one of race adjustment. fifty years have been insufficient to perfect the relations between the two races, but since they must live together, it is desirable that they should come to understand and sympathize with each other, and as far as possible co-operate for mutual advancement. the problem is a national one, because the man of color is not confined to the south, and even more because the south alone is unable to deal adequately with the situation. the negro greatly needs efficient social education. he tends to be dirty, lazy, and improvident, as is to be expected, when left to himself. like all countrymen--a large proportion live in the country--he is backward in ways of thinking and methods of working. he is primitive in his passions and much given to emotion. he shows the traits of a people not far removed from savagery. it is remarkable that his white master was able to civilize him as much as he did, and it is not strange that there has been many a relapse under conditions of unprepared freedom, but it is only the more reason why negro character should be raised higher on the foundation already laid. the task is not very different from that which is presented by the slum population of the cities of the north. the children need to be taught how to live, and then given a chance to practise the instruction in a decent environment. they need manual and industrial training fitted to their industrial environment, and every opportunity to employ their knowledge in earning a living. they need noble ideals, and these they can get only by the sympathetic, wise teaching of their superiors, whether white or black. they and their friends need patience in the upward struggle, for it will not be easy to socialize and civilize ten million persons in a decade or a century. such institutions as hampton and tuskegee are working on a correct basis in emphasizing industrial training; these schools very properly are supplemented by the right kind of elementary schools, on the one hand, and by cultural institutions of high grade on the other, for the negro is a human being, and his nature must be cultivated on all sides, as much as if he were white. 348. =the race problem a part of one great social problem.=--the race problem as a whole is not peculiar to america, but is intensified here by the large mixture of all races that is taking place. it is inevitable, as the world's population shifts in meeting the social forces of the present age. it is complicated by race inequalities and race ambitions. it is fundamentally a problem of adjustment between races that possess a considerable measure of civilization and those that are not far removed from barbarism. it is discouraging at times, because the supposedly cultured peoples revert under stress of war or competition or self-indulgence to the crudities of primitive barbarism, but it is a soluble problem, nevertheless. the privileged peoples need a solemn sense of the responsibility of the "white man's burden," which is not to cultivate the weaker man for the sake of economic exploitation, but to improve him for the weaker man's own sake, and for the sake of the world's civilization. the policy of any nation like the united states must be affected, of course, by its own interests, but the european, the asiatic, the negro, and every race or people with which the american comes in contact ought to be regarded as a member of a world society in which the interlocking of relationships is so complete that the injury of one is the injury of all, and that which is done to aid the least will react to the benefit of him who already has more. reading references dealey: _development of the state_, pages 300-314. usher: _rise of the american people_, pages 392-404. mecklin: _democracy and race friction_, pages 77-122. commons: _races and immigrants in america_, pages 17-21, 198-238. coolidge: _chinese immigration_, pages 423-458, 486-496. gulick: _the american japanese problem_, pages 3-27, 90-196, 281-307. chapter xliv internationalism 349. =the new world life.=--the social life that started in the family has broadened until it has circled the globe. it is possible now to speak in terms of world life. the interests of society have reached out from country to country, and from zone to zone, just as a child's interests as he grows to manhood expand from the home to the community and from the community to the nation. the idea of the social solidarity of all peoples is still new. ever since the original divergence of population from its home nest, when groups became strange and hostile to one another because of mountain and forest barriers, changing languages, and occasionally clashing interests, the tendency of the peoples was to grow apart. but for a century past the tendency has been changing from divergence to convergence, from ignorance and distrust of one another to understanding, sympathy, and good-will, from independence and ruthlessness to interdependence and co-operation. numerous agencies have brought this about--some physical like steam and electricity, some economic like commerce and finance, some social like travel and the interchange of ideas through the press, some moral and religious like missions and international organizations for peace. the history of a hundred years has made it plain that nations cannot live in isolation any more than individuals can, and that the tendency toward social solidarity must be the permanent tendency if society is to exist and prosper, even though civilization and peace may be temporarily set back for a generation by war. 350. =the principle of adaptation vs. conflict.=--this new world life is not unnatural, though it has been slow in coming. a human being is influenced by his physical needs and desires, his cultivated habits, his accumulated interests, the customs of the people to whom he belongs, and the conditions of the environment in which he finds himself. while a savage his needs, desires, and interests are few, his habits are fixed, his relations are simple and local; but when he begins to take on civilization his needs multiply, his habits change, and his relations extend more widely. the more enlightened he becomes the greater the number of his interests and the more points of contact with other people. so with every human group. the process of social development for a time may intensify conflict, but there comes a time when it is made clear to the dullest mind that conflict must give way to mutual adaptation. no one group, not even a supernation, can have everything for itself, and for the sake of the world's comfort and peace it will be a decided social gain when that principle receives universal recognition. world federations and peace propaganda cannot be effective until that principle is accepted as a working basis for world life. 351. =the increasing recognition of the principle of adaptation.=--this principle of adaptation has found limited application for a long time. starting with individuals in the family and family groups in the clan, it extended until it included all the members of a state in their relations to each other. many individual interests conflict in business and society and different opinions clash, but all points of difference within the nation are settled by due process of law, except when elemental passions break out in a lynching, or a family feud is perpetuated among the hills. but war continued to be the mode of settling international difficulties. military force restrained a vassal from hostile acts under the roman peace. but the next necessary step was for states voluntarily to adjust their relations with one another. in some instances, even in ancient times, local differences were buried, and small federations, like the achæan league of the greeks and the lombard league of the middle ages, were formed for common defense. these have been followed by greater alliances in modern times. but the striking instances of real interstate progress are found in the federation of such states as those that are included within the present united states of america, and within the new german empire that was formed after the franco-prussian war. sinking their differences and recognizing one another's rights and interests, the people of such united nations have become accustomed to a large national solidarity, and it ought not to require much instruction or persuasion to show them that what they have accomplished already for themselves is the correct principle for their guidance in world affairs. 352. =international law and peace.=--this principle of recognizing one another's rights and interests is the foundation of international law, which has been modified from time to time, but which from the publication of hugo grotius's _law of war and peace_ in the seventeenth century slowly has bound more closely together the civilized nations. there has come into existence a body of law for the conduct of nations that is less complete, but commands as great respect as the civil law of a single state. this law may be violated by a nation in the stress of conflict, as civil law may be derided by an individual lawbreaker or by an excited mob, but eventually it reasserts itself and slowly extends its scope and power. without international legislative organization, without a tribunal or a military force to carry out its provisions, by sheer force of international opinion and a growing regard for social justice it demands attention from the proudest nations. text-books have been written and university chairs founded to present its claims, international associations and conventions have met to define more accurately its code, and tentative steps have been taken to strengthen its position by two hague conferences that met in 1899 and 1907. large contributions of money have been made to stimulate the cause of peace, and as many as two hundred and fifty peace societies have been organized. 353. =arbitration and an international court.=--experiments have been tried at settling international disputes without resort to war. great britain and the united states have led the way in showing to the world during the last one hundred years that all kinds of vexatious differences can be settled peacefully by submitting them to arbitration. these successes have led the united states to propose general treaties of arbitration to other nations, and advance has been made in that direction. it was possible to establish at the hague a permanent court of arbitration, and to refer to it really important cases. such a calamity as the european war, of course, interrupts the progress of all such peaceful methods, but makes all the plainer the dire need of a better machinery for settling international differences. there is reasonable expectation that before many years there may be established a permanent international court of justice, an international parliament, and a sufficient international police force to restrain any one nation from breaking the peace. only in this way can the dread of war be allayed and disarmament be undertaken; even then the success of such an experiment in government will depend on an increase of international understanding, respect, and consideration. 354. =intercommunication and its rewards.=--the gain in social solidarity that has been achieved already is due first of all to improved communication between nations. in the days of slow sailing vessels it took several weeks to cross the atlantic, and there was no quicker way to convey news. the news that peace had been arranged at ghent in 1814 between great britain and the united states did not reach the armies on this side in time to prevent the battle of new orleans. even the results of the battle of waterloo were not known in england for several days after napoleon's overthrow. now ocean leviathans keep pace with the storms that move across the waters, and the cable and the wireless flash their messages with the speed of the lightning. power to put a girdle around the earth in a few minutes has made modern news agencies possible, and they have made the modern newspaper essential. the newspaper requires the railroad and the steamship for its distribution, and business men depend upon them all to carry out their plans. these physical agencies have made possible a commerce that is world-wide. there are ports that receive ships from every nation east and west. great freight terminal yards hold cars that belong to all the great transportation lines of the country. lombard street and wall street feel the pulse of the world's trade as it beats through the channels of finance. improved communication has made possible the unification of a great political system like the british empire. in the parliament house and government offices of westminster centre the political interests of canada, australia, south africa, egypt, and india, as well as of islands in every sea. better communication has brought into closer relations the pan-american states, so that they have met more than once for their mutual benefit. helpful social results have come from the travel that has grown enormously in volume since ease and cheapness of transportation have increased. the impulse to travel for pleasure keeps persons of wealth on the move, and the desire for knowledge sends the intellectually minded professional man or woman of small means globe-trotting. in this way the people of different nations learn from one another; they become able to converse in different languages and to get one another's point of view; they gain new wants while they lose some of their professional interests; they return home poorer in pocket but richer in experience, more interested in others, more tolerant. these are social values, certain to make their influence felt in days to come, and by no means unappreciable already. 355. =international institutions.=--these values are conserved by international institutions. societies are formed by like-minded persons for better acquaintance and for the advancement of knowledge. the sciences are cherished internationally, interparliamentary unions and other agencies for the preservation of peace hold their conferences, working men meet to air their grievances or plan programmes, religious denominations consult for pushing their campaigns. the organizations that grow out of these relations and conferences develop into institutions that have standing. the international associations of scholars are as much a part of the world's institutional assets as the educational system is a recognized asset of any country. they are clearing-houses of information, as necessary as an international clearing-house of finance. the world's woman's christian temperance union and the international young men's christian association are moral agencies that bring together those who have at heart the same interests, and when they have once made good they must be reckoned among the established organizations that help to move the world forward. not least among such institutions are the religious organizations. the closely knit roman catholic church, that has held together millions of faithful adherents in many lands for centuries, and whose canon law receives an unquestioning obedience as the law of a nation, is an illustration of what an international religious institution may be. protestant churches, naturally more independent, have moved more slowly, but their world alliances and federations are increasing to the point where they, too, are likely to become true institutions. 356. =missions as a social institution.=--those institutions and movements are most useful that aim definitely to stimulate the highest interests of all mankind. it is comparatively simple to provide local stimulus for a better community life, but to help move the world on to higher levels requires clear vision, patient hope, and a definite plan on a large scale. christian missionaries are conspicuous for their lofty ideals, their personal devotion to an unselfish task, their persistent optimism, and their unswerving adherence to the programme marked out by the pioneers of the movement. it is no argument against them that they have not accomplished all that a few enthusiasts expected of them in a few years. to socialize and christianize half the people of the world is the task of centuries. with broad statesmanship missionary leaders have undertaken to do both of these. mistakes in method or detail of operation do not invalidate the whole enterprise, and all criticism must keep in mind the noble purpose to lift to a higher level the social, moral, and religious ideas and practices of the most backward peoples. the purpose is certainly no less laudable than that of a chinese mission to england to persuade great britain to end the opium traffic, or a diplomatic mission from the united states to stop civil strife in mexico. 357. =education as a means to internationalism.=--internationalism rests on the broad basis of the social nature of mankind, a nature that cannot be unsocialized, but can be developed to a higher and more purposeful socialization. as there are degrees of perfection in the excellence of social relations, so there are degrees of obligation resting upon the nations of the world to give of their best to a general levelling up. the dependable means of international socialization is education, whether it comes through the press, the pulpit, or the school. every commission that visits one country from another to learn of its industries, its institutions, and its ideals, is a means to that important end. every exchange professor between european and american universities helps to interpret one country to the other. every chinese, mexican, or filipino youth who attends an american school is borrowing stimulus for his own people. every visitor who does not waste or abuse his opportunities is a unit in the process of improving the acquaintance of east and west, of north and south. internationalism is not a social utopia to be invented in a day; it is rather an attitude of mind and a mode of living that come gradually but with gathering momentum as mutual understanding and sympathy increase. reading references strong: _our world_, pages 3-202. foster: _arbitration and the hague court._ faunce: _social aspects of foreign missions._ maurenbrecker: "the moral and social tasks of world politics," art. in _american journal of sociology_, 6: 307-315. trueblood: _federation of the world_, pages 7-20, 91-149. part vi--social analysis chapter xlv physical and personal factors in the life of society 358. =constant factors in social phenomena.=--our study of social life has made it plain that it is a complex affair, but it has been possible to classify society in certain groups, to follow the gradual extension of relations from small groups to large, and to take note of the numerous activities and interests that enter into contemporary group life. it is now desirable to search for certain common elements that in all periods enter into the life of every group, whether temporary or permanent, so that we may discover the constant factors and the general principles that belong to the science of society. some of these have been referred to already among the characteristics of social life, but in this connection it is useful to classify them for closer examination. first among these is the physical factor which conditions human activity but is not a compelling force, for man has often subdued his environment when it has put obstacles in his way. this physical element includes the geographical conditions of mountain, valley, or seashore, the climate and the weather, the food and water supply, the physical inheritance of the individual and the laws that control physical development, and the physical constitution of the group. a second factor is the psychic nature of human beings and the psychical interaction that goes on between individuals within the group and that produces reactions between groups. 359. =the natural environment.=--the early sociologists put the emphasis on the physical more than the psychic factors, and especially on biological analogies in society. it seemed to them as if it was nature that brought men together. mountains and ice-bound regions were inhospitable, impassable rivers and trackless forests limited the range of animals and men, violent storms and temperature changes made men afraid. avoiding these dangers and seeking a food-supply where it was most plentiful, human beings met in the favored localities and learned by experience the principles of association. everywhere man is still in contact with physical forces. he has not yet learned to get along without the products of the earth, extracting food-supplies from the soil, gathering the fruits that nature provides, and mining the useful and precious metals. the city-dweller seems less dependent on nature than is the farmer, but the urban citizen relies on steam and electricity to turn the wheels of industry and transportation, depends on coal and gas for heat and light, and uses winter's harvest of ice to relieve the oppressive heat of summer. rivers and seas are highways of his commerce. everywhere man seems hedged about by physical forces and physical laws. yet with the prerogative of civilization he has become master rather than servant of nature. he has improved wild fruits and vegetables by cultivation, he has domesticated wild animals, he has harnessed the water of the streams and the winds of heaven. he has tunnelled the mountains, bridged the rivers, and laid his cables beneath the ocean. he has learned to ride over land and sea and even to skim along the currents of the air. he has been able to discover the chemical elements that permeate matter and the nature and laws of physical forces. by numerous inventions he has made use of the materials and powers of nature. the physical universe is a challenge to human wits, a stimulus to thought and activity that shall result in the wonderful achievements of civilization. 360. =the human physique.=--another element that enters into every calculation of success or failure in human life is the physical constitution of the individual and the group. the individual's physique makes a great difference in his comfort and activity. the corpulent person finds it difficult to get about with ease, the cripple finds himself debarred from certain occupations, the person with weak lungs must shun certain climates and as far as possible must avoid indoor pursuits. by their power of ingenuity or by sheer force of will men have been able to overcome physical limitations, but it is necessary to reckon with those limitations, and they are always a handicap. the physical endowment of a race has been a deciding factor in certain times of crisis. the physical prowess of the anakim kept back the timid israelites from their intended conquest of canaan until a more hardy generation had arisen among the invaders; the sturdy germans won the lands of the roman empire in the west from the degenerate provincials; powerful vikings swept the western seas and struck such terror into the peaceful saxons that they cried out: "from the fury of the northmen, good lord, deliver us." 361. =biological analogies.=--the physical factor in society received emphasis the more because society itself was thought of as an organism resembling physical organisms and dependent upon similar laws. as a man's physical frame was essential to his activity and limited his energies, so the visible structure of social organization was deemed more important than social activity and function. particularly did the method of evolution that had become so famous in biology appeal to students of sociology as the only satisfactory explanation of social change. the study of animal evolution made it clear that heredity and environment played a large part in the development of animal life, and darwin pointed out that progress came by the elimination of those individuals and species least fitted to survive in the struggle for existence and the perpetuation of those that best adapted themselves to environment. it was easy to find social analogies and to reach the conclusion that in the same way individuals and groups were creatures of heredity and environment, and the all-important task of society was to conform itself to environment. of course, history disproved the universality of such a law, for more than once a race has risen above its environment or altered it, but it seemed a satisfactory working principle. biological analogies, however, were overemphasized. it was a gain to know the workings of race traits and the relation of the individual to his ancestry, but to excuse crime on the ground of racial degeneracy or to despise a race and believe that none of its members can excel because it is conspicuous for certain race weaknesses has been unfortunate. similarly there was advantage in remembering that environment is either a great help or a great hindrance to social progress, but it would be a social calamity to believe in a physical determinism that leaves to human beings no choice as to their manner of life. the important truth to keep in mind is that man and environment must be adapted to each other, but it often proves better to adapt environment to man than to force man into conformity to environment. it is the growing independence of environment through his own intellectual powers that has given to civilized man his ascendancy in the world. it is a mistake, also, to think that a struggle for existence is the only means of survival. as in the animal world, there comes a time in the process of evolution when the struggle for selfish existence becomes subordinated to effort to preserve the life of the young or to help the group by the sacrifice of the individual self, so in society it is reasonable to believe that the selfish struggle of individuals will give way by degrees to purposeful effort for social welfare, and that the solidarity of the group rather than the interest of the individual will seem the highest good. then the group will care for the weak, and all will gain from the strength and prosperity of the whole. 362. =the importance of the individual.=--while it is true that individual interests are bound up with the prosperity of the group, and that the food that he eats, the clothes that he wears, and the money that he handles and uses are all his because social industry prevails, there is some danger of overlooking the importance of the individual. though he does not exist alone, the individual with his distinctive personality is the unit of society. without individuals there would be no society, without the action of the individual mind there would be no action of the social mind, without individual leadership there would be little order or progress. the single cell that made up the lowest forms of animal life is still the unit of that complex thing that we call the human body, and the well-being of the single cell is essential to the health and even the existence of the whole body; so the single human being is fundamental to the existence and health of the social body. no analysis of society is at all complete that does not include a study of the individual man. 363. =the psychology of the individual.=--self-examination during the course of a single day helps to explain the life forces that act upon other individuals now and that have forged human history. in such study of self it soon becomes apparent to the student that the physical factor is subordinate to the psychic, but that they are connected. as soon as he wakes in the morning his mental processes are at work. something has called back his consciousness from sleep. the light shining in at his window, the bell calling him to meet the day's schedule, the odor of food cooking in the kitchen, are physical stimuli calling out the response of his sense-perceptions; his mind begins at once to associate these impressions and to react upon his will until he gets out of bed and proceeds to prepare himself for the day. these processes of sensation, association, and volition constitute the simple basis of individual life upon which the complex structure of an active personality is built. the individual will is moved to activity by many agencies. there is first the instinct. as a person inherits physical traits from his ancestors, so he gets certain mental traits. the demand for food is the cry of the instinct for self-preservation. the grimace of the infant in response to the mother's smile is an expression of the instinct for imitation. the reaching out of its hand to grasp the sunshine is in obedience to the instinct for acquisition. all human association is due primarily to the instinct for sociability. these instincts are inborn. they cannot be eradicated, but they can be modified and controlled. obedience to these native instincts produces fixed habits. these are not native but acquired, and so are not transmitted to posterity, in the belief of most scientists, but they are powerful factors in individual conduct. the individual early in the morning is hungry, and the appetite for food recurs at intervals through the day; it becomes a habit to go at certain hours where he may obtain satisfaction. so it is with many activities throughout the day. instincts and habits produce impulses. the savage eats as often as he feels like it, if he can find berries or fruit or bring down game; impulse alone governs his conduct. but two other elements enter in to modify impulse, as experience teaches wisdom. the self-indulgent man remembers after a little that indulgence of impulse has resulted sometimes in pain rather than satisfaction, and his imagination pictures a recurrence of the unhappy experience. feeling becomes a guide to regulate impulse. feeling in turn compels thought. presently the individual who is going through the civilizing process formulates a resolve and a theory, a resolve to eat at regular times and to abstain from foods that injure him, a theory that intelligent restraint is better than unregulated indulgence. in a similar way the individual acts with reference to selecting his environment. instinct and habit act conservatively, impelling the individual to remain in the place where he was born and reared, and to follow the occupation of his father. but he feels the discomforts of the climate or the restrictions of his particular environment, he thinks about it, bringing to bear all the knowledge that he possesses, and he makes his choice between going elsewhere or modifying his present environment. discovery and invention are both products of such choices as these. 364. =desires and interests.=--these complexes of thinking, feeling, and willing make up the conscious desires and interests that mould the individual life. through the processes of attention to the stimuli that act upon human nature, discrimination between them, association of impressions and ideas that come from present and past experience, and deliberate judgments of value, the mind moves to action for the satisfaction of personal desires and interests. these desires and interests have been classified in various ways. for our present purpose it is useful to classify them as those that centre in the self, and those that centre in others beyond the self. the primitive desires to get food and drink, to mate, and to engage in muscular activity, all look toward the self-satisfaction which comes from their indulgence. there are various acquired interests that likewise centre in the self. the individual goes to college for the social pleasure that he anticipates, for intellectual satisfaction, or to equip himself with a training that will enable him to win success in the competition of business. in the larger society outside of college the art-lover gathers about him many treasures for his own æsthetic delight, the politician exerts himself for the attainment of power and position, the religious devotee hopes for personal favors from the unseen powers. these are on different planes of value, they are estimated differently by different persons, but they all centre in the individual, and if society benefits it is only indirectly or accidentally. as the individual rises in the scale of social intelligence, his interests become less self-centred, and as he extends his acquaintance and associations the scope of his interests enlarges. he begins to act with reference to the effect of his actions upon others. he sacrifices his own convenience for his roommate; he restrains his self-indulgence for the sake of the family that he might disgrace; he exerts himself in athletic prowess for the honor of the college to which he belongs; he is willing to risk his life on the battle-field in defense of the nation of which he is a citizen; he consecrates his life to missionary or scientific endeavor in a far land for the sake of humanity's gain. these are the social interests that dominate his activity. mankind has risen from the brute by the process that leads the individual up from the low level of life moulded by primitive desires to the high plane of a life directed by the broad interests of society at large. it is the task of education to reveal this process, and to provide the stimuli that are needed for its continuance. 365. =personality.=--no two persons are actuated alike in daily conduct. the pull of their individual desires is not the same, the influence of the various social interests is not in the same proportion. the situation is complicated by hereditary tendencies, and by physical and social environment. consequently every human being possesses his own distinctive individuality or personality. variations of personality can be classified and various persons resemble each other so much that types of personality are distinguished. thus we distinguish between weak personality and forceful personality, according to the strength of individuation, a narrow or a broad personality according as interests are few and selfish or broadly social, a fixed or a changing personality according to conservatism or unsettled disposition. personality is a distinction not always appreciated, a distinction that separates man from the brute because of his self-consciousness and power of self-direction by rational processes, and relieves him from the dead level that would exist in society if every individual were made after the same pattern. it is the secret of social as well as individual progress, for it is a great personality that sways the group. it is the great boon of present life and the great promise of continued life hereafter. reading references ross: _foundations of sociology_, pages 165-181. ellwood: _sociology in its psychological aspects_, pages 94-123. dealey: _sociology_, pages 96-98, 200-230. nearing and watson: _economics_, pages 60-98. darwin: _descent of man_, chap. xxi. drummond: _ascent of man_, pages 41-57, 189-266. giddings: _inductive sociology_, pages 249-278. chapter xlvi social psychic factors 366. =the social mind.=--as individual life is compounded of many psychic elements that make up one mind, so the life of every group involves various factors of a psychic nature that constitute the social mind. the social mind does not exist apart from individual minds, but it is nevertheless real. when emotional excitement stirs a mob to action, the unity of feeling is evidence of a social mind. when a congregation recites a creed of the church the unity of belief shows the existence of a social mind. when a political land-slide occurs on the occasion of a presidential election in the united states, the unity of will expresses the social mind. the emotional phase is temporary, public opinion changes more slowly; all the time the social mind is gaining experience and learning wisdom, as does the individual. social consciousness, which at first is slight, increases gradually, until it fructifies in social purpose which results in achievement. history is full of illustrations of such development. 367. =how the social mind is formed.=--the formation of this social mind and its subsequent workings may be illustrated from a common occurrence in frontier history. imagine three hunters meeting for the first time around a camp-fire, and analyze their mental processes. the first man was tired and hungry and camped to rest and eat. the second happened to come upon the camp just as a storm was breaking, saw the smoke of the fire, and turned aside for its comfort. the third picked up the trail of the second and followed it to find companionship. each obeying a primal instinct and conscious of his kind, came into association with others, and thus by the process of aggregation a temporary group was formed. sitting about the fire, each lighted his pipe in imitation of one another; they communicated with one another in language familiar to all; one became drowsy and the others yielded to the suggestion to sleep. waking in the morning, they continued their conversation, and in sympathy with a common purpose and in recognition of the advantages of association, they decided to keep together for the remainder of the hunt. thus was constituted the group or social mind. with the consciousness that they were congenial spirits and shared a common purpose, each was willing to sacrifice some of his own habits and preferences in the interest of the group. one man might prefer bacon and coffee for breakfast, while a second wished tea; one might wish to break camp at sunrise, another an hour later; each subordinated his own desires for the greater satisfaction of camp comradeship. the strongest personality in the group is the determining factor in forming the habits of the group, though it may be an unconscious leadership. the mind of the group is not the same as that of the leader, for the mutual mental interaction produces changes in all, but it approaches most nearly to his mind. 368. =social habits.=--by such processes of aggregation, communication, imitation, and association, individuals learn from one another and come to constitute a like-minded group. sometimes it is a genetic group like the family, sometimes an artificial group like a band of huntsmen; in either case the group is held together by a psychic unity and comes to have its peculiar group characteristics. fixed ways of thinking and acting are revealed. social habits they may be called, or folk-ways, as some prefer to name them. these habits are quickly learned by the members of the group, and are passed on from generation to generation by imitation or the teaching of tradition. there are numerous conservative forces at work in society. custom crystallizes into law, tradition is fortified by religion, a system of morals develops out of the folk-ways, the group life tends to become static and uniform. 369. =adaptation.=--two influences are continually at work, however, to change social habits--the forces of the natural environment and interaction between different groups. both of these compel adaptation to surroundings if permanence of group life is to be secured. family life in the north country illustrates the working of this principle of adaptation. in the days of settlement there was a partial adaptation to the physical environment. houses were built tight and warm to provide shelter, abundant food was supplied from the farm, on which men toiled long hours to make a living, homespun clothing was manufactured to protect against the rigors of winter, but ignorance and lack of sufficient means prevented complete adaptation, and society was punished for its failure to complete the adaptation. climate was severe and the laws of health were not fully worked out or observed, therefore few children lived to maturity, although the birth-rate was high. economic success came only as the reward of patient and unremitting toil, the shiftless family failed in the struggle for existence. tradition taught certain agricultural methods, but diminishing returns threatened poverty, unless methods were better adapted to soil and climate. thus the people were forced slowly to improve their methods and their manner of living to conform to what nature demanded. no less powerful is the influence of the social environment. the authority of custom or government tends to make every family conform to certain methods of building a house, cooking food, cultivating land, selling crops, paying taxes, voting for local officials, but let one family change its habits and prove conclusively that it has improved on the old ways, and it is only a question of time when others will adapt themselves better to the situation that environs them. the countryman takes a city daily and notes the weather indications and the state of the market, he installs a rural telephone and is able to make contracts for his crops by long-distance conversation, he buys an improved piece of machinery for cultivating the farm, a gasolene engine, or a motor-wagon for quick delivery of produce; presently his neighbors discover that he is adapting himself more effectually to his environment than they are, and one by one they imitate him in adopting the new methods. by and by the community becomes known for its progressiveness, and it is imitated by neighboring communities. this process of social adaptation is a mental process more or less definite. a particular family may not consciously follow a definite plan for improved adaptation, but little by little it alters its ways, until in the course of two or three generations it has changed the circumstances and habits that characterized the ancestral group. in that case the change is slow. certain families may definitely determine to modify their habits, and within a few years accomplish a telic change. in either case there are constantly going on the processes of observation, discrimination, and decision, due to the impact of mind upon mind, both within and outside of the group, until mental reactions are moving through channels that are different from the old. 370. =genetic progress.=--the modification of folk-ways in the interest of better adaptation to environment constitutes progress. such modification is caused by the action of various mental stimuli. the people of a hill village for generations have been contented with poor roads and rough side-paths, along which they find an uneasy way by the glimmer of a lantern at night. they are unaccustomed to sanitary conveniences in their houses or to ample heating arrangements or ventilation in school or church. they have thought little about these things, and if they wished to make improvements they would be handicapped by small numbers and lack of wealth. but after a time there comes an influx of summer visitors; some of them purchase property and take up their permanent residence in the village. they have been accustomed to conveniences; in other words, to a more complete adaptation to environment; they demand local improvements and are willing to help pay for them. more money can be raised for taxation, and when public opinion has crystallized so that social action is possible, the progressive steps are taken. what takes place thus in a small way locally is typical of what is going on continually in all parts of the world. accumulating wealth and increasing knowledge of the good things of the city make country people emigrate or provide themselves with a share of the good things at home. the influence of an enthusiastic individual or group who takes the lead in better schools, better housing, or better government is improving the cities. the growing cosmopolitanism of all peoples and their adoption of the best that each has achieved is being produced by commerce, migration, and "contact and cross-fertilization of cultures." 371. =telic progress.=--most social progress has come without the full realization of the significance of the gradual changes that were taking place. few if any individuals saw the end from the beginning. they are for the most part silent forces that have been modifying the folk-ways in europe and america. there has been little conception of social obligation or social ideals, little more than a blind obedience to the stimuli that pressed upon the individual and the group. but with the awakening of the social consciousness and a quickening of the social conscience has come telic progress. there is purpose now in the action of associations and method in the enactments of legislatures and the acts of administrative officers. there are plans and programmes for all sorts of improvements that await only the proper means and the sanction of public opinion for their realization. like a runner poised for a dash of speed, society seems to be on the eve of new achievement in the direction of progress. 372. =means of social progress.=--there are three distinct means of telic progress. society may be lifted to a higher level by compulsion, as a huge crane lifts a heavy girder to the place it is to occupy in the construction of a great building. a prohibitory law that forbids the erection of unhealthy tenements throughout the cities of a state or nation is a distinctly progressive step, compulsory in its nature. or the group may be moved by persuasion. a board of conciliation may persuade conflicting industrial groups to adjust their differences by peaceful methods, and thus inaugurate an ethical movement in industry greatly to the advantage of all parties. or progress may be achieved by the slow process of education. the average church has been accustomed to conceive of its functions as pertaining to the individual rather than to the whole social order. it cannot be compelled to change by governmental action, for the church is free and democratic in america. it cannot easily be persuaded to change its methods in favor of a social programme. by the slower process of training the young people it can and does gradually broaden its activities and make itself more efficiently useful to the community in which it finds its place. 373. =criticism as a means of social education.=--education is not confined to the training of the schools. it is a continuous process going on through the life of the individual or the group. it is the intellectual process by which the mind is focussed on one problem after another that rises above the horizon of experience and uses its powers to improve the adaptation now existing between the situation and the person or the group. the educational process is complex. there must be first the incitement to thought. most effective in this direction is criticism. if the roads are such a handicap to the comfort and safety of travel that there is caustic criticism at the next town meeting, public opinion begins to set definitely in the direction of improvement. if city government is corrupt and the tax rate mounts steadily without corresponding benefits to the taxpayers, the newspapers call the attention of citizens to the fact, and they begin to consider a change of administration. criticism is the knife that cuts to the roots of social disease, and through the infliction of temporary pain effects a cure. criticism has started many a reform in church and state. the presence of the critic in any group is an irritant that provokes to progressive action. 374. =discussion.=--criticism leads to discussion. there is sure to be a conflict of ideas in every group. conservative and progressive contend with each other; sometimes it is a matter of belief, sometimes of practice. knots of individuals talk matters over, leaders debate on the public platform, newspapers take part on one side or the other. in this way national policies are determined, first by congress or parliament, and then by the constituents of the legislators. freedom of discussion is regarded as one of the safeguards of popular government. if social conduct should be analyzed on a large scale it would be found that discussion is a constant factor. in every business deal there is discussion of the pros and cons of the proposition, in every case that comes before the courts there are arguments made on both sides, in the maintenance of every social institution that costs money there is a consideration of its worth. even if the discussion does not find voice, the human intellect debates the question in its silent halls. so universal is the practice of discussion and so prized is the privilege that this is sometimes called the age of discussion. 375. =decision.=--determination of action follows criticism and discussion in the group, as volition follows thinking in the case of the individual. one hundred years ago college education was classical. in the time of the renaissance and the reformation a revival of interest in the classics produced a reaction against mediævalism, and in time fastened a curriculum upon the universities that was composed mainly of the ancient languages, mathematics, and a deductive philosophy and theology. in the nineteenth century there began a criticism of the classical curriculum. it was declared that such a course of study was narrow and antiquated, that new subjects, such as history, the modern languages, and the sciences were better worth attention, and presently it was argued that a person could not be truly educated until he knew his own times by the study of sociology, politics, economics, and other social sciences. of course, there was earnest resentment of such criticism, and discussion ensued. the argument for the plaintiff seemed to be well sustained, and one by one the governing boards of the colleges decided to admit new studies to the curriculum, at first grudgingly and then generously, until classical education has become relatively unpopular. public opinion has accepted the verdict, and many schools have gone so far as to make vocational education supplant numerous academic courses. similarly criticism, discussion, and change of front have occurred in political theories, in the attitude of theologians to science, in the practice of medicine, and even in methods of athletic training. criticism and discussion, therefore, instead of being deprecated, ought to be welcome everywhere. without them society stagnates, the intellect grows rusty, and prejudice takes the place of rational thought and volition. feeling is bottled up and is likely to ferment until it bursts its confinement and spreads havoc around like a volcano. free speech and a free press are safety-valves of democracy, the sure hope of progress throughout society. 376. =socialized education.=--a second step in the educational process is incitement to action. as criticism and discussion are necessary to stimulate thought, so knowledge and conviction are essential to action. the educational system that is familiar is individualistic in type because it emphasizes individual achievement, and is based on the conviction that individual success is of greatest consequence in life. there is increasing demand for a socialized education which will have as its foundation a body of sociological information that will teach individuals their social relations, a fund of ideas that will be bequeathed from generation to generation as the finest heritage, and a system of social ethics that will produce a conviction of social obligation. the will to do good is the most effective factor that plays a part in social life. this socializing education has its place in the school grades, properly becomes a major subject of study in the higher schools, and ideally belongs to every scheme of continued education in later life. the social sciences seem likely to vie with the physical sciences, if not eventually to surpass them as the most important department of human knowledge, for while the physical sciences unlock the mysteries of the natural world the social sciences hold the key to the meaning of ideal human life. reading references ellwood: _sociology in its psychological aspects_, pages 329-340. giddings: _principles of sociology_, pages 132-152, 376-399. giddings: _descriptive and historical sociology_, pages 124-185. cooley: _social organization_, pages 3-22. ward: _psychic factors of civilization_, pages 291-312. blackmar and gillin: _outlines of sociology_, pages 329-348. dealey: _sociology_, pages 67-68, 84-87, 243-257. ellwood: _sociology and modern social problems_, revised edition, pages 354-367. chapter xlvii social theories 377. =theories of social order and efficiency.=--out of social experience and social study have emerged certain theories of social order and efficiency which have received marked attention and which to-day are supported by cogent arguments. these theories fall under the three following heads: (1) those theories that make social order and efficiency dependent upon the control of external authority; (2) those theories that trust to the force of public opinion trained by social education; (3) those theories that regard self-control coming through the development of personality as the one essential for a better social order. 378. =external authority in history.=--the first theory rests its case on the facts of history. certain social institutions like the family, the state, and the church have thrown restraint about the individual, and when this restraint is removed he tends to run amuck. from the beginning the family was the unit of the social order, and the authority of its head was the source of wisdom. self-control was not a substitute for paternal discipline, but was a fact only in presence of the dread of paternal discipline. the idea of absolute authority passed over into the state, and absolutism was the theory of efficiency in the ancient state, down to the fall of the roman empire in the west. it was a theory that made slavery possible. it strengthened the position of the high priest of every religious cult, created the thought of the kingdom of god and moulded the christian creeds, and made possible the mediæval papacy. it has been the fundamental principle of all monarchical government. it has remained a royal theory in eastern europe and asia until our own day, and survives in the political notion of the right of the strongest and in the business principle that capital must control the industrial system if prosperity and efficiency are to endure. irresponsible absolutism has been giving way slowly to paternalism. this showed itself first in a growing conviction that kings owed it to their subjects to rule well. certain enlightened monarchs consulted the interests of the people and, relying on their own wisdom, instituted measures of reform. this type of paternalism was not successful, but it has been imitated by modern states, even republics like the united states, in various paternalistic measures of economic and social regulation. those who hold the theory that external authority is necessary have been urgent in calling for the regulation of railroads, of trusts, and of combinations of labor, until some have felt that the authority of representative democracy bore more heavily than the authority of monarchy. it is the principle of those who favor government regulation that only by governmental restraint can free competition continue, and everybody be assured of a square deal; their opponents argue that such restraint throttles ambition and is destructive of the highest efficiency that comes as a survival of the fittest in the economic struggle. 379. =socialism.=--socialism is a third variety of the theory that social order and efficiency depend on external authority. socialists aim at improving the social welfare by the collective control of industry. while the advocates of government regulation give their main attention to problems of production, the socialists emphasize the importance of the proper distribution of products to the consumers, and would exercise authority in the partition of the rewards of labor. they propose that collective ownership of the means of production take the place of private ownership, that industry be managed by representatives of the people, that products be distributed on some just basis yet to be devised by the people. all that will be left to them as individuals will be the right to consume and the possession of material things not essential to the socialistic economy. certain socialist theories go farther than this, but this is the essence of socialism. socialists vary, also, as to the use of revolutionary or evolutionary means of obtaining their ends. the main objections that are made to the theory of socialism are: (1) that it is contrary to nature, which develops character and progress through struggle; (2) that private property is a natural right, and that it would be unjust to deprive individuals of what they have secured through thrift and foresight, even in the interest of the whole of society; (3) that an equitable distribution of wealth would be impossible in any arbitrary division; (4) that no government can possibly conduct successfully such huge enterprises as would fall to it; (5) that socialism would destroy private incentive and enterprise by taking away the individual rewards of effort; (6) that a socialistic régime would be as unendurable an interference with individual liberty as any absolutist or paternal government that the past has seen. 380. =educated public opinion.=--the second group of theorists is composed of those who would get rid of prohibitions and regulations as far as possible, and trust to the force of an educated public opinion to maintain a high level of social order and efficiency. it is a part of the theory that constraint exercised by a government established by law marks a stage of lower social development than restraint exercised by the force of public opinion. but it must be an educated public opinion, trained to appreciate the importance of society and its claims upon the individual, to function rationally instead of impulsively, and to seek the methods that will be most useful and least expensive for the social body. this training of public opinion is the task of the school first and then of the press, the pulpit, and the public forum. public and private commissions, organized and maintained to furnish information and suggest better methods, make useful contributions; public reports, if presented intelligibly, impartially, and concisely, are among the helpful instruments of instruction; reform pamphlets will again perform valuable service, as they have in past days of moral and social intensity; but it is especially through the newspapers and the forums for public discussion that the social thinker can best reach his audience, and through these means that commission reports can best be brought to the attention of the people. it may very likely be necessary that press and platform be subsidized either by government or by private endowment to do this work of social training. 381. =individualism.=--the third group of theorists rejects all varieties of external control as of secondary value, and has no faith in the working of public opinion, however well educated, unless the character of the individuals that make up the group is what it should be. these theorists regard self-control coming through the development of personal worth as the one essential for a better social order. this individualist theory is held by those who are still in bondage to the individualism that has characterized social thinking in the last four hundred years. there is much in the history of that period that justifies faith in the worth of the individual. along the lines of material progress, especially, the individualist has made good. looking upon what has been achieved the modern democrat expects further improvement in society through individual betterment. the arguments in defense of the individualist theory are: (1) that natural science has proved that social development is achieved only through individual competition, and that the best man wins; (2) that experience has shown that progress has been most rapid where the individual has had largest scope; (3) that it is the teaching of christian ethics that the individual must work out the salvation of his own character, must learn by experience how to gain self-reliance and strength of will, and so has the right to fashion his own course of conduct. 382. =the development of personal worth.=--it is evident, however, that the usefulness of the individual, both to himself and to others, depends on his personal worth. the self-controlled man is the man of personal worth, but self-control is not easy to secure. defendants of the first two theories may admit that self-control is an ideal, but they claim that in the progress of society it must follow, not antedate, external authority and the cultivation of public opinion, and that time is not yet come. only the few can be trusted yet to follow their best judgment on all occasions, to be on the alert to maintain in themselves and others highest efficiency. human nature is slowly in the making. one by one men and women rise to higher levels; social regeneration must therefore wait on individual regeneration. seeing the need of a dynamic that will create personal worth, the individualist has turned to religion and preached a doctrine of personal salvation. he has seen what religion has done to transform character, and he believes with confidence that it and it alone can create social salvation if we give it time. at the present time there is an increasing number of social thinkers who regard each of these three theories as containing elements of value, but believe that there is something beyond them that is necessary to the highest efficiency. they consider that external authority has been necessary, and look upon a strong centralized government with power to create social efficiency as essential, but they expect that an increasing social consciousness will make the exercise of authority gradually less necessary. they have great confidence in trained public opinion, but do not forget that opinion must be vitalized by a strong motive, and mere education does not readily supply the motive. they look for a time when individual worth will be greater than now, and they recognize religion as a powerful dynamic in the building of character, but they regard religion as turned inward too much upon the individual. they would develop individual character for the sake of society, and make a socialized religion the motive power to vitalize public opinion so that it shall function with increasing efficiency. a socialized religion supplies a principle, a method, and a power. the hebrew prophets and jesus laid down the principle that there is a solidarity of interests to which the claims of the individual must be subordinate and must be sacrificed on occasion. the prophets and jesus taught a method of experimentation, calling upon the people whom they addressed to test the principle and see if it worked. the prophets and jesus showed that power comes in the will to do and in actual obedience to the principle. they looked for an improved social system reared on this basis which would be a real "kingdom of god," not merely the economic commonwealth of the socialist, but a commonwealth governed by the principle of consecration to the social welfare, spiritual as well as physical. 383. =social ideals.=--at the basis of every theory lies the individual with social relations. to socialize him external authority is the primitive agent. this authority may give way in time to the restraint of public opinion made intelligent by a socialized education, but effective public opinion is dependent on the development of personal worth in the individual. the most powerful dynamic for such development and for social welfare in general is a socialized religion. if all this be true, what is it that comprises social welfare? in a word, it is the efficient functioning of every social group. the family, the community, the nation, and every minor group, will serve effectually the economic, cultural, social, and spiritual needs of the individuals of whom it is composed. perfect functioning can follow only after a long period of progress. such progress is the ideal that society sets for itself. in that process there must be full recognition of all the factors that enter into social life. there is the individual with his rights and obligations, who must be protected and encouraged to grow. there are the institutions like the family, the church, and the state that must receive recognition and maintenance. there must be liberty for each group to function freely without arbitrary interference, as long as its privileges and acts do not interfere with the public good. ideal social control is to be exercised by an enlightened and self-restrained public opinion energized by a socialized religion. all improvements must not be looked for in a moment, but can come only slowly and by frequent testing if they are to be permanently accepted. the system that would result would be neither absolutist, socialistic, nor individualistic, but would contain the best elements of all. it would not be forced upon a people, but would be worked out slowly by education and experiment. social institutions would not be tyrannous but helpful, and human happiness would be materially increased. reading references ellwood: _sociology in its psychological aspects_, pages 352-381. nearing and watson: _economics_, pages 443-493. blackmar and gillin: _outlines of sociology_, pages 373-392. dealey: _sociology_, pages 351-361. skelton: _socialism_, pages 16-61. carnegie: _problems of to-day_, pages 121-139. chapter xlviii the science of sociology 384. =sociology vs. social philosophy.=--sociology is one of the recent sciences. it had to wait for the scientific method of exact investigation and the scientific principle of forming conclusions upon abundant data. naturally, theories of society were held long before any science came into existence, but they were of value only as philosophizing. some of these theories were published and attracted the attention of thoughtful persons, but they did not affect social life. some of them developed into philosophies of history, based on the preconceived ideas of their authors. now and then in the first part of the nineteenth century certain social experiments were made in the form of co-operative communities, which it was fondly hoped would become practical methods for a better social order, but they almost uniformly failed because they were artificial rather than of natural growth, and because they were based on principles that public opinion had not yet sanctioned. the story of the predecessors of modern sociology naturally is preliminary to the history of sociology itself. 385. =philosophers and prophets.=--two classes of men in ancient time worked on the problems of society, one from the practical standpoint, the other from the philosophic. one group of names includes the great statesmen and lawgivers, like moses, who laid the foundations of the hebrew nation and gave it the nucleus of a legal system; solon and lycurgus, traditional lawgivers of athens and sparta, and several of the earlier kings and later emperors of rome. the other group is composed of men who thought much about human life and disseminated their opinions by writing and teaching. for the most part they were idealistic philosophers, but their influence was far-reaching in time. in the list belong plato, who in his _republic_ outlined an ideal society that was the prototype of later fanciful commonwealths; aristotle, who made a real contribution to political science in his _politics_; cicero, who himself participated actively in government and wrote out his theories or spoke them in public, and augustine, who gave his conception of a christian state in the _city of god_. during the period when ancient ways were giving place to modern, and a transition was taking place in the realm of ideas, thomas more, in his _utopia_, and campanella in his _city of the sun_, published their conceptions of an ideal state, while machiavelli took society as it was, and in his _prince_ suggested how it might be governed better. these are all evidences that there was dissatisfaction with existing systems, but no unanimity of opinion as to possible improvements. later theories were no more satisfactory. the french revolutionary philosophers, especially rousseau, with his theory of voluntary social contract, and the utopian dreamers who followed, were longing for justice and political efficiency, but their theories seem crude and visionary from the point of view of the social science of the present day. 386. =experimenting with society.=--robert owen in england and fourier and saint-simon in france were prophets of an ideal order which they tried to establish. believing that all men were intended to be happy, and that happiness depended on a reorganization of the social environment in which property should be socialized, at least in part, they organized volunteers into model communities, expecting that their success would attract men everywhere to imitate the new organization. the arrangement of industry was planned in detail, a co-operative system was organized that would keep every man busy at useful labor without working him too hard, would take away the profits of the middleman by a well-planned system of distribution, and would allow liberty in social relations as far as consistent with the general good, but would subordinate the individual to the community. certain of the utopians thought that it would be necessary for the state to determine the minutiæ of daily life, and for a few directors to prescribe activities, and they introduced a uniformity in dress, food, and houses that savored of the old-fashioned orphan asylum. these features, together with the failure to understand that social institutions could not be made to order, and that human nature was not of such quality as to make an ideal commonwealth at once actual, soon wrecked these utopian schemes and brought to an end the first period of socialistic experiments. 387. =biological sociologists.=--not a few writers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, before sociology was born, recognized the need and the possibility of a true science of society. scholars were studying and writing upon other sciences that are related to sociology--biology, history, economics, and politics. scientific information about the various races of mankind was accumulating. at length auguste comte, a frenchman, found a place for sociology among the sciences and declared it to be the highest of them all. in 1842 he completed the publication of the _positive philosophy_, in which he maintained that human society is an organism similar to biological organisms, and that its activities can be systematized and generalizations be deduced therefrom for the formation of a true science. in his _descriptive sociology_ and later works herbert spencer in england amplified the theory of comte and arranged a mass of facts as evidence of its truth. he put too much emphasis on biological resemblances in the opinion of present-day sociologists, but his emphasis on inductive study and his generalizations from biology were important contributions to the development of the new science. 388. =psychological sociologists.=--comte and spencer were followed by other biological sociologists whose names are well known to students of the science. interest was aroused in great britain, on the continent of europe, and in america. students were influenced by conclusions that were being reached in biology, in economics, and in other allied departments of thought, but the one science which became most prominent to the minds of sociologists was psychology. ward's _dynamic sociology_, published in 1883, marked an epoch, because it called special attention to the psychic factors that enter into social life. after him it became increasingly clear that the true social forces were psychic, though physical conditions affected social progress. a younger school of sociologists has come into existence, and the science is being developed on that basis. more than one individual thinker has made his special contribution, and there is still a variety of opinion on details, but the general principles of the science are being worked out in substantial agreement. it is not to be expected that such a complex and comprehensive science could be completed in its short history of approximately half a century, or that it can ever be made exact, like mathematics or the natural sciences, but there is every reason to expect the development of a body of classified facts that will be of inestimable value in attacking social problems, and of principles that will serve as a guide through the labyrinth of social life. the value of any science is not in the perfection of its system, but in the practical application which can be made of it to human progress. 389. =relation of sociology to the natural sciences.=--sociology has relations to an outer circle of general sciences and to an inner circle of social sciences. it is itself but one of the social sciences, though it is regarded as chief among them. man looks out upon the universe, of which he is but an atom, and asks questions. astronomy brings to him the findings of its telescopes and spectrum analyses. geology explains the transformations that have taken place in the earth on which he lives. physics and chemistry analyze its substance and reveal the laws of nature. biology opens up the field of life. psychology investigates the structure and functions of the human mind, and shows that all activity is at base mental. at last the new sociology discloses human life in all its complex relationships, the function of the social mind, and the channels through which it works. since social life is lived in a world where physical and mental factors are constantly in action, there is a close connection between all the sciences. although social life is not so closely similar to animal life as was thought previously, the principles of biology are important to the sociologist because biology is the science of all life. psychology is important because it is the science of all mind. 390. =relations of sociology and other social sciences.=--there are many phases of human experience and differences of relationship. obviously the specific sciences that deal with them have a still closer relation to sociology. economics, for example, has as its field the economic relations and activities that are connected with the business of making a living. the production, distribution, and use of material things is the subject that absorbs the economist. the sociologist makes use of the facts and principles of economics to throw light on the economic functions of society, but the economic field is only one sector of his concern. in a similar way political science is related to sociology. it deals with the organization and development of government and embraces the departments of national and international law, but the governmental function of the social group is but one of the divisions of the interests that absorb the sociologist. he uses the data and conclusions of the political scientists, but in a more general way. it is the same with the sociologist and history. history supplies much of the data of the sociologist from the records of the past. it deals with social life in the concrete, and historical interpretation is essential to an understanding of social phenomena, but sociology takes the past with the present, analyzes both, and generalizes from both as to the laws of the social process. pedagogy deals with the history and principles of education. sociology is interested in the educational function of the family, of the community, and of the nation, but again its interest is from the standpoint of abstraction and generalization. ethics is a science that treats of the right and wrong conduct of human beings. it is very closely associated with sociology, because the valuation of conduct depends on social effects, but the moral functioning of the group is but one phase of social life, and, therefore, ethics is far narrower in its range than sociology. theology, the science of religion, has sociological implications. as far as it is a science and not a philosophy, it rests upon human interest and human experience, and it is becoming increasingly recognized that these human interests depend on social relationships, but all the religious interests of men are but one part of the field of sociology. it is clear that each of the social sciences holds a relation to sociology of the particular to the general. sociology seeks out the laws and principles that unify all the rest. it does not include them all, as does the term social science, but it correlates and interprets them all. it is not the same as philosophy, for that subject has for its field all knowledge, and especially tries to probe to the secrets of all being, and to learn the meaning of the universe as a whole, while sociology is restricted to social life. each has its distinct place among the studies of the human mind, and each should be distinguished carefully from its rivals and associates. 391. =social classification.=--when we enter into the field of sociology itself we find other distinctions to be necessary. the novice frequently confounds similar terms. not infrequently sociology and socialism are used as synonymous terms by persons who know little of either, so that it is necessary to point out that socialism is a particular theory of social organization and functioning, while sociology is the general science that includes all varieties of social theory, along with social fact, and especially is it necessary to explain that any fallacies of socialistic theory do not invalidate well-established conclusions of social science. another common error is to identify sociology with social reform. social pathology is too important a branch of sociology to be omitted or minimized, but it is only one division of the subject, and all measures as well as theories of social reform are only a small part of the concern of sociology. such terms as philanthropy, criminology, and penology all have connection with sociology, but they need to be carefully differentiated from the more general term. sociology itself has been variously classified under the terms pure and applied, static and dynamic, descriptive and theoretical. terms have changed somewhat, as the psychological emphasis has supplanted the biological. it is important that terms should be used correctly and should be sanctioned by custom, but it is not necessary to make sharp distinction between all the different divisions, old and new. classification is a matter of convenience and technic; though it may have a scientific basis, it is entirely a matter of form. there is always danger that a particular classification may become a fetich. it is the life of society that we study, it is the improvement of social relations at which we aim. whatever method best contributes to this end is valid in classification for all except those who delight in science for science's sake. 392. =the permanent place of sociology.=--the study of the science of social life is eminently worth while, for it deals with matters that are of vital importance to the human race and every one of its individual members. for that reason it is likely to receive growing recognition as among the most important subjects with which the human mind can deal. it is vast in its range, exacting in its demand of unremitting investigation and careful generalization, stimulating in its intense practicality. its abstractions require the closest reasoning of the scholar, but its basis in the concrete facts of daily life tends to make it popular. once understood and appreciated, sociology is likely to become the guide-book by which social effort will be directed, and the standard by which it will be measured. as progress becomes in this way more telic it will become more rapid. social life will approach more nearly the norm that sociology describes, but until the day that society ceases to be pathological, sociology will teach a social ideal as a goal toward which society must bend its energies. as human life is the most precious gift that the world bestows, so the science of that life is worthy of being called the gem of the sciences. reading references dealey: _sociology_, pages 19-40. blackmar and gillin: _outlines of sociology_, pages 13-47, 541-564. giddings: _principles of sociology_, pages 3-51. ellwood: _sociology in its psychological aspects_, pages 29-65. ross: _foundations of sociology_, pages 15-28, 256-348. small: _general sociology_, pages 40-97. index achievement, 5, 115, 341. activity, 2-6, 88, 111, 117, 164, 170, 188, 236, 237, 298, 346. adaptation, 31, 234, 333-335, 342, 343, 349-351. administration, 320, 321. adultery, 75-78, 81. æsthetics, 144. aggregation, 348. agricultural clubs, 107, 118. agricultural colleges, 107, 164. agricultural fairs, 107. agriculture, 52, 99, 100, 104, 106, 118. almshouses, 272. american civic federation, 148. american federation of labor, 192. american vigilance association, 85. amusements, 86, 164, 238-240. ancestor-worship, 32. arbitration, 191, 194, 195, 335, 336. art, 283. assimilation, 327. association, 6-9, 17-23, 53, 54, 88, 108, 109, 111, 118, 133, 152, 164, 170, 188, 233, 236, 240, 254, 294, 307, 308, 337, 338, 344-346, 348, 349. athletics, 109, 111, 112, 196, 237, 240, 308, 309. attention, 345, 351. banks, 106, 307. big brother idea, 251. biological analogies, 342, 343. birth-rate, 42. boards of conciliation, 194, 195. boy scouts, 110, 251. boys' clubs, 110. cabinet, 320, 321. camp-fire girls, 112. catholic church, 76, 271, 276. census of marriage and divorce, 35, 74, 77. change, 10-13, 88, 129, 170, 173-176, 189, 236, 351. charity, 242, 267, 271-277. charity organization, 57, 267, 272-276. charter, 257, 260, 261. chautauqua movement, 118, 133, 309. child labor, 49-53, 190, 191, 235. children, 42-59. dependency of, 56-58. relief of, 57, 58. rights of, 42, 48, 53-55. children's aid societies, 58. chinese exclusion act, 329. christianity, 32, 76. church, the, 156-161, 252, 287-293, 310, 311, 338, 353. in the city, 287-293. in the country. see rural church. church charity, 275, 276. church organization, 290-293. city, the, 169 ff., 294-299. attraction of, 171, 172. characteristics of, 169. economic interests in, 180. government of, 256-262. growth of, 170. history of, 177-179. importance of, 176. improvement of, 295-298. in the making, 294-298. manager, 261, 262. neighborhood, 284, 285. opportunities in, 173, 175. classes, 212-218. classification, 370. clubs, 107, 110-112, 116, 118, 133, 134, 148. collective bargaining, 194. college life, 10, 12, 85, 131, 132. commerce, 205, 206, 337. commission government, 260, 261. commissions, 195, 199, 233. communication, 116, 118, 281, 288, 294, 307, 336, 337, 349. community house, 163, 164. community leadership, 164-168. community obligation, 154. competition, 107, 198, 227. conference, 297, 298. conflict, 31, 115, 186, 187, 194, 320, 328, 334, 353. congregational churches, 77. control, 9, 10, 88, 136, 142, 170, 188, 189, 197-199, 203, 208-210, 234, 246, 256, 258, 298, 303, 314, 352, 357, 358. co-operation, 31, 53, 63, 89, 90, 105-107, 129, 130, 198-200, 205, 206, 297, 298, 365. cost of living, 69, 76, 89. country store, 116. court of domestic relations, 79. courts. see judiciary. craft guilds, 182. crime, 75, 84, 90, 154, 228, 235, 240, 242, 244, 246, 248-255. causes of, 248-250. discharge, 253, 254. prevention of, 250-252. punishment, 252-254. reformation, 252, 254. criticism, 353. crowds, 22, 23. cruelty, 48, 49, 75, 77, 78. custom, 139, 152, 334, 349. dance-halls, 82, 84, 238, 240. decision, 351, 354. defectives, 84, 86. degeneracy, 43-46, 218, 219, 228. delinquency, 154. see crime. democracy, 141, 189, 190, 196, 298, 309, 316-319, 327. democracy in industry, 189, 190. department stores, 201, 203. dependency, 56, 57, 271. see charity. desertion, 70, 75, 77, 78, 267. desires, 334, 345-347. difficulties of working people, 263-270. discrimination, 345, 351. discussion, 284-286, 353, 354. division of labor, 62, 125. divorce, 74-80, 88. catholic attitude toward, 76 causes of, 75, 76, 267. difficulty of, 77. history of, 76. in europe, 74-78. laws of, 74-79. protestant attitude toward, 76, 77. remedies for, 78, 79. divorce court, 79. divorce proctor, 79. drama, 283, 284. see theatre. duelling, 194. dynamic society, 2, 10. east, the, 100, 139, 140, 224. economics, 180, 368. education, 55, 120-131, 280, 327, 328, 331, 339, 346, 353-355. agricultural, 124, 127, 128. cultural, 122, 132. industrial, 251, 331. moral and religious, 160, 251, 287, 291. principles of, 120-124. rural, 120-131. vocational, 121, 123, 267, 268, 296. weaknesses of, 123, 124. edwards family, 45, 46. elberfeld system, 275. election, 317, 318. employers' liability, 191, 192. environment, 25, 26, 40, 47, 48, 99, 100, 105, 121, 125, 169, 235, 248, 327, 334, 340-343, 345, 350, 351. erdman act, 195. ethics, 202, 368. eugenics, 43-47, 90. euthenics, 47, 48. evangelical alliance, 311. evangelism, 288, 289. evolution, 342, 343. exchange, 64, 201-203. executive, 320, 321. experimentation, 128, 187. factory life, 188. factory system, 51, 182-184. family, 24 f., 88-90. changes in, 65, 67-69, 76. functions of, 26, 27, 88. history of, 29-33. mediæval, 33, 37-39. on the farm, 25, 26, 64, 65, 350. reform, 88-90. roman, 32, 37. study of, 24. urban, 68. farmers' institute, 118. farmers' union, 117. federal council of churches, 77, 310, 311. federation, 334, 335. feeble-mindedness, 44, 84. feeling, 344, 345, 355. feminism, 71, 72. folk-ways. see social habits. forum, 284-286, 360. friendly visiting, 274. galveston plan, 260, 261. gambling, 153, 235, 239. gangs, 22, 109-111. germans, 223, 259, 260, 269, 322, 335. girls' clubs, in, 111, 112. government, 136-143, 195, 208, 256-262, 313-327. city, 256-262. national, 313-323. rural, 136-143. government ownership, 208, 209. grange, 117, 284. great britain, 44, 259, 269, 316, 317, 322. group consciousness, 18, 192. habits, 334, 345. hague conferences, 335. health, 85, 144-148, 196, 233, 242, 267, 307, 308. clubs, 148. nurses and physicians, 147, 148, 296. officials, 146, 147. hebrew charities, 276. heredity, 26, 46, 249, 342. history, 368. home, 37-42. children in the, 42, 90. education in the, 39, 55, 56. history of the, 37-39. ideal, 40. man in the, 70. modern, 39, 40, 67-71. rural, 121, 122. values of the, 39, 40. women in the, 69. home economics, 60-66. hospitals, 272, 296. hours of labor, 190, 207. housing, 86, 89, 230-234, 252, 350. hull house, 277, 278. imitation, 349, 351. immigrants and immigration, 82, 86, 102, 170, 171, 221-229, 250, 327-329. asiatic, 328, 329. causes and effects of, 227, 228. german, 223. history of, 221-226. irish, 222. italian, 224, 225. jewish, 225, 226. lesser peoples, 226. problems of, 327. scandinavians, 223, 224. slavs, 225. imprisonment, 78. see crime. impulse, 345. individual, the, 128, 144, 151, 152, 192, 203, 248, 343-347, 360. individualism, 72, 73, 75, 78, 88, 89, 107, 144, 149, 360. industrial control, 189, 190. industrial problem, 183, 186-200. principles for solution of the, 197-200. industrial reform, 190. industrial revolution, 178, 184. industrial schools, 58. initiative, 261. insanity, 44, 78, 244. instincts, 27, 109, 111, 112, 344, 345, 348. insurance, 106, 269. intemperance, 75, 78, 84, 90, 153, 233, 240, 241. results of, 242-244. see temperance. interests, 302-304, 311, 334, 345-347. international law, 320, 335. international workers of the world, 193. internationalism, 333-339. invention, 184, 206, 341, 345. irish, 222. italians, 224, 225. jews, 225, 226. judiciary, 321, 322. jukes, 44, 45. juvenile courts, 154, 254. kallikak family, 45. labor, 61-63. division of, 62. hired, 63. organization of, 192, 193. labor bureaus, 191, 193, 268. labor conditions, 184. labor exchanges, 269. labor unions, 192, 193, 207. lack of support, 75. law, 136, 137, 142, 258, 321, 322, 349. lawgivers, 364. lawlessness, 54, 55, 235. legislation, 319, 320. see social legislation. liberty, 54, 55. libraries, 132, 282, 283. license, 83, 246. like-mindedness, 192, 308. local government act, 259. local option, 141, 246. manufacturing, 180-185. history of, 181-183. marriage, 27, 20-36, 46, 76, 79, 84. ideals of, 35, 36, 79. laws of, 34, 35, 77, 78. reforms, 35. mass meeting, 19. massachusetts society for promoting good citizenship, 260. maternity benefits, 44. metronymic period, 30. misery, 263. missions, 338, 339. mobs, 22, ss, 348. monogamy, 29, 31, 33. monopoly, 208-210, 242. morals, 151-155, 175, 230, 232, 235, 237, 242, 349. definition of, 151. in the city, 175, 230, 232, 235, 237. rural, 151-155. morals commission, 86. morals court, 86. moving pictures, 82, 86, 112, 238, 240, 283. municipal ownership, 260. municipal reform, 260. music, 133, 164, 165, 237, 241, 283, 284, 310. nation, the, 300-332. economics in, 306, 307. education in, 309. functions of, 305-311, 314. government of, 313-323. health in, 307, 308. history of, 301, 302. philanthropy in, 310. problems of, 324-332. sport in, 308. national bureau of education, 309. national conference of charities and corrections, 273, 310. national conference on unemployment, 269. national divorce reform league, 77. national education association, 309. national insurance act, 44. national municipal league, 260. national reform league, 260. nature study, 127. neglect, 48, 75. negro problem, 329-331. newspapers, 252, 281, 284, 336, 353, 354, 360. occupations, 104, 181, 235, 345. offices, 204. organization, 2, 8, 9, 22, 23, 109, 110, 111, 118, 133, 140, 149, 182-184, 188, 196, 210, 259, 260, 200-293, 317-323. organization of labor, 192, 193. parks, 238. parole, 253. paternalism, 358. patriarchal household, 30, 32, 49, 61. pauperism, 268. personality, 1, 54, 344, 347, 349. personal worth, 360, 361. persuasion, 352. philosophers, 364, 365. placing-out system, 57, 58. play, 53, 54, 109, 235, 236, 239. playgrounds, 108, 235, 236. police, 258, 259. political science, 368. politics, 137, 138, 141, 142, 194, 244, 252, 260. polyandry, 31. polygyny, 30, 31. population, 100-103, 176, 177, 223, 232, 248. characteristics of, 100, 101. composition of, 101, 102, 223. congestion of, 207. growth of, 102. poverty, 84, 90, 228, 242, 246, 266-270. causes of, 267-269. remedies for, 267, 268. press, the, 280-282. primaries, 141, 260, 261. probation, 251, 253. profanity, 153, 235. profit-sharing, 196. progress, 351-353. genetic, 351, 352. telic, 352, 353. prophets, 365, 366. prosperity, 324, 325. prostitution, 81-88. protestant-episcopal church, 77. psychology, 344-346. public opinion, 34, 35, 59, 78, 79, 81, 82, 123, 142, 210, 237, 246, 252, 282, 320, 359-361. punishment. see crime. race problem, 327-332. railways, 207, 208. raines law hotels, 84. reading-circles, 133. reason, 3, 4, 17. recall, 261. recreation, 53, 54, 108-114, 164, 196, 235, 238, 252, 254, 308, 309. referendum, 141, 193, 198, 261. reformatories, 84, 86. relief, 57, 58, 267, 271-277. religion, 34, 39, 230, 287-293, 349, 361. religious education, 160, 287, 291. remarriage, 77. rescue homes, 86. royal commission on divorce, 78. rural church, 156-161. function of, 157, 160. minister of, 158. needs of, 159, 160. new, 160. problems of, 158, 159. value of, 156, 157. rural emigration, 67, 102, 172, 173. rural life commission, 153, 154. russell sage foundation, 268, 295. st. vincent de paul society, 276. saloon, the, 84, 173, 238, 240, 241, 243. salvation army, 293. scandinavians, 223, 224. schools, the, 120-131, 141, 236, 280. consolidated, 125, 129, continuation, 129, 165. curriculum of, 121, 122, 127, 128, 354. district, 124, 125, 284. normal, 123, 130, 131. state, 58. teaching in, 124, 129, 130. school districts, 140. scientific management, 196. segregation, 83, 85, 250, 272, 296. self-control, 360, 361. servant class, 62, 63, 69, 82, 89, 182. settlements, 277-279. sewing-circles, 116, 117. sex hygiene, 55, 90. sexual impurity, 81, 88, 90, 153, 154, 233. see prostitution. slavery, 62, 182. slavs, 225. slums, 38, 231-233. sociability, 108, 111, 164, 171. social analysis, 340-371. social centres, 117, 163, 164, 176-179, 241, 242, 284-286. social characteristics, 2-14, 88, 129. social contract, 315. social degeneration, 103. social development, 2, 334, 342, 360. social education, 35, 39, 46, 56, 80, 86, 87, 90, 110, 121, 123, 237, 254, 330, 331. social elements. see social factors. social factors, 4, 16, 17, 68, 187, 188, 333, 334, 340-356. physical, 343. psychic, 344-356. social groups, 14-23, 53, 54, 349, 350. social habits, 349, 351. social ideals, 362, 363. social institutions, 21, 24, 57, 58, 90, 115-120, 162, 168, 169, 237, 280, 337-339, 357. social legislation, 44, 52, 53, 142, 190, 191, 194, 222, 250, 268. social mind, 17-19, 54, 344, 348. social organization. see organization. social pathology, 369. social problems, 14, 210, 221, 228, 242, 298. social reform, 369. social relations, 1, 6-8, 24, 31, 47, 90, 108, 169, 187, 189, 195, 203, 237, 314, 332, 334, 365. social science, 128, 129, 298, 355, 365. social selection, 31, 342, 343. social service, 89. social sympathy, 89. social theories, 315, 357-363, 365. social utility, 4. social values, 39, 40, 108, 337. social weaknesses, 13, 14, 88, 123, 124, 170, 175, 189, 324. social welfare, 73, 186, 191, 196, 202, 210, 212, 300, 343, 358. socialism, 197, 314, 358, 359, 369. objections to, 359. society, 1, 2. society for the prevention of cruelty to children, 57. sociology, 2, 364-371. biological, 366. psychological, 366. relations of, 367-369. source material, 2. south, the, 99, 100, 140, 261. south carolina dispensary system, 242. southern sociological conference, 310. standard of living, 207, 222, 231, 327, 329. state, the, 57, 272, 313-323. history of, 315, 316. theories of, 315. state schools, 58. static society, 2, 10, 139, 169. sterilization, 250. stimulus, 18, 56, 238, 283, 341, 344, 345, 347, 351, 352. stock exchange, 202. street trades, 235. strikes, 193, 194. struggle for existence, 342, 343. summer visitors, 148, 149, 351. sweating, 52. syndicalism, 197. telephone, 106. temperance, 244. anti-saloon league, 245. education, 245. good templars, 245. no license, 245. prohibition, 245, 246. regulation, 246. total abstinence, 245. woman's christian temperance union, 245, 338. tenant farming, 101. tenements, 69, 82, 84-86, 230-234, 239, 263. theatre, 82, 238, 240, 283. theology, 369. theories. see social theories. town meetings, 140-142, 163, 284-286. toynbee hall, 278. tradition, 349, 350. transportation, 204-208, 336, 337. trusts, 209, 210. unemployment, 199, 269. united mine workers, 193. united states, 302-304, 335. united states census, 67. united states department of agriculture, 306. united states patent office, 306. universities, 131, 132, 308, 309, 354. university of wisconsin, 131, 132. university settlement, 278. unorganized groups, 16-23. utopians, 365. venereal disease, 44, 85. vice commissions, 83-85. vice reform, 85, 86. village, the, 115, 301. improvement society, 148, 149. nurse, 147, 148. vocational training, 35, 296. volunteer prison league, 254. wages, 84, 86, 89, 203, 204, 207, 222, 228. war, 90, 194, 249, 334. west, the, 99, 102, 223, 224, 261. white-slave traffic, 83, 86, 244. see prostitution. will of the individual, 264, 344, 355, 362. will of the people, 138, 320. woman's christian temperance union, 245, 338. woman's clubs, 134. woman's work, 61, 62, 84, 190, 191. working people, the, 183, 184, 212, 230-234, 238, 263-270. worship, 288, 289. young men's christian association, 153, 163, 173, 241, 293, 298, 338. young women's christian association, 293, 298. * * * * * [transcriber's note: extensive research found no evidence that the u.s. copyright on this publication was renewed.] history of human society by frank w. blackmar professor of sociology, university of kansas charles scribner's sons new york ---chicago ---boston atlanta ---san francisco copyright, 1926, by charles scribner's sons printed in the united states of america {v} preface this book tells what we know of man, how he first lived, how he worked with other men, what kinds of houses he built, what tools he made, and how he formed a government under which to live. so we learn of the activities of men in the past and what they have passed on to us. in this way we may become acquainted with the different stages in the process which we call civilization. the present trend of specialization in study and research has brought about widely differentiated courses of study in schools and a large number of books devoted to special subjects. each course of study and each book must necessarily represent but a fragment of the subject. this method of intensified study is to be commended; indeed, it is essential to the development of scientific truth. those persons who can read only a limited number of books and those students who can take only a limited number of courses of study need books which present a connected survey of the movement of social progress as a whole, and which blaze a trail through the accumulation of learning, and give an adequate perspective of human achievement. it is hoped, then, that this book will form the basis of a course of reading or study that will give the picture in small compass of this most fascinating subject. if it serves its purpose well, it will be the introduction to more special study in particular fields or periods. that the story of this book may be always related more closely with the knowledge and experience of the individual reader, questions and problems have been added at the conclusion of each chapter, which may be used as subjects for {vi} discussion or topics for themes. for those who wish to pursue some particular phase of the subject a brief list of books has been selected which may profitably be read more intensively. f. w. b. {vii} contents _part i_ civilization and progress chapter page i. what is civilization? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 the human trail. civilization may be defined. the material evidences of civilization are all around us. primitive man faced an unknown world. civilization is expressed in a variety of ways. modern civilization includes some fundamentals. progress an essential characteristic of civilization. diversity is necessary to progress. what is the goal of civilized man? possibilities of civilization. civilization can be estimated. ii. the essentials of progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 how mankind goes forward on the trail. change is not necessarily progress. progress expresses itself in a variety of ideals and aims. progress of the part and progress of the whole. social progress involves individual development. progress is enhanced by the interaction of groups and races. the study of uncultured races of to-day. the study of prehistoric types. progress is indicated by early cultures. industrial and social life of primitive man. cultures indicate the mental development of the race. men of genius cause mutations which permit progress. the data of progress. iii. methods of recounting human progress . . . . . . . . . . 35 difficulty of measuring progress. progress may be measured by the implements used. the development of art. progress is estimated by economic stages. progress is through the food-supply. progress estimated by the different forms of social order. development of family life. the growth of political life. religion important in civilization. progress through moral evolution. intellectual development of man. change from savagery to barbarism. civilization includes all kinds of human progress. table showing methods of recounting human progress. _part ii_ first steps of progress iv. prehistoric man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 the origin of man has not yet been determined. methods of recounting prehistoric time: (1) geologic method, (2) paleontology, (3) anatomy, (4) cultures. prehistoric types of the human race. the unity of the human race. the primitive home of man may be determined in a general way. the antiquity of man is shown in racial differentiation. the evidences of man's ancient life in different localities: (1) caves, (2) shell mounds, (3) river and glacial drifts, (4) burial-mounds, (5) battle-fields and village sites, (6) lake-dwellings. knowledge of man's antiquity influences reflective thinking. {viii} v. the economic factors of progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 the efforts of man to satisfy physical needs. the attempt to satisfy hunger and protect from cold. the methods of procuring food in primitive times. the variety of food was constantly increased. the food-supply was increased by inventions. the discovery and use of fire. cooking added to the economy of the food-supply. the domestication of animals. the beginnings of agriculture were very meagre. the manufacture of clothing. primitive shelters and houses. discovery and use of metals. transportation as a means of economic development. trade, or exchange of goods. the struggle for existence develops the individual and the race. vi. primitive social life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 the character of primitive social life. the family is the most persistent of social origins. kinship is a strong factor in social organization. the earliest form of social order. the reign of custom. the greek and roman family was strongly organized. in primitive society religion occupied a prominent place. spirit worship. moral conditions. warfare and social progress. mutual aid developed slowly. _part iii_ seats of early civilization vii. language and art as a means of culture and social development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 the origin of language has been a subject of controversy. language is an important social function. written language followed speech in order of development. phonetic writing was a step in advance of the ideograph. the use of manuscripts and books made permanent records. language is an instrument of culture. art as a language of aesthetic ideas. music is a form of language. the dance as a means of dramatic expression. the fine arts follow the development of language. the love of the beautiful slowly develops. viii. the influence of physical nature on human progress . . 141 man is a part of universal nature. favorable location is necessary for permanent civilization. the nature of the soil an essential condition of progress. the use of land the foundation of social order. climate has much to do with the possibilities of progress. the general aspects of nature determine the type of civilization. physical nature influences social order. ix. civilization of the orient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 the first nations with historical records in asia and africa. civilization in mesopotamia. influences coming from the far east. egypt becomes a centre of civilization. the coming of the semites. the phoenicians became the great navigators. a comparison of the egyptian and babylonian empires. the hebrews made a permanent contribution to world civilization. the civilization of india and china. the coming of the aryans. x. the oriental type of civilization . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 the governments of the early oriental civilizations. war existed for conquest and plunder. religious belief was an important factor in despotic {ix} government. social organization was incomplete. economic influences. records, writing, and paper. the beginnings of science were strong in egypt, weak in babylon. the contribution to civilization. xi. beginnings of civilization in america . . . . . . . . . . 186 america was peopled from the old world. the incas of peru. aztec civilization in mexico. the earliest centres of civilization in mexico. the pueblo indians of the southwest. the mound-builders of the mississippi valley. other types of indian life. why did the civilization of america fail? _part iv_ western civilization xii. the old greek life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 the old greek life was the starting-point of western civilization. the aegean culture preceded the coming of the greeks. the greeks were of aryan stock. the coming of the greeks. character of the primitive greeks. influence of old greek life. xiii. greek philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 the transition from theology to inquiry. explanation of the universe by observation and inquiry. the ionian philosophy turned the mind toward nature. the weakness of ionian philosophy. the eleatic philosophers. the sophists. socrates the first moral philosopher (b. 469 b.c.). platonic philosophy develops the ideal. aristotle the master mind of the greeks. other schools. results obtained in greek philosophy. xiv. the greek social polity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 the struggle for greek equality and liberty. the greek government an expanded family. athenian government a type of grecian democracy. constitution of solon seeks a remedy. cleisthenes continues the reforms of solon. athenian democracy failed in obtaining its best and highest development. the spartan state differs from all others. greek colonization spreads knowledge. the conquests of alexander. contributions of greece to civilization. xv. roman civilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 the romans differed in nature from the greeks. the social structure of early rome and that of early greece. civil organization of rome. the struggle for liberty. the development of government. the development of law is the most remarkable phase of the roman civilization. influence of the greek life on rome. latin literature and language. development of roman art. decline of the roman empire. summary of roman civilization. xvi. the christian religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268 important factors in the foundation of western civilization. the social contacts of the christian religion. social conditions at the beginning of the christian era. the contact of christianity with social life. christianity influenced the legislation of the times. christians come into conflict with civil authority. the wealth of the church accumulates. development of the hierarchy. attempt to dominate the temporal powers. dogmatism. the church becomes the conservator of knowledge. service of christianity. {x} xvii. teutonic influence on civilization . . . . . . . . . . 281 the coming of the barbarians. importance of teutonic influence. teutonic liberty. tribal life. classes of society. the home and the home life. political assemblies. general social customs. the economic life. contributions to law. xviii. feudal society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 feudalism a transition of social order. there are two elementary sources of feudalism. the feudal system in its developed state based on land-holding. other elements of feudalism. the rights of sovereignty. the classification of feudal society. progress of feudalism. state of society under feudalism. lack of central authority in feudal society. individual development in the dominant group. xix. arabian conquest and culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304 the rise and expansion of the arabian empire. the religious zeal of the arab-moors. the foundations of science and art. the beginnings of chemistry and medicine. metaphysics and exact science. geography and history. discoveries, inventions, and achievements. language and literature. art and architecture. the government of the arab-moors was peculiarly centralized. arabian civilization soon reached its limits. xx. the crusades stir the european mind . . . . . . . . . . . 319 what brought about the crusades. specific causes of the crusades. unification of ideals and the breaking of feudalism. the development of monarchy. the crusades quickened intellectual development. the commercial effects of the crusades. general influence of the crusades on civilization. xxi. attempts at popular government . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328 the cost of popular government. the feudal lord and the towns. the rise of free cities. the struggle for independence. the affranchisement of cities developed municipal organization. the italian cities. government of venice. government of florence. the lombard league. the rise of popular assemblies in france. rural communes arose in france. the municipalities of france. the states-general was the first central organization. failure of attempts at popular government in spain. democracy in the swiss cantons. the ascendancy of monarchy. beginning of constitutional liberty in england. xxii. the intellectual awakening of europe . . . . . . . . . 347 social evolution is dependent upon variation. the revival of progress throughout europe. the revival of learning a central idea of progress. influence of charlemagne. the attitude of the church was retrogressive. scholastic philosophy marks a step in progress. cathedral and monastic schools. the rise of universities. failure to grasp scientific methods. inventions and discoveries. the extension of commerce hastened progress. xxiii. humanism and the revival of learning . . . . . . . . . 364 the discovery of manuscripts. who were the humanists? relation of humanism to language and literature. art and architecture. the effect of humanism on social manners. relation of humanism to science and philosophy. the study of the classics became fundamental in education. general influence of humanism. {xi} xxiv. the reformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375 the character of the reformation. signs of the rising storm. attempts at reform within the church. immediate causes of the reformation. luther was the hero of the reformation in germany. zwingli was the hero of the reformation in switzerland. calvin establishes the genevan system. the reformation in england differed from the german. many phases of reformation in other countries. results of the reformation were far-reaching. xxv. constitutional liberty and the french revolution . . . . 392 progress of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. the struggle of monarchy with democracy. struggle for constitutional liberty in england. the place of france in modern civilization. the divine right of kings. the power of the nobility. the misery of the people. the church. influence of the philosophers. the failure of government. france on the eve of the revolution. the revolution. results of the revolution. _part v_ modern progress xxvi. progress of political liberty . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413 political liberty in the eighteenth century. the progress of popular government found outside of great nations. reform measures in england. the final triumph of the french republic. democracy in america. modern political reforms. republicanism in other countries. influence of democracy on monarchy. xxvii. industrial progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429 industries radiate from the land as a centre. the early medieval methods of industry. the beginnings of trade. expansion of trade and transportation. invention and discoveries. the change from handcraft to power manufacture. the industrial revolution. modern industrial development. scientific agriculture. the building of the city. industry and civilization. xxviii. social evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443 the evolutionary processes of society. the social individual. the ethnic form of society. the territorial group. the national group founded on race expansion. the functions of new groups. great society and the social order. great society protects voluntary organizations. the widening influence of the church. growth of religious toleration. altruism and democracy. modern society a machine of great complexity. interrelation of different parts of society. the progress of the race based on social opportunities. the central idea of modern civilization. xxix. the evolution of science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458 science is an attitude of mind toward life. scientific methods. measurement in scientific research. science develops from centres. science and democracy. the study of the biological and physical sciences. the evolutionary theory. science and war. scientific progress is cumulative. the trend of scientific investigation. research foundations. {xii} xxx. universal education and democracy . . . . . . . . . . . 475 universal public education is a modern institution. the mediaeval university permitted some freedom of choice. the english and german universities. early education in the united states. the common, or public, schools. knowledge, intelligence, and training necessary in a democracy. education has been universalized. research an educational process. the diffusion of knowledge necessary in a democracy. educational progress. importance of state education. the printing-press and its products. public opinion. xxxi. world economics and politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486 commerce and communication. exchange of ideas modifies political organization. spread of political ideas. the world war breaks down the barriers of thought. attempt to form a league for permanent peace. international agreement and progress. the mutual aid of nations. reorganization of international law. the outlook for a world state. xxxii. the trend of civilization in the united states . . . . 495 the economic outlook. economics of labor. public and corporate industries. the political outlook. equalization of opportunity. the influence of scientific thought on progress. the relation of material comfort to spiritual progress. the balance of social forces. restlessness vs. happiness. summary of progress. bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504 index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509 {3} _part i_ civilization and progress history of human society chapter i what is civilization? _the human trail_.--the trail of human life beginning in the mists of the past, winding through the ages and stretching away toward an unknown future, is a subject of perennial interest and worthy of profound thought. no other great subject so invites the attention of the mind of man. it is a very long trail, rough and unblazed, wandering over the continents of the earth. those who have travelled it came in contact with the mysteries of an unknown world. they faced the terrors of the shifting forms of the earth, of volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, storms, and ice fields. they witnessed the extinction of forests and animal groups, and the changing forms of lakes, rivers, and mountains, and, indeed, the boundaries of oceans. it is the trail of human events and human endeavor on which man developed his physical powers, enlarged his brain capacity, developed and enriched his mind, and became efficient through art and industry. through inventions and discovery he turned the forces of nature to his use, making them serve his will. in association with his fellows, man learned that mutual aid and co-operation were necessary to the survival of the race. to learn this caused him more trouble than all the terrors and mysteries of the natural world around him. connected with the trail is a long chain of causes and effects, trial and error, success and failure, out of which has come the advancement of the race. the accumulated results of life on the trail are called _civilization_. _civilization may be defined_.--to know what civilization is by study and observation is better than to rely upon a formal {4} definition. for, indeed, the word is used in so many different ways that it admits of a loose interpretation. for instance, it may be used in a narrow sense to indicate the character and quality of the civil relations. those tribes or nations having a well-developed social order, with government, laws, and other fixed social customs, are said to be civilized, while those peoples without these characters are assumed to be uncivilized. it may also be considered in a somewhat different sense, when the arts, industries, sciences, and habits of life are stimulated--civilization being determined by the degree in which these are developed. whichever view is accepted, it involves a contrast of present ideals with past ideals, of an undeveloped with a developed state of human progress. but whatever notion we have of civilization, it is difficult to draw a fixed line between civilized and uncivilized peoples. mr. lewis h. morgan, in his _ancient society_, asserts that civilization began with the phonetic alphabet, and that all human activity prior to this could be classified as savagery or barbarism. but there is a broader conception of civilization which recognizes all phases of human achievement, from the making of a stone axe to the construction of the airplane; from the rude hut to the magnificent palace; from crude moral and religious conditions to the more refined conditions of human association. if we consider that civilization involves the whole process of human achievement, it must admit of a great variety of qualities and degrees of development, hence it appears to be a relative term applied to the variation of human life. thus, the japanese are highly civilized along special lines of hand work, hand industry, and hand art, as well as being superior in some phases of family relationships. so we might say of the chinese, the east indians, and the american indians, that they each have well-established customs, habits of thought, and standards of life, differing from other nations, expressing different types of civilization. when a member of a primitive tribe invented the bow-and-arrow, or began to chip a flint nodule in order to make a stone {5} axe, civilization began. as soon as people began to co-operate with one another in obtaining food, building houses, or for protection against wild animals and wild men, that is, when they began to treat each other civilly, they were becoming civilized. we may say then in reality that civilization has been a continuous process from the first beginning of man's conquest of himself and nature to the modern complexities of social life with its multitude of products of industry and cultural arts. it is very common for one group or race to assume to be highly civilized and call the others barbarians or savages. thus the hebrews assumed superiority when they called other people gentiles, and the greeks when they called others barbarians. indeed, it is only within recent years that we are beginning to recognize that the civilizations of china, japan, and india have qualities worth studying and that they may have something worth while in life that the western civilization has not. also there has been a tendency to confuse the terms christian and heathen with civilized and uncivilized. this idea arose in england, where, in the early history of christianity, the people of the towns were more cultured than the people of the country. it happened, too, that the townspeople received christianity before the people of the country, hence heathens were the people who dwelt out on the heath, away from town. this local idea became a world idea when all non-christian peoples were called uncivilized. it is a fatal error for an individual, neighborhood, tribe, or nation to assume superiority to the extent that it fails to recognize good qualities in others. one should not look with disdain upon a tribe of american indians, calling them uncivilized because their material life is simple, when in reality in point of honor, faithfulness, and courage they excel a large proportion of the races assuming a higher civilization. _the material evidences of civilization are all around us_.--behold this beautiful valley of the west, with its broad, {6} fertile fields, yielding rich harvests of corn and wheat, and brightened by varied forms of fruit and flower. farmhouses and schoolhouses dot the landscape, while towns and cities, with their marts of trade and busy industries, rise at intervals. here are churches, colleges, and libraries, indicative of the education of the community; courthouses, prisons, and jails, which speak of government, law, order, and protection. here are homes for the aged and weak, hospitals and schools for the defective, almshouses for the indigent, and reformatories for the wayward. railroads bind together all parts of the nation, making exchange possible, and bringing to our doors the products of every clime. the telephone and the radio unite distant people with common knowledge, thought, and sentiment. factories and mills line the streams or cluster in village and city, marking the busy industrial life. these and more mark the visible products of civilization. but civilization is something more than form, it is spirit; and its evidence may be more clearly discerned in the co-operation of men in political organization and industrial life, by their united action in religious worship and charitable service, in social order and educational advancement. observe, too, the happy homes, with all of their sweet and hallowed influences, and the social mingling of the people searching for pleasure or profit in their peaceful, harmonious association. witness the evidences of accumulated knowledge in newspapers, periodicals, and books, and the culture of painting, poetry, and music. behold, too, the achievements of the mind in the invention and discovery of the age; steam and electrical appliances that cause the whirl of bright machinery, that turn night into day, and make thought travel swift as the wings of the wind! consider the influence of chemistry, biology, and medicine on material welfare, and the discoveries of the products of the earth that subserve man's purpose! and the central idea of all this is man, who walks upright in the dignity and grace of his own manhood, surrounded by the evidence of his own achievements. his knowledge, his power of thought, {7} his moral character, and his capacity for living a large life, are evidences of the real civilization. for individual culture is, after all, the flower and fruit, the beauty and strength of civilization. one hundred years ago neither dwelling, church, nor city greeted the eye that gazed over the broad expanse of the unfilled prairies. here were no accumulations of wealth, no signs of human habitation, except a few indians wandering in groups or assembled in their wigwam villages. the evidences of art and industry were meagre, and of accumulated knowledge small, because the natives were still the children of nature and had gone but a little way in the mastery of physical forces or in the accumulation of knowledge. the relative difference in their condition and that of those that followed them is the contrast between barbarism and civilization. yet how rapid was the change that replaced the latter with the former. behold great commonwealths built in half a century! what is the secret of this great and marvellous change? it is a transplanted civilization, not an indigenous one. men came to this fertile valley with the spiritual and material products of modern life, the outcome of centuries of progress. they brought the results of man's struggle, with himself and with nature, for thousands of years. this made it possible to build a commonwealth in half a century. the first settlers brought with them a knowledge of the industrial arts; the theory and practice of social order; individual capacity, and a thirst for education. it was necessary only to set up the machinery already created, and civilization went forward. when they began the life of labor, the accumulated wealth of the whole world was to be had in exchange for the products of the soil. _primitive man faced an unknown world_.--but how different is the picture of primitive man suddenly brought face to face with an unknown world. with no knowledge of nature or art, with no theory or practice of social order, he began to dig and to delve for the preservation of life. suffering the pangs of hunger, he obtained food; naked, he clothed himself; {8} buffeted by storm and wind and scorched by the penetrating rays of the sun, he built himself a shelter. as he gradually became skilled in the industrial arts, his knowledge increased. he formed a clearer estimate of how nature might serve him, and obtained more implements with which to work the social order of the family and the state slowly appeared. man became a co-operating creature, working with his fellows in the satisfaction of material wants and in protecting the rights of individuals. slow and painful was this process of development, but as he worked his capacity enlarged, his power increased, until he mastered the forces of nature and turned them to serve him; he accumulated knowledge and brought forth culture and learning; he marshalled the social forces in orderly process. each new mastery of nature or self was a power for the future, for civilization is cumulative in its nature; it works in a geometrical progression. an idea once formed, others follow; one invention leads to another, and each material form of progress furnishes a basis for a more rapid progress and for a larger life. the discovery and use of a new food product increased the power of civilization a hundredfold. one step in social order leads to another, and thus is furnished a means of utilizing without waste all of the individual and social forces. yet how irregular and faltering are the first steps of human progress. a step forward, followed by a long period of readjustment of the conditions of life; a movement forward here and a retarding force there. within this irregular movement we discover the true course of human progress. one tribe, on account of peculiar advantages, makes a special discovery, which places it in the ascendancy and gives it power over others. it has obtained a favorable location for protection against oppressors or a fertile soil, a good hunting ground or a superior climate. it survives all opposing factors for a time, and, obtaining some idea of progress, it goes on adding strength unto strength, or is crowded from its favorable position by its warlike neighbors to perish from the earth, or to live a {9} stationary or even a deteriorating life. a strong tribe, through internal development and the domination of other groups, finally becomes a great nation in an advanced state of civilization. it passes through the course of infancy, youth, maturity, old age, and death. but the products of its civilization are handed on to other nations. another rises and, when about to enter an advanced state of progress, perishes on account of internal maladies. it is overshadowed with despotism, oppressed by priestcraft, or lacking industrial vitality to such a degree that it is forced to surrender the beginnings of civilization to other nations and other lives. the dominance of a group is dependent in part on the natural or inherent qualities of mind and body of its members, which give it power to achieve by adapting itself to conditions of nature and in mastering and utilizing natural resources. thus the tribe that makes new devices for procuring food or new weapons for defense, or learns how to sow seeds and till the soil, adds to its means of survival and progress and thus forges ahead of those tribes lacking in these means. also the social heritage or the inheritance of all of the products of industry and arts of life which are passed on from generation to generation, is essential to the rapid development of civilization. _civilization is expressed in a variety of ways_.--different ideals and the adaptation to different environment cause different types of life. the ideals of the persian, the greek, the roman, and the teuton varied. still greater is the contrast between these and the chinese and the egyptian ideals. china boasts of an ancient civilization that had its origin long before the faint beginnings of western nations, and the chinese are firm believers in their own culture and superior advancement. the silent grandeur of the pyramids and temples of the nile valley bespeak a civilization of great maturity, that did much for the world in general, but little for the egyptian people. yet these types of civilization are far different from that of western nations. their ideas of culture are in great contrast to our own. but even the western nations are not uniform in {10} ideals of civil life nor in their practice of social order. they are not identical in religious life, and their ideals of art and social progress vary. moreover, the racial type varies somewhat and with it the national life and thought. compare england, germany, france, and spain as to the variability in characteristics of literature and art, in moral ideals, in ethical practice, in religious motive, and in social order. their differences are evident, but they tend to disappear under the influence of rapid transit and close intercommunication, which draw all modern nations nearer together. yet, granting the variability of ideals and of practice, there is a general consensus of opinion as to what constitutes civilization and what are the elements of progress. modern writers differ somewhat in opinion as to elements of civilization, but these differences are more apparent than real, as all true civilization must rest upon a solid foundation of common human traits. the fundamental principles and chief characteristics are quite uniform for all nations and for all times, and writers who disagree as to general characteristics may not be classified by national boundaries; they represent the differences of philosophers. _modern civilization includes some fundamentals_.--as applied at different periods of the world's progress and as a representation of different phases of life, civilization means more to-day than ever before; its ideal is higher, its conception broader. in the modern, accepted sense it includes (1) _a definite knowledge of man and nature_. the classified knowledge of science and philosophy and all phases of the history of man socially and individually are important in estimating his true progress. all forms of thought and life are to be estimated in considering the full meaning of the term. it also includes (2) _progress in art_. while science deals with principles, art deals with rules of action. science gives classified knowledge, while art directs to a practical end. art provides definite plans how to operate. if these plans are carried out, the field of practice is entered. in its broadest conception art includes the making {11} and the doing, as well as the plan. the fine arts and the industrial or practical arts, in all of their varied interests, are included in art as a factor in civilization. this category should include the highest forms of painting, poetry, sculpture, and music, as well as the lowest forms of industrial implements. civilization includes (3) _a well-developed ethical code_ quite universally observed by a community or nation. the rule of conduct of man toward himself and toward his fellows is one of the essential points of discrimination between barbarism and civilization. while ethical practice began at a very early period in the progress of man, it was a long time before any distinct ethical code became established. but the completed civilization does not exist until a high order of moral practice obtains; no civilization can long prevail without it. of less importance, but of no less binding force, is (4) the _social code_, which represents the forms and conventionalities of society, built, it is true, largely upon the caprices of fashion, and varying greatly in different communities, yet more arbitrary, if possible, than the moral code. it considers fitness and consistency in conduct, and as such is an important consideration in social usage and social progress. in europe it has its extreme in the court etiquette; in america, in the punctiliousness of the higher social classes of our large cities. but it affects all communities, and its observance may be noted in rural districts as well as in the city population. the mores, or customs, of man began at a very early time and have been a persistent ruling power in human conduct. through tradition they are handed down from generation to generation, to be observed with more or less fidelity as a guide to the art of living. every community, whether primitive or developed, is controlled to a great extent by the prevailing custom. it is common for individuals and families to do as their ancestors did. this habit is frequently carried to such an extent that the deeds of the fathers are held sacred from which no one dare to depart. isolated communities continue year after year to do things because they had always done so, {12} holding strictly to the ruling custom founded on tradition, even when some better way was at hand. a rare example of this human trait is given by captain donald macmillan, who recently returned from arctic greenland. he said: "we took two ultra-modern developments, motion pictures and radio, direct to a people who live and think as their ancestors did two thousand years ago." he was asked: "what did they think?" he replied: "i do not know." probably it was a case of wonder without thought. while this is a dominant force which makes for the unity and perpetuity of the group, it is only by departure from established tradition that progress is made possible. civilization involves (5) _government and law_. the tribes and nations in a state of barbarism lived under the binding influence of custom. in this period people were born under _status_, or condition, not under law. gradually the old family life expanded into the state, and government became more formal. law appeared as the expression of the will of the people directly or indirectly through their representatives. true, it may have been the arbitrary ruling of a king, but he represented the unity of the race and spoke with the authority of the nation. law found no expression until there was formed an organic community capable of having a will respecting the control of those who composed it. it implies a governing body and a body governed; it implies an orderly movement of society according to a rule of action called law. while social order is generally obtained through law and government, such is the practice in modern life that the orderly association of men in trade and commerce and in daily contact appears to stand alone and to rise above the control of the law. indeed, in a true civilization, the civil code, though an essential factor, seems to be outclassed by the higher social instincts based on the practice of social order. (6) _religion_ must take a large place as a factor in the development of civilization. the character of the religious belief of man is, to a certain extent, the true test of his progressive {13} nature. his faith may prove a source of inspiration to reason and progressive life; it may prove the opposite, and lead to stagnation and retrogression. upon the whole, it must be insisted that religious belief has subserved a large purpose in the economy of human progress. it has been universal to all tribes, for even the lowest have some form of religious belief--at least, a belief in spiritual beings. religious belief thus became the primary source of abstract ideas, and it has always been conducive to social order. it has, in modern times especially, furnished the foundation of morality. by surrounding marriage with ceremonies it has purified the home life, upheld the authority of the family, and thus strengthened social order. it has developed the individual by furnishing an ideal before science and positive knowledge made it possible. it strengthened patriotic feeling on account of service rendered in supporting local government, and subjectively religion improved man by teaching him to obey a superior. again, by its tradition it frequently stifled thought and retarded progress. among other elements of civilization must be mentioned (7) _social well-being_. the preceding conditions would be almost certain to insure social well-being and prosperity. yet it might be possible, through lack of harmony of these forces, on account of their improper distribution in a community, that the group might lack in general social prosperity. unless there is general contentment and happiness there cannot be said to be an ideal state of civilization. and this social well-being is closely allied to (8) _material prosperity_, the most apparent element to be mentioned in the present analysis. the amount of the accumulation of the wealth of a nation, its distribution among the people, and the manner in which it is obtained and expended, determine the state of civilization. this material prosperity makes the better phases of civilization possible. it is essential to modern progress, and our civilization should seek to render it possible for all classes to earn their bread and to have leisure and opportunity for self-culture. the mastery of the forces of nature is the basis for man's {14} material prosperity. touching nature here and there, by discovery, invention, and toil, causing her to yield her treasures for his service, is the key to all progress. in this, it is not so much conflict with nature as co-operation with her, that yields utility and eventually mastery. the discovery and use of new food products, the coal and other minerals of the earth, the forests, the water power and electric power, coupled with invention and adaptability to continually greater use, are the qualifying opportunity for advancement. without these the fine theories of the philosopher, exalted religious belief, and high ideals of life are of no avail. from the foregoing it may be said that civilization in its fulness means all of the acquired capabilities of man as evidenced by his conduct and the material products arising from his physical and mental exertion. it is evident that at first the structure called civilization began to develop very slowly and very feebly; just when it began it is difficult to state. the creation of the first utility, the first substantial movement to increase the food supply, the first home for protection, the first religious ceremony, or the first organized household, represents the beginnings of civilization, and these are the landmarks along the trail of man's ascendency. _progress is an essential characteristic of civilization_.--the goal is never reached, the victory is never finally achieved. man must move on, ever on. intellect must develop, morals improve, liberty increase, social order be perfected, and social growth continue. there must be no halting on the road; the nation that hesitates is lost. progress in general is marked by the development of the individual, on the one hand, and that of society, on the other. in well-ordered society these two ideas are balanced; they seek an equilibrium. excessive individualism leads to anarchy and destruction; excessive socialism blights and stagnates individual activity and independence and retards progress. it must be admitted here as elsewhere that the individual culture and the individual life are, after all, the highest aims. but how can these be obtained in {15} modern life without social progress? how can there be freedom of action for the development of the individual powers without social expansion? truly, the social and the individual life are complementary elements of progress. _diversity is necessary to progress_.--if progress is an essential characteristic of modern civilization, it may be said that diversity is essential to progress. there is much said about equality and fraternity. it depends on what is meant by the terms as to whether these are good sayings or not. if equality means uniformity, by it man is easily reduced to a state of stagnation. diversity of life exists everywhere in progressive nature, where plants or animals move forward in the scale of existence. man is not an exception to the rule, notwithstanding his strong will force. men differ in strength, in moral and intellectual capacity, and in co-operating ability. hence they must occupy different stations in life. and the quality and quantity of progress are to be estimated in different nations according to the diversity of life to be observed among individuals and groups. _what is the goal of civilized man?_--and it may be well to ask, as civilization is progressive: what is our aim in life from our own standpoint? for what do men strive? what is the ultimate of life? what is the best for which humanity can live? if it were merely to obtain food and clothes and nothing more, the question could be easily answered. if it were merely to train a man to be a monk, that he might spend his time in prayer and supplication for a better future life, the question would be simple enough. if to pore over books to find out the knowledge of the past and to spend the life in investigation of truth were the chief aims, it would be easy to determine the object of life. but frequently that which we call success in life is merely a means to an end. and viewed in the complex activity of society, it is difficult to say what is the true end of life; it is difficult to determine the true end of civilization. some have said it is found in administering the "greatest good to the greatest number," {16} and if we consider in this the generations yet unborn, it reveals the actual tendency of modern civilization. if the perfection of the individual is the highest ideal of civilization, it stops not with one individual, but includes all. and this asserts that social well-being must be included in the final aim, for full and free individual development cannot appear without it. the enlarged capacity for living correctly, enjoying the best of this life righteously, and for associating harmoniously and justly with his fellows, is the highest aim of the individual. happiness of the greatest number through utility is the formula for modern civilization. _possibilities of civilization_.--the possibilities of reaching a still higher state of civilization are indeed great. the future is not full of foreboding, but bright and happy with promise of individual culture and social progress. if opportunities are but wisely used, the twentieth century will witness an advancement beyond our highest dreams. yet the whole problem hinges on the right use of knowledge. if the knowledge of chemistry is to be used to destroy nations and races with gases and high explosives, such knowledge turns civilization to destruction. if all of the powers of nature under man's control should be turned against him, civilization would be turned back upon itself. let us have "the will to believe" that we have entered an era of vital progress, of social improvement, of political reforms, which will lead to the protection of those who need protection and the elevation of those who desire it. the rapid progress in art and architecture, in invention and industry, the building of libraries and the diffusion of knowledge, the improvement of our educational system, all being entered upon, will force the world forward at a rapid pace, and on such a rational basis that the delight of living will be greatly enhanced for all classes. _civilization can be estimated_.--this brief presentation of the meaning of civilization reveals the fact that civilization can be recounted; that it is a question of fact and philosophy that can be measured. it is the story of human progress and {17} the causes which made it. it presents the generalizations of all that is valuable in the life of the race. it is the epitome of the history of humanity in its onward sweep. in its critical sense it cannot be called history, for it neglects details for general statements. nor is it the philosophy of history, for it covers a broader field. it is not speculation, for it deals with fact. it is the philosophy of man's life as to the results of his activity. it shows alike the unfolding of the individual and of society, and it represents these in every phase embraced in the word "progress." to recount this progress and to measure civilization is the purpose of the following pages, so far as it may be done in the limited space assigned. subjects for further study 1. are people of civilized races happier now than are the uncivilized races? 2. would the american indians in time have developed a high state of civilization? 3. why do we not find a high state of civilization among the african negroes? 4. what are the material evidences of civilization in the neighborhood in which you live? 5. does increased knowledge alone insure an advanced civilization? 6. choose an important public building in your neighborhood and trace the sources of architecture of the different parts. {18} chapter ii the essentials of progress _how mankind goes forward on the trail_.--although civilization cannot exist without it, progress is something different from the sum-total of the products of civilization. it may be said to be the process through which civilization is obtained, or, perhaps more fittingly, it is the log of the course that marks civilization. there can be no conception of progress without ideals, which are standards set up toward which humanity travels. and as humanity never rises above its ideals, the possibilities of progress are limited by them. if ideals are high, there are possibilities of a high state of culture; if they are low, the possibilities are lessened, and, indeed, frequently are barren of results. but having established ideals as beacon lights for humanity to follow, the final test is whether there is sufficient knowledge, sufficient ability, and sufficient will-power to approximate them. in other words, shall humanity complete the trail of life, go on higher and higher grounds where are set the standards or goals to be reached; or will humanity rest easily and contentedly on a low level with no attempt to reach a higher level, or, indeed, will humanity, failing in desires for betterment, initiative, and will-power, drift to lower levels? groups, either tribes, races, or nations, may advance along given lines and be stationary or even retarded along other lines of development. if the accumulation of wealth is the dominant ideal, it may be so strenuously followed as to destroy opportunity for other phases of life. if the flow of energy is all toward a religious belief that absorbs the time and energy of people in the building of pyramids, mausoleums, cathedrals, and mosques, and taboos the inquiry into nature {19} which might yield a large improvement in the race, religion would be developed at the expense of race improvement. _change is not necessarily progress_.--it is quite common in a popular sense for people to identify change with progress, or indeed to accept the wonderful changes which take place as causes of progress, when in reality they should have taken more care to search out the elements of progress of the great moving panorama of changing life. changes are frequently violent, sudden, tremendous in their immediate effect. they move rapidly and involve many complexes, but progress is a slow-going old tortoise that plods along irrespective of storm or sunshine, life or death, of the cataclysms of war or the catastrophes of earthquakes or volcanoes. progress moves slowly along through political and social revolutions, gaining a little here and a little there, and registering the things that are really worth while out of the ceaseless, changing humanity. achievement may take place without betterment, but all progress must make a record of betterment with achievement. a man may write a book or invent a machine at great labor. so far as he is concerned it is an achievement, but unless it is a good book, a good invention, better than others, so that they may be used for the advancement of the race, they will not form a betterment. many of the changes of life represent the results of trial and error. "there is a way that seemeth right" to a nation which may end in destruction. the evil aroused is sometimes greater than the good. the prosperity of the roman empire was destroyed because of luxury and corrupt administration. the german empire developed great powers in government, education, in the arts and sciences, but her military purpose nearly destroyed her. the spanish empire that once controlled a good part of the american continent failed because laborers were driven out of spain and the wealth gained by exploitation was used to support the nobility and royalty in luxury. whether the united states will continue to carry out her high purposes will depend upon the right use of her immense wealth and power. likewise the {20} radio, the movie, and the automobile are making tremendous changes. will the opportunities they furnish improve the moral and intellectual character of the people--a necessary condition to real progress? in considering modern progress, too frequently it is estimated by the greatness of things, by the stupendous changes, or by the marvellous achievements of the age, and we pause and wonder at what has been accomplished; but if we think long enough and clearly enough, we may get a vision of real progress, and we may find it difficult to determine the outcome of it all, so far as the real betterment of the race is concerned. is the millionaire of to-day any happier, necessarily, and any more moral or of a higher religious standard than the primitive man or the savage of the plains or forest of to-day? true, he has power to achieve in many directions, but is he any happier or better? it may be said that his millions may accomplish great good. this is true if they are properly applied. it is also true that they are capable of great harm if improperly used. as we stand and gaze at the movements of the airplane, or contemplate its rapid flight from ocean to ocean and from land to land around the world, we are impressed with this great wonder of the age, the great achievement of the inventive power of man. but what of the gain to humanity? if it is possible to transport the mails from new york to san francisco in sixteen hours instead of in five days, is there advantage in that except the quickening process of transportation and life? is it not worth while to inquire what the man at the other end of the line is going to do by having his mail four days ahead? he will hurry up somebody else and somebody else will hurry the next one, and we only increase the rapidity of motion. does it really give us more time for leisure, and if so, are we using that leisure time in the development of our reflective intellectual powers or our spiritual life? it is easier to see improvement in the case of the radio, whereby songs and lectures can be broadcast all over the earth, and the {21} community of life and the community of interest are developed thereby, and, also, the leisure hours are devoted to a contemplation of high ideals, of beautiful music, of noble thoughts. we do recognize a modicum of progress out of the great whirring, rapid changes in transportation and creative industry; but let us not be deceived by substituting change for progress, or making the two identical. thus human progress is something more than achievement, and it is something more than the exhibition of tools. it is determined by the use of the tools and involves betterment of the human race. hence, all the products of social heredity, of language, of science, of religion, of art, and of government are progressive in proportion as they are successfully used for individual and social betterment. for if government is used to enslave people, or science to destroy them, or religion to stifle them, there can be no progress. _progress expresses itself in a variety of ideals and aims_.--progress involves many lines of development. it may include biological development of the human race, the development of man, especially his growth of brain power. it may consider man's adaptation to environment under different phases of life. it may consider the efficiency of bodily structure. in a cultural sense, progress may refer to the products of the industrial arts, or to the development of fine arts, or the advancement of religious life and belief--in fact, to the mastery of the resources of nature and their service to mankind in whatever form they may appear or in whatever phase of life they may be expressed. progress may also be indicated in the improvement in social order and in government, and also the increased opportunity of the individual to receive culture through the process of mutual aid. in fact, progress must be sought for in all phases of human activity. whatever phase of progress is considered, its line of demarcation is carefully drawn in the process of change from the old to the new, but the results of these changes will be the indices of either progress or retardation. {22} _progress of the part and progress of the whole_.--an individual might through hereditary qualities have superior mental traits or physical powers. these also may receive specific development under favorable educational environment, but the inertia of the group or the race might render ineffective a salutary use of his powers. a man is sometimes elected mayor of a town and devotes his energies to municipal betterment. but he may be surrounded by corrupt politicians and promoters of enterprises who hedge his way at every turn. also, in a similar way, a group or tribe may go forward, and yet the products of its endeavor be lost to the world. thus a productiveness of the part may be exhibited without the progress of the race. the former moves with concrete limitations, the latter in sweeping, cycling changes; but the latter cannot exist without the former, because it is from the parts that the whole is created, and it is the generalization of the accumulated knowledge or activities of the parts that makes it possible for the whole to develop. the evolution of the human race includes the idea of differentiation of parts and a generalization that makes the whole of progress. so it is not easy to determine the result of a local activity as progressive until its relation to other parts is determined, nor until other activities and the whole of life are determined. local colorings of life may be so provincial in their view-point as to be practically valueless in the estimation of the degree and quality of progress. certain towns, especially in rural districts not acquainted with better things, boast that they have the best school, the best court-house, the best climate--in fact, everything best. when they finally awaken from their local dream, they discover their own deficiencies. the great development of art, literature, philosophy, and politics among the ancient greeks was inefficient in raising the great masses of the people to a higher plane of living, but the fruits of the lives of these superiors were handed on to other groups to utilize, and they are not without influence {23} over the whole human group of to-day. so, too, the religious mystic philosophy and literature of india represented a high state of mental development, but the products of its existence left the races of india in darkness because the mystic philosophy was not adaptable to the practical affairs of life. the indian philosophers may have handed on ideas which caused admiration and wonder, but they have had very little influence of a practical nature on western civilization. so society may make progress in either art, religion, or government for a time, and then, for the want of adaptation to the conditions imposed by progress, the effects may disappear. yet not all is lost, for some achievements in the form of tools are passed on through social heredity and utilized by other races. in the long run it is the total of the progress of the race, the progress of the whole, that is the final test. _social progress involves individual development_.--if we trace progress backward over the trail which it has followed, there are two lines of development more or less clearly defined. one is the improvement of the racial stock through the hereditary traits of individuals. the brain is enlarged, the body developed in character and efficiency, and the entire physical system has changed through variation in accordance with the laws of heredity. what we observe is development in the individual, which is its primary function. progress in this line must furnish individuals of a higher type in the procession of the generations. the other line is through social heredity, that is the accumulated products of civilization handed down from generation to generation. this gives each succeeding generation a new, improved kit of tools, it brings each new generation into a better environment and surrounds it with ready-made means to carry on the improvement and add something for the use of the next generation. knowledge of the arts and industries, language and books, are thus products of social heredity. also buildings, machinery, roads, educational systems, and school buildings are inherited. connected with these two methods of development must {24} be the discovery of the use of the human mind evidenced by the beginning of reflective thought. it is said by some writers that we are still largely in the age of instincts and emotions and have just recently entered the age of reason. such positive statements should be considered with a wider vision of life, for one cannot conceive of civilization at all without the beginning of reflective mental processes. simple inventions, like the use of fire, the bow-and-arrow, or the flint knife, may have come about primarily through the desire to accomplish something by subjecting means to an end, but in the perfection of the use of these things, which occurred very early in primitive life, there must have been reflective thinking in order to shape the knife for its purpose, make the bow-and-arrow more effective, and utilize fire for cooking, heating, and smelting. all of these must have come primarily through the individual initiative. frequent advocates of social achievement would lead one to suppose that the tribe in need of some method of cutting should assemble and pass the resolution that a flint knife be made, when any one knows it was the reflective process of the individual mind which sought adaptation to environment or means to accomplish a purpose. of course the philosopher may read many generalizations into this which may confuse one in trying to observe the simple fact, for it is to be deplored that much of the philosophy of to-day is a smoke screen which obscures the simple truth. the difference of races in achievement and in culture is traced primarily to hereditary traits developed through variation, through intrinsic stimuli, or those originating through so-called inborn traits. these traits enable some races to achieve and adapt themselves to their environment, and cause others to fail. thus, some groups or races have perished because of living near a swamp infested with malaria-carrying mosquitoes or in countries where the food supply was insufficient. they lacked initiative to move to a more healthful region or one more bountiful in food products, or else they {25} lacked knowledge and skill to protect themselves against mosquitoes or to increase the food supply. moreover, they had no power within them to seek the better environment or to change the environment for their own advancement. this does not ignore the tremendous influence of environment in the production of race culture. its influence is tremendous, especially because environmental conditions are more under the direction of intelligence than is the development of hereditary traits. some writers have maintained that there is no difference in the dynamic, mental, or physical power of races, and that the difference of races which we observe to-day is based upon the fact that some have been retarded by poor environment, and others have advanced because of fortunate environment. this argument is good as far as it goes, but it does not tell the whole story. it does not show why some races under good environment have not succeeded, while others under poor environment have succeeded well. it does not show why some races have the wit to change to a better environment or transform the old environment. there seems to be a great persistency of individual traits, of family traits, and, in a still larger generalization, of racial traits which culture fails to obliterate. as these differences of traits seem to be universal, it appears that the particular combination which gives motor power may also be a differentiation. at least, as all races have had the same earth, why, if they are so equal in the beginning, would they not achieve? had they no inventive power? also, when these so-called retarded races came in contact with the more advanced races who were superior in arts and industries, why did they not borrow, adapt, and utilize these productions? there must have been something vitally lacking which neither the qualities of the individual nor the stimulus of his surroundings could overcome. some have deteriorated, others have perished; some have reached a stationary existence, while others have advanced. through hereditary changes, nature played the {26} game in her own way with the leading cards in her own hand, and some races lost. hence so with races, so with individuals. _progress is enhanced by the interaction of groups and races_.--the accumulation of civilization and the state of progress may be much determined by the interaction of races and groups. just as individual personality is developed by contact with others, so the actions and reactions of tribes and races in contact bring into play the utility of discoveries and inventions. thus, knowledge of any kind may by diffusion become a heritage of all races. if one tribe should acquire the art of making implements by chipping flint in a certain way, other tribes with which it comes in contact might borrow the idea and extend it, and thus it becomes spread over a wide area. however, if the original discoverer used the chipped flint for skinning animals, the one who would borrow the idea might use it to make implements of warfare. thus, through borrowing, progress may be a co-operative process. the reference to people in any community reveals the fact that there are few that lead and many that follow; that there is but one edison, but there are millions that follow edison. even in the educational world there are few inventors and many followers. this is evidence of the large power of imitation and adaptation and of the universal habit of borrowing. on the other hand, if one chemical laboratory should discover a high explosive which may be used in blasting rock for making the foundations for buildings, a nation might borrow the idea and use it in warfare for the destruction of man. mr. clark wissler has shown in his book on _man and culture_ that there are culture areas originating from culture centres. from these culture centres the bow-and-arrow is used over a wide area. the domestication of the horse, which occurred in central asia, has spread over the whole world. so stone implements of culture centres have been borrowed and exchanged more or less throughout the world. the theory is that one tribe or race invented one thing because of the {27} adaptability to good environment. the dominant necessity of a race stimulated man's inventive power, while another tribe would invent or discover some other new thing for similar reasons. but once created, not only could the products be swapped or traded, but, where this was impossible, ideas could be borrowed and adapted through imitation. however, one should be careful not to make too hasty generalizations regarding the similar products in different parts of the world, for there is such universality of the traits of the human mind that, with similar stages of advancement and similar environments, man's adaptive power would cause him to do the same thing in very much the same way. thus, it is possible for two races that have had no contact for a hundred thousand years to develop indigenous products of art which are very similar. to illustrate from a point of contact nearer home, it is possible for a person living in wisconsin and one in massachusetts, having the same general environment--physical, educational, ethnic, religious--and having the same general traits of mind, through disconnected lines of differentiation, to write two books very much alike or two magazine articles very much alike. in the question of fundamental human traits subject to the same environmental stimuli, in a general way we expect similar results. with all this differentiation, progress as a whole represents a continuous change from primitive conditions to the present complex life, even though its line of travel leads it through the byways of differentiation. just as the development of races has been through the process of differentiation from an early parent stock, cultural changes have followed the same law of progressive change. just as there is a unity of the human race, there is a unity of progress that involves all mankind. _the study of the uncultured races of to-day_.--it is difficult to determine the beginnings of culture and to trace its slow development. in accomplishing this, there are two main methods of procedure; the first, to find the products or {28} remains of culture left by races now extinct, that is, of nations and peoples that have lived and flourished and passed away, leaving evidence of what they brought to the world; also, by considering what they did with the tools with which they worked, and by determining the conditions under which they lived, a general idea of their state of progress may be obtained. the second method is to determine the state of culture of living races of to-day who have been retarded or whose progress shows a case of arrested development and compare their civilization statistically observed with that of the prehistoric peoples whose state of progress exhibits in a measure similar characteristics to those of the living races. with these two methods working together, more light is continually being thrown upon man's ancient culture. to illustrate this, if a certain kind of tool or implement is found in the culture areas of the extinct neanderthal race and a similar tool is used by a living australian tribe, it may be conjectured with considerable accuracy that the use of this tool was for similar purposes, and the thoughts and beliefs that clustered around its use were the same in each tribe. thus may be estimated the degree of progress of the primitive race. or if an inscription on a cave of an extinct race showed a similarity to an inscription used by a living race, it would seem that they had the same background for such expression, and that similar instincts, emotions, and reflections were directed to a common end. the recent study of anthropologists and archaeologists has brought to light much knowledge of primitive man which may be judged on its own evidence and own merits. the verification of these early cultures by the living races who have reached a similar degree of progress is of great importance. _the study of prehistoric types_.[1]--the brain capacity of modern man has changed little since the time of the crã´-magnon race, which is the earliest ancestral type of present european races and whose existence dates back many {29} thousand years. possibly the weight of the brain has increased during this period because of its development, and undoubtedly its power is much greater in modern man than in this ancient type. prior to that there are some evidences of extinct species, such as pithecanthropus erectus, the grimaldi man, the heidelberg man, and the neanderthal. judging from the skeletal remains that have been found of these races, there has been a general progress of cranial capacity. it is not necessary here to attempt to determine whether this has occurred from hereditary combinations or through changing environment. undoubtedly both of these factors have been potential in increasing the brain power of man, and if we were to go farther back by way of analogy, at least, and consider the anthropoid ape, the animal most resembling man, we find a vast contrast in his cranial capacity as compared with the lowest of the prehistoric types, or, indeed, of the lowest types of the uncultured living races. starting with the anthropoid ape, who has a register of about 350 c.c., the pithecanthropus about 900 c.c., and neanderthal types registering as high as 1,620 c.c. of brain capacity, the best measures of the highest types of modern man show the brain capacity of 1,650 c.c. specimens of the crã´-magnon skulls show a brain capacity equal to that of modern man. there is a great variation in the brain capacity of the neanderthal race as exhibited in specimens found in different centres of culture, ranging all the way from 1,296 c.c. to 1,620 c.c. size is only one of several traits that determine brain power. among others are the weight, convolutions, texture, and education. a small, compact brain may have more power than a larger brain relatively lighter. also much depends upon the centres of development. the development of the frontal area, shown by the full forehead in connection with the distance above the ear (auditory meatus), in contrast with the development of the anterior lobes is indicative of power. it is interesting to note also that the progress of man as shown in the remnants of arts and industry corresponds in {30} development to the development of brain capacity, showing that the physical power of man kept pace with the mental development as exhibited in his mental power displayed in the arts and industries. the discoveries in recent times of the skeletons of prehistoric man in europe, africa, and america, and the increased collection of implements showing cultures are throwing new light on the science of man and indicating a continuous development from very primitive beginnings. _progress is indicated by the early cultures_.--it is convenient to divide the early culture of man, based upon his development in art into the paleolithic, or unpolished, and the neolithic, or polished, stone ages.[2] the former is again divided into the eolithic, lower paleolithic, and the upper paleolithic. in considering these divisions of relative time cultures, it must be remembered that the only way we have of measuring prehistoric time is through the geological method, based upon the ice ages and changes in the physical contour of the earth. in the strata of the earth, either in the late second inter-glacial period or at the beginning of the third, chipped rocks, or eoliths, are found used by races of which the piltdown and heidelberg species are representatives.[3] originally man used weapons to hammer and to cut already prepared by nature. sharp-edged flints formed by the crushing of rocks in the descent of the glaciers or by upheavals of earth or by powerful torrents were picked up as needed for the purpose of cutting. wherever a sharp edge was needed, these natural implements were useful. gradually man learned to carry the best specimens with him. these he improved by chipping the edges, making them more serviceable, or chipping the eolith, so as to grasp it more easily. this represents the earliest relic of the beginning of civilization through art. eoliths of this kind are found in egypt in the hills bordering the nile valley, in asia and america, as well as in southern europe. perhaps at the same period of development man selected stones suitable for crushing bones or for other purposes when hammering {31} was necessary. these were gradually fashioned into more serviceable hammers. in the latter part of this period, known as the pre-chellean, flint implements were considerably improved. in the lower paleolithic in the pre-neanderthal period, including what is known as the chellean, new forms of implements are added to the earlier beginnings. almond-shaped flint implements, followed later by long, pointed implements, indicate the future development of the stone spear, arrowhead, knife, and axe. also smaller articles of use, such as borers, scrapers, and ploughs, appeared. the edges of all implements were rough and uneven, and the forms very imperfect. _industrial and social life of primitive man_.--in the industry of the early neanderthal races (acheulean) implements were increased in number and variety, being also more perfectly formed, showing the expansive art of man. at this period man was a hunter, having temporary homes in caves and shelters, which gradually became more or less permanent, and used well-fashioned implements of stone. at the close of the third interglacial period the climate was mild and moist, and mankind found the open glades suitable places for assemblages in family groups about the open fires; apparently the cooking of food and the making of implements and clothing on a small scale were the domestic occupations at this time. hunting was the chief occupation in procuring food. the bison, the horse, the reindeer, the bear, the beaver, the wild boar had taken the place of the rhinoceros, the sabre-tooth tiger, and the elephant. judging from the stage of life existing at this time, and comparing this with that of the lowest living races, we may safely infer that the family associations existed at this time, even though the habitations in caves and shelters were temporary.[4] "yet, when at length rude huts they first devised, and fires and garments; and in union sweet man wedded woman, the pure joys indulged {32} of chaste connubial love, and children rose, the rough barbarians softened. the warm hearth their frames so melted they no more could bear, as erst, th' uncovered skies. the nuptial bed broke their wild vigor, and the fond caress of prattling children from the bosom chased their stern, ferocious manners." --lucretius, "on the nature of things." after osborn. thus the lower paleolithic merged into the upper; with the appearance of the mousterian, augrignacian, solutrian, magdalenian, and azilian cultures followed the most advanced stage of the neanderthal race before its final disappearance. the list of tools and implements indicates a widening scope of civilization. for war and chase and fishing, for industry and domestic life, for art, sculpture, and engraving, and for ceremonial use, a great variety of implements of stone and bone survived the life of the races. spears, daggers, knives, arrowheads, fish-hooks, and harpoons; hand-axes, drills, hammers, scrapers, planes, needles, pins, chisels, wedges, gravers, etchers, mortars, and pilasters; ceremonial staffs and wands--all are expressions of a fulness of industrial and social life not recognized in earlier races. indications of religious ceremonies represent the changing mind, and the expression of mind in art suggests increased mental power. _cultures indicate the mental development of the race_.--as the art and industry to-day represent the mental processes of man, so did these primitive cultures show the inventive skill and adaptive power in the beginnings of progress. perhaps instinct, emotion, and necessity figured more conspicuously in the early period than reflective thought, while in modern times we have more design and more planning, both in invention and construction. also the primitive social order was more an unconscious development, and lacked purpose and directing power in comparison with present life. {33} but there must have been inventors and leaders in primitive times, some brains more fertile than others, that made change and progress possible. who these unknown geniuses were human records do not indicate. in modern times we single out the superiors and call them great. the inventor, the statesman, the warrior, the king, have their achievements heralded and recorded in history. the records of achievement of the great barbarous cultures, of the assyrians, the egyptians, and the hebrews, centre around some king whose tomb preserves the only records, while in reality some man unknown to us was the real author of such progress as was made. the reason is that progress was so slow that the changes passed unnoticed, being the products of many minds, each adding its increment of change. only the king or ruler who could control the mass mind and the mass labor could make sufficient spectacular demonstration worth recording, and could direct others to build a tomb or record inscriptions to perpetuate his name. _men of genius cause the mutations which permit progress_.--the toiling multitudes always use the products of some inventive genius. some individual with specialized mental traits plans something different from social usages or industrial life which changes tradition and modifies the customs and habits of the mass. whether he be statesman, inventor, philosopher, scientist, discoverer, or military leader, he usually receives credit for the great progressive mutation which he has originated. there can be little progress without these few fertile brains, just as there could be little progress unless they were supported by the laborers who carry out the plans of the genius. while the "unknown man" is less conspicuous in the progress of the race in modern complex society, he is still a factor in all progress. _the data of progress_.--evolution is not necessarily progress; neither is development progress; yet the factors that enter into evolution and development are essential to progress. the laws of differentiation apply to progress as well as to evolution. in the plant and animal life everywhere this law {34} obtains. in man it is subservient to the domination of intelligent direction, yet it is in operation all of the time. some races are superior in certain lines, other races show superiority in other lines. likewise, individuals exhibit differences in a similar way. perhaps the dynamic physical or mental power of the individual or the race will not improve in itself, having reached its maximum. there is little hope that the brain of man will ever be larger or stronger, but it may become more effective through training and increased knowledge. hence in the future we must look for achievement along co-operative and social lines. it is to social expansion and social perfection that we must look for progress in the future. for here the accumulated power of all may be utilized in providing for the welfare of the individual, who, in turn, will by his inventive power cause humanity to progress. the industrial, institutional, humanitarian, and educational machinery represents progress in action, but increased knowledge, higher ideals of life, broader concepts of truth, liberty of individual action which is interested in human life in its entirety, are the real indices of progress. subjects for further study 1. why do some races progress and others deteriorate? 2. compare different communities to show to what extent environment determines progress. 3. show how the airplane is an evidence of progress. the radio. the gasoline-engine. 4. discuss the effects of religious belief on progress. 5. is the mental capacity of the average american greater than the average of the greeks at the time of their highest culture? 6. what are the evidences that man will not advance in physical and mental capacity? 7. show that the improvement of the race will be through social activity. [1] see chapter iv. [2] see chapter iii. [3] see chapter iv. [4] see chapter vi. {35} chapter iii methods of recounting human progress _difficulty of measuring progress_.--in its larger generalization, progress may move in a straight line, but it has such a variety of expression and so many tributary causes that it is difficult to reduce it to any classification. owing to the difficulties that attend an attempt to recite all of the details of human progress, philosophers and historians have approached the subject from various sides, each seeking to make, by means of higher generalizations, a clear course of reasoning through the labyrinth of materials. by adopting certain methods of marking off periods of existence and pointing out the landmarks of civilization, they have been able to estimate more truly the development of the race. civilization cannot be readily measured by time; indeed, the time interval in history is of little value save to mark order and continuity. it has in itself no real significance; it is merely an arbitrary division whose importance is greatly exaggerated. but while civilization is a continuous quantity, and cannot be readily marked off into periods without destroying its movement, it is necessary to make the attempt, especially in the study of ancient or prehistoric society; for any method which groups and classifies facts in logical order is helpful to the study of human progress. _progress may be measured by the implements used_.--a very common method, based largely upon the researches of archaeologists, is to divide human society into four great periods, or ages, marked by the progress of man in the use of implements. the first of these periods is called the stone age, and embraces the time when man used stone for all {36} purposes in the industrial arts so far as they had been developed. for convenience this period has been further divided into the age of ancient or unpolished implements and the age of modern or polished implements. the former includes the period when rude implements were chipped out of flint or other hard stone, without much idea of symmetry and beauty, and with no attempt to perfect or beautify them by smoothing and polishing their rough surface. in the second period man learned to fashion more perfectly the implements, and in some instances to polish them to a high degree. although the divisions are very general and very imperfect, they map out the great prehistoric era of man; but they must be considered as irregular, on account of the fact that the stone era of man occurred at different times in different tribes. thus the inhabitants of north america were in the stone age less than two centuries ago, while some of the inhabitants of the south sea islands are in the stone age during the present century. it is quite remarkable that the use of stone implements was universal to all tribes and nations at some period of their existence. after the long use of stone, man gradually became acquainted with some of the metals, and subsequently discovered the method of combining copper with tin and other alloys to form bronze, which material, to a large extent, added to the implements already in use. the bronze age is the most hypothetical of all these divisions, as it does not appear to have been as universal as the stone, on account of the difficulty of obtaining metals. the use of copper by the indians of the lake superior region was a very marked epoch in their development, and corresponds to the bronze age of other nations, although their advancement in other particulars appears to be less than that of other tribes of european origin which used bronze freely. bronze implements have been found in great plenty in scandinavia and peru, and to a limited extent in north america. they certainly mark a stage of progress in advance of that of the inhabitants of the stone age. bronze {37} was the chief metal for implements throughout the early civilization of europe. following the age of bronze is the iron age, in which the advancement of man is especially marked. the bronze implements were at first supplemented in their use by those of iron. but gradually iron implements superseded the bronze. the iron age still is with us. possibly it has not yet reached its highest point. considering the great structures built of iron, and the excessive use of iron in machinery, implements, and furniture, it is easy to realize that we are yet in this great period. though we continue to use stone more than the ancients and more bronze for decoration and ornament than they, yet both are subordinate to the use of iron. general as the above classification is, it helps in an indefinite way to give us a central idea of progress and to mark off, somewhat indefinitely, periods of development. _the development of art_.--utility was the great purpose underlying the foundation of the industrial arts. the stone axe, or celt, was first made for a distinct service, but, in order to perfect its usefulness, its lines became more perfect and its surface more highly polished. so we might say for the spear-head, the knife, or the olla. artistic lines and decorative beauty always followed the purpose of use. this could be applied to all of the products of man's invention to transform parts of nature to his use. on account of the durability of form, the attempt to trace the course of civilization by means of the development of the fine arts has met with much success. though the idea of beauty is not essential to the preservation of man or to the making of the state, it has exerted a great influence in individual-building and in society-building. in our higher emotional natures aesthetic ideas have ruled with imperial sway. but primitive ideas of beauty appear to us very crude, and even repulsive. the adornment of person with bright though rudely colored garments, the free use of paint on the person, and the promiscuous use of jewelry, as {38} practised by the primitive peoples, present a great contrast to modern usage. yet it is easy to trace the changes in custom and, moreover, to determine the origin of present customs. so also in representative art, the rude sketch of an elephant or a buffalo on ivory or stone and the finished picture by a raphael are widely separated in genius and execution, but there is a logical connection between the two found in the slowly evolving human activities. the rude figure of a god moulded roughly from clay and the lifelike model by an angelo have the same relations to man in his different states. the same comparison may be made between the low, monotonous moaning of the savage and the rapturous music of a patti, or between the beating of the tom-tom and the lofty strains of a mozart. _progress is estimated by economic stages_.--the progress of man is more clearly represented by the successive economic stages of his life. thus we have first the _primal nomadic_ period, in which man was a wanderer, subsisting on roots and berries, and with no definite social organization. this period, like all primary periods, is largely hypothetical. having learned to capture game and fish, he entered what might be called the _fisher-hunter_ stage, although he was still a nomad, and rapidly spread over a large part of the earth's surface, wandering from forest to forest and from stream to stream, searching for the means of subsistence and clothing. when man learned to domesticate animals he made a great step forward and entered what is known as the _pastoral_ period, in which his chief occupation was the care of flocks and herds. this contributed much to his material support and quickened his social and intellectual movement. after a time, when he remained in one place a sufficient time to harvest a short crop, he began agriculture in a tentative way, while his chief concern was yet with flocks and herds. he soon became permanently settled, and learned more fully the art of agriculture, and then entered the permanent _agricultural_ stage. it was during this period that he made the most rapid advances in {39} the industrial arts and in social order. this led to more densely populated communities, with permanent homes and the necessary development of law and government. as the products of industry increased men began to exchange "the relatively superfluous for the relatively necessary," and trade in the form of barter became a permanent custom. this led to the use of money and a more extended system of exchange, and man entered the _commercial_ era. this gave him a wider intercourse with surrounding tribes and nations, and brought about a greater diversity of ideas. the excessive demand for exchangeable goods, the accumulation of wealth, and the enlarged capacity for enjoyment centred the activities of life in industry, and man entered the _industrial_ stage. at first he employed hand power for manufacturing goods, but soon he changed to power manufacture, brought about by discovery and invention. water and steam were now applied to turn machinery, and the new conditions of production changed the whole industrial life. a revolution in industrial society caused an immediate shifting of social life. classes of laborers in the great industrial army became prominent, and production was carried on in a gigantic way. we are still in this industrial world, and as electricity comes to the aid of steam we may be prepared for even greater changes in the future than we have witnessed in the past.[1] in thus presenting the course of civilization by the different periods of economic life, we must keep the mind free from conventional ideas. for, while the general course of economic progress is well indicated, there was a slow blending of each period into the succeeding one. there is no formal procedure in the progress of man. yet we might infer from the way in which some writers present this matter that society moved forward in regular order, column after column. from the formal and forcible way in which they have presented the history of early society, one might imagine that a certain tribe, having become weary of tending cattle and goats, resolved one {40} fine morning to change from the pastoral life to agriculture, and that all of the tribes on earth immediately concluded to do the same, when, in truth, the change was slow and gradual, while the centuries passed away. it is well to consider that in the expanded industrial life of man the old was not replaced, but supplemented, by the new, and that after the pastoral stage was entered, man continued to hunt and fish, and that after formal agriculture was begun the tending of flocks and herds continued, and fishing was practised at intervals. but each succeeding occupation became for the time the predominant one, while others were relatively subordinate. even to-day, while we have been rushing forward in recent years at a rapid rate, under the power of steam and electricity, agriculture and commerce have made marvellous improvement. though we gain the new, nothing of the old is lost. the use of flocks and herds, as well as fish and game, increases each year, although not relatively. _progress is through the food supply_.--this is only another view of the economic life. the first period is called the natural subsistence period, when man used such food as he found prepared for him by nature. it corresponds to the primal nomadic period of the last classification. from this state he advanced to the use of fish for food, and then entered the third period, when native grains were obtained through a limited cultivation of the soil. after this followed a period in which meat and milk were the chief articles of food. finally the period of extended and permanent agriculture was reached, and farinaceous food by cultivation became the main support of life. the significance of this classification is observed in the fact that the amount, variety, and quality of the food available determine the possibility of man's material and spiritual advancement. as the food supply lies at the foundation of human existence, prosperity is measured to a large extent by the food products. the character of the food affects to a great extent the mental and moral capabilities of man; that is, it {41} limits the possibilities of civilization. even in modern civilization the effect of poor food on intellect, morals, and social order is easily observed. _progress is estimated by different forms of social order_.--it is only a more general way of estimating political life, and perhaps a broader way, for it includes the entire social development. by this classification man is first represented as wandering in a solitary state with the smallest amount of association with his fellows necessary to his existence and perpetuation, and with no social organization. this status of man is hypothetical, and gives only a starting point for the philosophy of higher development. no savage tribes have yet been discovered in which there was not at least association of individuals in groups, although organization might not yet have appeared. it is true that some of the lower tribes, like the fuegians of south america, have very tentative forms of social and political association. they wander in loosely constructed groups, which constantly shift in association, being without permanent organization. yet the purely solitary man is merely conjectural. it is common for writers to make a classification of social groups into primary and secondary.[2] the primary social groups are: first, the family based upon biological relations, supported by the habit of association; second, the play group of children, in which primitive characters of social order appear, and a third group is the association of adults in a neighborhood meeting. in the formation of these groups, the process of social selection is always in evidence. impulse, feeling, and emotion play the greater parts in the formation of these primitive groups, while choice based on rational selection seldom appears. the secondary groups are those which originate through the differentiation of social functions in which the contact of individuals is less intimate than in the primary group. such voluntary associations as a church, labor organization, or {42} scientific society may be classified as secondary in time and in importance. next above the human horde is represented the forced association of men in groups, each group struggling for its own existence. within the group there was little protection and little social order, although there was more or less authority of leadership manifested. this state finally led to the establishment of rudimentary forms of government, based upon blood relationship. these groups enlarged to full national life. this third stage finally passed to the larger idea of international usage, and is prospective of a world state. these four stages of human society, so sweeping in their generalization, still point to the idea of the slow evolution of social order. _the development of family life_.--starting with the hypothesis that man at one time associated in a state of promiscuity, he passed through the separate stages of polyandry and polygamy, and finally reached a state of monogamy and the pure home life of to-day. those who have advocated this doctrine have failed to substantiate it clearly so as to receive from scholars the recognition of authority. all these forms of family life except the first have been observed among the savage tribes of modern life, but there are not sufficient data to prove that the human race, in the order of its development, must have passed through these four stages. however, it is true that the modern form of marriage and pure home life did not always exist, but are among the achievements of modern civilization. there certainly has been a gradual improvement in the relations of the members of the household, and notwithstanding the defects of faithlessness and ignorance, the modern family is the social unit and the hope of modern social progress. _the growth of political life_.--many have seen in this the only true measure of progress, for it is affirmed that advancement in civil life is the essential element of civilization. its importance in determining social order makes it a central factor in all progress. the _primitive family_ represents the germ {43} of early political foundation. it was the first organized unit of society, and contained all of the rudimentary forms of government. the executive, the judicial, the legislative, and the administrative functions of government were all combined in one simple family organization. the head of the family was king, lord, judge, priest, and military commander all in one. as the family expanded it formed the _gens_ or _clan_, with an enlarged family life and more systematic family government. the religious life expanded also, and a common altar and a common worship were instituted. a slight progress toward social order and the tendency to distribute the powers of government are to be observed. certain property was held in common and certain laws regulated the family life. the family groups continued to enlarge by natural increase and by adoption, all those coming into the gens submitting to its laws, customs, and social usage. finally several gentes united into a brotherhood association called by the greeks a _phratry_, by the romans a _curia_. this brotherhood was organized on a common religious basis, with a common deity and a central place of worship. it also was used partially as the basis of military organization. this group represents the first unit based upon locality. from it spring the ward idea and the idea of local self-government. the _tribe_ represented a number of gentes united for religious and military purposes. although its principal power was military, there were a common altar and a common worship for all members of the tribe. the chief, or head of the tribe, was the military leader, and usually performed an important part in all the affairs of the tribe. as the tribe became the seat of power for military operations, the gens remained as the foundation of political government, for it was the various heads of the gentes who formed the council of the chief or king and later laid the foundation of the senate, wherever instituted. it was common for the tribe in most instances to pass into a village community before developing full national life. there were exceptions to this, where tribes have passed directly into {44} well-organized groups without the formation of the village or the city. the _village community_, next in logical order, represents a group of closely related people located on a given territory, with a half-communal system of government. there were the little group of houses forming the village proper and representing the different homes of the family group. there were the common pasture-land, the common woodland, and the fertile fields for cultivation. these were all owned, except perhaps the house lot, by the entire community, and every year the tillable land was parcelled out by the elders of the community to the heads of families for tillage. usually the tiller of the soil had a right to the crop, although among the early greeks the custom seems to be reversed, and the individual owned the land, but was compelled to place its proceeds into a common granary. the village community represents the transition from a nomadic to a permanent form of government, and was common to all of the aryan tribes. the federation of the village communities or the expansion of the tribes formed the greek city-state, common to all of the greek communities. it represents the real beginning of civic life among the nations. the old family organization continued to exist, although from this time on there was a gradual separation of the functions of government. the executive, legislative, and judicial processes became more clearly defined, and special duties were assigned to officers chosen for a particular purpose. formal law, too, appeared as the expression of the will of a definitely organized community. government grew more systematic, and expanded into a well-organized municipality. there was less separation of the duties of officers than now, but there was a constant tendency for government to unfold and for each officer to have his specific powers and duties defined. a deity watched over the city, and a common shrine for worship was set up for all members of the municipality. the next attempt to enlarge government was by federation {45} and by conquest and domination.[3] the city of rome represents, first, a federation of tribal city groups, and, finally, the dominant city ruling over many other cities and much territory. from this it was only a step to the empire and imperial sway. athens in her most prosperous period attempted to do the same, but was not entirely successful. after the decline of the roman power there arose from the ruins of the fallen empire the modern nationalities, which used all forms of government hitherto known. they partook of democracy, aristocracy, or imperialism, and even attempted, in some instances, to combine the principles of all three in one government. while the modern state developed some new characteristics, it included the elements of the greek and roman governments. the relations of these new states developed a new code of law, based upon international relations. though treaties were made between the greeks and the romans in their first international relations, and much earlier between the hebrews and the phoenicians, international law is of practically modern origin. at present modern nations have an extended and intricate code of laws governing their relations. it is an extension of government beyond the boundaries of nationality. through commerce, trade, and political intercourse the nations of the western world are drawn more closely together, and men talk of a world citizenship. a wide philanthropy, rapid and cheap transportation, the accompanying influences of travel, and a world market for the products of the earth, all tend to level the barriers of nationality and to develop universal citizenship. the prophets of our day talk of the coming world state, which is not likely to appear so long as the barriers of sea and mountain remain; yet each year witnesses a closer blending of the commercial, industrial, and political interests of all nations. thus we see how governments have been evolved and national life expanded in accordance {46} with slowly developing civilization. although good government and a high state of civilization are not wholly in the relation of cause and effect, they always accompany each other, and the progress of man may be readily estimated from the standpoint of the development of political institutions and political life. _religion important in civilization_.--it is not easy to trace the development of man by a consideration of the various religious beliefs entertained at different periods of his existence. yet there is unmistakably a line of constant development to be observed in religion, and as a rule its progress is an index of the improvement of the race. no one can contrast the religion of the ancient nations with the modern christian religion without being impressed with the vast difference in conception and in practice existing between them. in the early period of barbarism, and even of savagery, religious belief was an important factor in the development of human society. it is no less important to-day, and he who recounts civilization without giving it a prominent place has failed to obtain a comprehensive view of the philosophy of human development. from the family altar of the greeks to the state religion; from the rude altar of abraham in the wilderness to the magnificent temple of solomon at jerusalem; from the harsh and cruel tenets of the oriental religions to the spiritual conception and ethical practice of the christian religion, one observes a marked progress. we need only go to the crude unorganized superstition of the savage or to the church of the middle ages to learn that the power and influence of religion is great in human society building. _the progress through moral evolution_.--the moral development of the race, although more difficult to determine than the intellectual, may prove an index to the progress of man. the first formal expression of moral practice is the so-called race morality or group morality, based upon mutual aid for common defense. this is found to-day in all organized groups, such as the boy gang, the christian church, the political party, {47} the social set, the educational institution, and, indeed, the state itself; but wherever found it has its source in a very primitive group action. in the primitive struggle for existence man had little sympathy for his fellows, the altruistic sentiment being very feeble. but gradually through the influence of the family life sympathy widened and deepened in its onward flow until, joining with the group morality, it entered the larger world of ethical practice. this phase of moral culture had its foundation in the sympathy felt by the mother for her offspring, a sympathy that gradually extended to the immediate members of the household. as the family expanded into the state, human sympathy expanded likewise, until it became national in its significance. through this process there finally came a world-wide philanthropy which recognizes the sufferings of all human beings. this sympathy has been rapidly increased by the culture of the intellect, the higher development of the sensibilities, and the refinement of the emotions; thus along the track of altruism or ethical development, which had its foundation in primitive life, with its ever widening and enlarging circles, the advancement of humanity may be traced. the old egoism, the savage warfare for existence, has been constantly tempered by altruism, which has been a saving quality in the human race. _intellectual development of man_.--some philosophers have succeeded in recounting human progress by tracing the intellectual development of the race. this is possible, for everything of value that has been done, and which has left a record, bears the mark of man's intellect. in the early period of his existence, man had sufficient intellect to direct his efforts to satisfy the common wants of life. this exercise of the intellectual faculty has accompanied man's every movement, but it is best observed in the products of his industry and the practice of social order. by doing and making, the intellect grows, and it is only by observing the phenomena of active life that we get a hint or trace of the powers and capacities of the mind. {48} but after man begins the process of reflective thinking, his intellectual activities become stronger, and it is much easier to trace his development by considering the condition of religion, law, philosophy, literature, sculpture, art, and architecture. these represent the best products of the mind, and it is along this intellectual highway that the best results of civilization are found. during the modern period of progressive life systematic education has forced the intellectual faculties through a more rapid course, giving predominance to intellectual life everywhere. the intellectual development of nations or the intellectual development of man in general is a theme of never-tiring interest, as it represents his noblest achievements. man from the very beginning has had a desire for knowledge, to satisfy curiosity. gradually, however, he had a desire to know in order to increase utility, and finally he reaches the highest state of progress in desiring to know for the sake of knowing. thus he proceeds from mere animal curiosity to the idealistic state of discovering "truth for truth's sake." these are qualities not only of the individual in his development but of the racial group and, indeed, in a larger way of all mankind; intelligence developed in the attempt of man to discover the nature of the results of his instinctive, impulsive, or emotional actions. later he sought causes of these results. here we have involved increased knowledge as a basis of human action and the use of that knowledge through discriminating intelligence. the intellect thus represents the selective and directive process in the use of knowledge. hence, intelligent behavior of the individual or of the group comes only after accumulated knowledge based on experience. the process of trial and error thus gives rise to reflective thinking. it is a superior use of the intellect that more than anything else distinguishes the adult from the child or modern man from the primitive. _change from savagery to barbarism_.--perhaps one of the broadest classifications of ancient society, based upon general characteristics of progress, makes the two general divisions of {49} savagery and barbarism, and subdivides each of these into three groups. the lowest status of savagery represents man as little above the brute creation, subsisting upon roots and berries, and with no knowledge of art or of social order. the second period, called the middle status of savagery, represents man using fire, and using fish for food, and having corresponding advancement in other ways. the upper status of savagery begins with the use of the bow-and-arrow and extends to the period of the manufacture and use of pottery. at this point the period of barbarism begins. its lower status, beginning with the manufacture of pottery, extends to the time of the domestication of animals. the middle status includes not only the domestication of animals in the east but the practice of irrigation in the west and the building of walls from stone and adobe brick. the upper status is marked by the use of iron and extends to the introduction of the phonetic alphabet and literary composition. at this juncture civilization is said to dawn. "commencing," says mr. morgan, the author of this classification, in his _ancient society_, "with the australians and the polynesians, following with the american indian tribes, and concluding with the roman and grecian, which afford the best exemplification of the six great stages of human progress, the sum of their united experiences may be supposed to fairly represent that of the human family from the middle status of savagery to the end of the ancient civilization." by this classification the australians would be placed in the middle status of savagery, and the early greeks and romans in the upper status of barbarism, while the pueblo indians of new mexico would be placed in the middle status of barbarism. this is an excellent system for estimating the progress of ancient society, for around these initial periods may be clustered all of the elements of civilization. it is of especial value in the comparative study of different races and tribes. _civilization includes all kinds of human progress_.--the above representation of the principal methods of recounting {50} civilization shows the various phases of human progress. although each one is helpful in determining the progress of man from a particular point of view, none is sufficient to marshal all of the qualities of civilization in a completed order. for the entire field of civilization should include all the elements of progress, and this great subject must be viewed from every side before it can be fairly represented to the mind of the student. the true nature of civilization has been more clearly presented in thus briefly enumerating the different methods of estimating human progress. but we must remember that civilization, though continuous, is not uniform. the qualities of progress which are strong in one tribe or nation are weak in others. it is the total of the characteristics of man and the products of his activity that represents his true progress. nations have arisen, developed, and passed away; tribes have been swept from the face of the earth before a complete development was possible; and races have been obliterated by the onward march of civilization. but the best products of all nations have been preserved for the service of others. ancient chaldea received help from central asia; egypt and judea from babylon; greece from egypt; rome from greece; and all europe and america have profited from the culture of greece and rome and the religion of judea. there may be a natural growth, maturity, and decay of nations, but civilization moves ever on toward a higher and more diversified life. the products of human endeavor arrange themselves on the side of man in his attempt to master himself and nature. table showing methods of recounting human progress i. method of the kind of implements used. 1. paleolithic, or old stone, age. 2. neolithic, or new stone, age. 3. incidental use of copper, tin, and other metals. 4. the making of pottery. 5. the age of bronze. 6. the iron age. {51} ii. method by art development. 1. primitive drawings in caves and engraving on ivory and wood. 2. the use of color in decoration of objects, especially in decoration of the body. 3. beginnings of sculpture and carving figures, animals, gods, and men. 4. pictorial representations--the pictograph. 5. representative art in landscapes. 6. perspective drawing. 7. idealistic art. 8. industrial arts. iii. method of economic stages. 1. the nomadic stage. 2. the hunter-fisher stage. 3. the pastoral period. 4. the agricultural period. 5. the commercial period. 6. the period of industrial organization. iv. progress estimated by the food supply. 1. natural subsistence period. 2. fish and shell fish. 3. cultivation of native grains. 4. meat and milk. 5. farinaceous foods by systematic agriculture. v. method of social order. 1. solitary state of man (hypothetical). 2. the human horde. 3. small groups for purposes of association. 4. the secret society. 5. the religious cult. 6. closely integrated groups for defense. 7. amalgamated or federated groups. 8. the race. vi. the family development. 1. state of promiscuity (hypothetical). 2. polyandry. 3. polygamy. 4. patriarchal family with polygamy. 5. the monogamic family. vii. progress measured by political organization. 1. the organized horde about religious ideas. {52} 2. the completed family organization. _a_. family. _b_. gens. _c_. the phratry. _d_. patriarchal family. _e_. tribe. 3. the ethnic state. 4. state formed by conflict and amalgamation. 5. international relations. 6. the world state (idealistic). viii. religious development. 1. belief in spiritual beings. 2. recognition of the spirit of man and other spirits. 3. animism. 4. anthropomorphic religion. 5. spiritual concept of religion. 6. ethnical religions. 7. forms of religious worship and religious practice. ix. moral evolution. 1. race morality (gang morality). 2. sympathy for fellow beings. 3. sympathy through blood relationship. 4. patriotism: love of race and country. 5. world ethics. x. progress through intellectual development. 1. sensation and reflex action. 2. instinct and emotion. 3. impulse and adaptability. 4. reflective thought. 5. invention and discovery. 6. rational direction of human life. 7. philosophy. 8. science. xi. progress through savagery and barbarism. 1. lower status of savagery. 2. middle status of savagery. 3. upper status of savagery. 4. lower status of barbarism. 5. middle status of barbarism. 6. upper status of barbarism. 7. civilization (?). {53} subjects for further study 1. in what other ways than those named in this chapter may we estimate the progress of man? 2. discuss the evidences of man's mental and spiritual progress. 3. the relation of wealth to progress. 4. the relation of the size of population to the prosperity of a nation. 5. enumerate the arguments that the next destructive war will destroy civilization. 6. in what ways do you think man is better off than he was one hundred years ago? one thousand years ago? 7. in what ways did the suffering caused by the great war indicate an increase in world ethics? [1] see chapter xxvii. [2] see cooley, _social organization_, chap. iii. [3] the transition from the ethnic state to the modern civic state was through conflict, conquest, and race amalgamation. {57} _part ii_ first steps of progress chapter iv prehistoric man _the origin of man has not yet been determined_.--man's origin is still shrouded in mystery, notwithstanding the accumulated knowledge of the results of scientific investigation in the field and in the laboratory. the earliest historical records and relics of the seats of ancient civilization all point backward to an earlier period of human life. looking back from the earliest civilizations along the euphrates and the nile that have recorded the deeds of man so that their evidences could be handed down from generation to generation, the earlier prehistoric records of man stretch away in the dim past for more than a hundred thousand years. the time that has elapsed from the earliest historical records to the present is only a few minutes compared to the centuries that preceded it. wherever we go in the field of knowledge, we shall find evidences of man's great antiquity. we know at least that he has been on earth a long, long period. as to the method of his appearance, there is no absolutely determining evidence. yet science has run back into the field of conjecture with such strong lines that we may assume with practical certainty something of his early life. he stands at the head of the zoological division of the animal kingdom. the anthropoid ape is the animal that most nearly resembles man. it might be said to stand next to man in the procession of species. so far as our knowledge can ascertain, it appears that man was developed in the same manner as the higher types in the animal and vegetable world, namely, by the process of evolution, and by evolution we mean continuous progressive change according to law, from external and internal stimuli. the process of evolution is not a process of creation, nor does evolution move in {58} a straight line, but through the process of differentiation. in no other way can one account for the multitudes of the types and races of the human being, except by this process of differentiation which is one of the main factors of evolution. accompanying the process of differentiation is that of specialization and integration. when types become highly specialized they fail to adapt themselves to new environments, and other types not so highly specialized prevail. so far as the human race is concerned, it seems to be evolved according to the law of sympodial development--that is, a certain specialized part of the human race develops certain traits and is limited in its adaptability to a specific environment. closely allied with this are some individuals or groups possessing human traits that are less highly specialized, and hence are adaptable to new conditions. under new conditions the main stem of development perishes and the budded branch survives. we have abundant pictures of this in prehistoric times, and records show that this also has been the common lot of man. modern man thus could not have been developed from any of the living species of the anthropoid apes, but he might have had a common origin in the physical, chemical, and vital forces that produced the apes. one line of specialization made the ape, another line made man. subsequently the separation of man into the various races and species came about by the survival of some races for a time, and then to be superseded by a branch of the same race which differentiated in a period of development before high specialization had taken place. _methods of recounting prehistoric time_.[1]--present time is measured in terms of centuries, years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds, but the second is the determining power of mechanical measurement, though it is derived mainly by the movement of the earth around the sun and the turning of the earth on its axis. mechanically we have derived the second as the unit. it is easy for us to think in hours or days or weeks, though it may be the seconds tick off unnoticed {59} and the years glide by unnoticed; but it is difficult to think in centuries--more difficult in millions of years. the little time that man has been on earth compared with the creation of the earth makes it difficult for us to estimate the time of creation. the much less time in the historical period makes it seem but a flash in the movement of the creation. ====================================================================== twenty-four-hour dial illustrating human chronology[2] twenty-five thousand years equals one hour [illustration: twenty-four hour dial] age of modern man 10,000 years = less than half an hour. age of crã´-magnon type 25,000 years = one hour. age of neanderthal type 50,000 years = two hours. age of piltdown type 150,000 years = six hours. age of heidelberg type 375,000 years = fifteen hours. age of pithecanthropus 500,000 years = twenty hours. beginning of christian era 2,000 years = 4.8 minutes. discovery of america 431 years = about 1 minute. declaration of independence 137 years = about 21 seconds. ====================================================================== there are four main methods of determining prehistoric {60} time.[3] one is called the (1) _geologic method_, which is based upon the fact that, in a slowly cooling earth and the action of water and frost, cold and heat, storm and glacier and volcanic eruption, the rocks on the earth are of different ages. if they had never been disturbed from where they were first laid down, it would be very easy to reckon time by geological processes. if you had a stone column twenty feet high built by a machine in ten hours' time, and granting that it worked uniformly, it would be easy to see just at what hour of the period a layer of stone four feet from the bottom, or ten feet from the top, was laid. if, however, in the building of the wall, it should have toppled over several times and had to be rebuilt, it would require considerable study to see just at what hour a certain stone was put in the wall. studying the geology of the earth in a large way, it is easy to determine what strata of the earth are oldest, and this may be verified by a consideration of the process in which these rocks were being made. chemistry and physics are thus brought to the aid of geology. it is easy to determine whether a rock has been fused by a fire or whether it has been constructed by the slow action of water and pressure of other rocks. if to-day we should find in an old river bed which had been left high and dry on a little mesa or plateau above the present river bottom, layers of earth that had been put down by water, and we could find how much of each layer was made in a single year, it would be easy to estimate the number of years it took to make the whole deposit. also if we could find in the lowest layer certain relics of the human race, we could know that the race lived at that time. if we should find relics later on of a different nature, we should be able to estimate the progress of civilization. the second method is of (2) _paleontology_, which is developed along with geology. in this we have both the vertebrate and invertebrate paleontology, which are divisions of the science which treats of ancient forms of animal and vegetable life. there are many other divisions of paleontology, some {61} devoting themselves entirely to animal life and others to vegetable, as, for instance, paleobotany. as plants and animals have gradually developed from lower to higher forms and the earth has been built gradually by formations at different periods of existence, by a comparison of the former development with the latter, that is, comparison with the earth, or inorganic, development to the life, or organic, development, we are enabled to get a comparative view of duration. thus, if in a layer of earth, geological time is established and there should be found bones of an animal, the bones of a man, and fossilized forms of ancient plants, it would be easy to determine their relative ages. the third method is that of (3) _anatomy_, which is a study of the comparative size and shape of the bones of man and other animals as a method of showing relative periods of existence. also, just as the structure of the bones of a child, as compared with that of a man, would determine their relative ages, so the bones of the species that have been preserved through fossilization may show the relative ages of different types of animals. the study of the skeletons of animals, including those of man, has led to the science of anthropometry. the fourth method is to study the procession of man by (4) _cultures_, or the industrial and ornamental implements that have been preserved in the river drift, rocks, and caves of the earth from the time that man used them until they were discovered. just as we have to-day models of the improvement of the sewing-machine, the reaper, or the flying-machine, each one a little more perfect, so we shall find in the relics of prehistoric times this same gradual development--first a stone in its natural state used for cutting, then chipped to make it more perfect, and finally beautified in form and perfected by polishing. thus we shall find progress from the natural stone boulder used for throwing and hammering, the developed product made by chipping and polishing the natural boulder, making it more useful and more beautiful, and so for all the {62} multitude of implements used in the hunt and in domestic affairs. not only do we have here an illustration of continuous progress in invention and use, but also an adaptation of new material, for we pass from the use of stone to that of metals, probably in the prehistoric period, although the beginnings of the use of bronze and iron come mainly within the periods of historical records. it is not possible here to follow the interesting history of the glacial movement, but a few words of explanation seem necessary. the ice age, or the glacial period, refers to a span of time ranging from 500,000 years ago, at the beginning of the first glaciation, to the close of the post-glacial period, about 25,000 years ago. during this period great ice caps, ranging in the valleys and spreading out on the plains over a broad area, proceeded from the north of europe to the south, covering at the extreme stages nearly the entire surface of the continent. this great movement consists of four distinct forward movements and their return movements. there is evidence to show that before the south movement of the first great ice cap, a temperate climate extended very far toward the pole and gave opportunity for vegetation now extinct in that region. but as the river of ice proceeded south, plants and animals retreated before it, some of them changing their nature to endure the excessive cold. then came a climatic change which melted the ice and gradually drove the margin of the glacier farther north. immediately under the influence of the warm winds the vegetation and animals followed slowly at a distance the movement of the glacier. then followed a long inter-glacial period before the southerly movement of the returning ice cap. this in turn retreated to the north, and thus four separate times this great movement, one of the greatest geological phenomena of the earth, occurred, leaving an opportunity to study four different glacial periods with three warmer interglacial and one warm post-glacial. this movement gave great opportunity for the study of {63} geology, paleontology, and the archeology of man. that is, the story of the relationship of the earth to plant, animal, and man was revealed. the regularity of these movements and the amount of material evidence found furnish a great opportunity for measuring geological time movements and hence the life of plants and animals, including man. the table on page 64 will contribute to the clearness of this brief statement about the glacial periods. ====================================================================== {64} the ice age in europe[5] geological time-unit 25,000 years rela tive total time time human animal and glaciers unit yrs. yrs. life plant life ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- post-glacial 1 25,000 25,000 crã´-magnon horse, stag, rein daum azilian deer, musk-ox, geschintz magdalenian arctic fox, pine, bã¼hl solutrian birch, oak aurignacian ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4th glacial 1 25,000 50,000 mousterian reindeer, period of wurm ice neanderthal tundra, alpine, steppe, meadow ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- q 3d inter 4 100,000 150,000 pre-neander last warm asiatic u glacial thal and african ani a piltdown mals r -------------------------------------------------------------------------- t 3d glacial 1 25,000 175,000 woolly mammoth, e riss rhinoceros, r reindeer n -------------------------------------------------------------------------- a 2d inter 8 200,000 375,000 heidelberg african and asiatic r glacial race animals, ele y mindel-riss phant, hippo potamus ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2d glacial 1 25,000 400,000 cold weather mindel animals ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1st inter 3 75,000 475,000 pithecan hippopotamus, glacial thropus elephant, afri erectus can and asiatic plants ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1st glacial 1 25,000 500,000 ============================================================================= t e r t i a r y ----------------------------------------------------------------------------====================================================================== _prehistoric types of the human race_.--the earliest record of human life yet discovered is the _pithecanthropus erectus_ (trinil), the apelike man who walked upright, found in java by du bois, about the year 1892. enough of the skeletal remains of human beings were found at this time to indicate a man of rather crude form and low brain capacity (about 885 c.c.), with possible powers of speech but with no probably developed language or no assumption of the acquaintance with the arts of life.[4] the remains of this man associated with the remains of one other skeleton, probably a woman, and with the bones of extinct animals, were found in a geological stratum which indicates his age at about 500,000 years. professor mcgregor, after a careful anatomical study, has reproduced the head and bust of pithecanthropus, which helps us to visualize this primitive species as of rather low cultural type. the low forehead, massive jaw, and receding chin give us a vision of an undeveloped species of the human race, in some respects not much above the anthropoid apes, yet in other characters distinctly human. there follows a long interval of human development which is only conjectural until the discovery of the bones of the heidelberg man, found at the south of the river neckar. these are the first records of the human race found in southern europe. the type of man is still apelike in some respects, but far in advance of the pithecanthropus in structure and general appearance. the restoration by the belgian artist mascrã© {65} under the direction of professor a. rotot, of brussels, is indicative of larger brain capacity than the trinil race. it had a massive jaw, distinctive nose, heavy arched brows, and still the receding chin. not many cultural remains were found in strata of the second interglacial period along with the remains of extinct animals, such as the ancient elephant, etruscan rhinoceros, primitive bison, primitive ox, auvergne bear, and lion. a fauna and a flora as well as a geological structure were found which would indicate that this race existed at this place about 375,000 years ago. from these evidences very little may be determined of the heidelberg man's cultural development, but much may be inferred. undoubtedly, like the pithecanthropus, he was a man without the tools of civilization, or at least had not developed far in this way. about 150,000 years ago there appeared in europe races of mankind that left more relics of their civilization.[6] these were the neanderthaloid races. there is no evidence of the connection of these races with the java man or the heidelberg man. here, as elsewhere in the evolution of races and species, nature does not work in a straight line of descent, but by differentiation and variation. in 1856 the first discovery of a specimen of the neanderthal man was found at the entrance of a small ravine on the right bank of the river dussel, in rhenish prussia. this was the first discovery of the paleolithic man to cause serious reflection on the possibility of a prehistoric race in europe. its age is estimated at 50,000 years. this was followed by other discoveries of the mid-pleistocene period, until there were a number of discoveries of similar specimens of the neanderthal race, varying in some respects from each other. the first had a brain capacity of 1230 c.c., while that of the average european is about 1500 c.c. some of the specimens showed a skull capacity larger than the first specimen, but the average is lower than that of any living race, unless it be that of the australians. {66} later were discovered human remains of a somewhat higher type, known as the aurignacian, of the crã´-magnon race. these are probably ancestors of the living races of europe existing 25,000 to 50,000 years ago. they represent the first races to which may be accorded definite relationship with the recent races. thus we have evidences of the great antiquity of man and a series of remains showing continual advancement over a period of nearly 500,000 years--the pithecanthropus, heidelberg, piltdown, and neanderthal, though expressing gradations of development in the order named, appear to be unrelated in their origin and descent, and are classed as separate species long since extinct. the crã´-magnon people seem more directly related to modern man. perhaps in the neolithic age they may have been the forebears of present races, either through direct or indirect lines. _the unity of the human race_.--though there are evidences, as shown above, that there were many branches of the human race, or species, some of which became extinct without leaving any records of the passing on of their cultures to others, there is a pretty generally concerted opinion that all branches of the human race are related and have sprung from the same ancestors. there have been differences of opinion regarding this view, some holding that there are several centres of development in which the precursor of man assumed a human form (polygenesis), and others holding that according to the law of differentiation and zoological development there must have been at some time one origin of the species (monogenesis). so far as the scientific investigation of mankind is concerned, it is rather immaterial which theory is accepted. we know that multitudes of tribes and races differ in minor parts of structure, differ in mental capacity, and hence in qualities of civilization, and yet in general form, brain structure, and mental processes, it is the same human being wherever found. so we may assume that there is a unity of the race. if we consider the human race to have sprung from a single {67} pair, or even the development of man from a single species, it must have taken a long time to have developed the great marks of racial differences that now exist. the question of unity or plurality of race origins has been much discussed, and is still somewhat in controversy, although the predominance of evidence is much in favor of the descent of man from a single species and from a single place. the elder agassiz held that there were several separate species of the race, which accounts for the wide divergence of characteristics and conditions. but it is generally admitted from a zoological standpoint that man originated from a single species, although it does not necessarily follow that he came from a single pair. it is the diversity or the unity of the race from a single pair which gives rise to the greatest controversy. there is a wide diversity of opinion among ethnologists on this question. agassiz was followed by french writers, among whom were topinard and hervã©, who held firmly to the plurality of centres of origin and distribution. agassiz thought there were at least nine centres in which man appeared, each independent of the others. morton thought he could point out twenty-two such centres, and nott and gliddon advanced the idea that there were distinct races of people. but darwin, basing his arguments upon the uniformity of physical structure and similarity of mental characteristics, held that man came from a single progenitor. this theory is the most acceptable, and it is easily explained, if we admit time enough for the necessary changes in the structure and appearance of man. it is the simplest hypothesis that is given, and explains the facts relative to the existence of man much more easily than does the theory in reference to diversity of origins. the majority of ethnologists of america and europe appear to favor the idea that man came from a single pair, arose from one place, and spread thence over the earth's surface. _the primitive home of man may be determined in a general way_.--the location of the cradle of the race has not {68} yet been satisfactorily established. the inference drawn from the bible story of the creation places it in or near the valley of the euphrates river. others hold that the place was in europe, and others still in america. a theory has also been advanced that a continent or group of large islands called lemuria, occupying the place where the indian ocean now lies, and extending from ceylon to madagascar, was the locality in which the human race originated. the advocates of this theory hold to it chiefly on the ground that it is necessary to account for the peopling of australia and other large islands and continents, and that it is the country best fitted by climate and other physical conditions for the primitive race. this submerged continent would enable the races to migrate readily to different parts of the world, still going by dry land. there is little more than conjecture upon this subject, and the continent called lemuria is as mythical as the ethiopia of ptolemy and the atlantis of plato. it is a convenient theory, as it places the cradle of the race near the five great rivers, the tigris, euphrates, indus, ganges, and the nile. the supposed home also lies in a zone in which the animals most resembling man are found, which is an important consideration; as, in the development of the earth, animals appeared according to the conditions of climate and food supply, so the portion of the earth best prepared for man's early life is most likely to be his first home. although it is impossible to determine the first home of man, either from a scientific or an historical standpoint, there are a few well-acknowledged theories to be observed: first, as the islands of the ocean were not peopled when first discovered by modern navigators, it is reasonable to suppose that the primitive home of man was on one of the continents. as man is the highest and last development of organic nature, it is advocated, with considerable force of argument, that his first home was in a region suitable to the life of the anthropoid apes. as none of these, either living or fossil, are found in australia or america, these continents are practically excluded from the probable list of places for the early home of man. {69} in considering the great changes which have taken place in the earth's surface, southern india and southern africa were large islands at the time of man's appearance; hence, there is little probability of either of these being the primitive home. none of the oldest remains of man have been found in the high northern latitudes of europe or america. we have then left a strip of country on the southern slope of the great mountain chain which begins in western europe and extends to the himalaya mountains, in asia, which appears to be the territory in which was situated the early home of man. the geological relics and the distribution of the race both point to the fact that in this belt man's life began; but it is not determined whether it was in europe or in asia, there being adherents to both theories. _the antiquity of man is shown in racial differentiation_.--granted that the life of the human race has originated from a common biological origin and from a common geographical centre, it has taken a very long time for the races to be differentiated into the physical traits they possess to-day, as it has taken a long time for man to spread over the earth. the generalized man wandering along the streams and through the forests in search of food, seeking for shelter under rocks and in caves and trees, was turned aside by the impassable barriers of mountains, or the forbidding glacier, the roaring torrent, or the limits of the ocean itself, and spread over the accessible parts of the earth's surface until he had covered the selected districts on the main portions of the globe. then came race specialization, where a group remained a long time in the same environment and inbred in the same stock, developing specialized racial characters. these changes were very slow, and the wide difference to-day between the asiatic, the african, and the european is indicative of the long period of years which brought them about. certainly, six thousand years would not suffice to make such changes. of course one must realize that just as, in the period of childhood, the plastic state of life, changes of structure and appearance are more rapid than in the mature man, after {70} traits and characters have become more fixed, so by analogy we may assume that this was the way of the human race and that in the earlier period changes were more rapid than they are to-day. thus in the cross-fertilizations and amalgamation of races we would expect a slower development than under these earlier conditions, yet when we realize the persistence of the types of irish and german, of italian and greek, of japanese and chinese, even though the races become amalgamated, we must infer that the racial types were very slow in developing. if we consider the variations in the structure and appearance of the several tribes and races with which we come in contact in every-day life, we are impressed with the amount of time necessary to make these changes. thus the anglo-american, whom we sometimes call caucasian, taken as one type of the perfection of physical structure and mental habit, with his brown hair, having a slight tendency to curl, his fair skin, high, prominent, and broad forehead, his great brain capacity, his long head and delicately moulded features, contrasts very strongly with the negro, with his black skin, long head, with flat, narrow forehead, thick lips, projecting jaw, broad nose, and black and woolly hair. the chinese, with his yellow skin, flat nose, black, coarse hair, and oblique, almond-shaped eyes, and round skull, marks another distinct racial type. other great races have different characteristics, and among our own race we find a further separation into two great types, the blonds and the brunettes. what a long period of time must have elapsed to have changed the racial characteristics! from pictures made three thousand years ago in egypt the differences of racial characteristics were very clearly depicted in the hair, the features of the face, and, indeed, the color of the skin. if at this period the racial differences were clearly marked, at what an early date must they have been wanting! so, also, the antiquity of man is evinced in the fact that the oldest skeletons found show him at that early period to be in possession of an average {71} brain capacity and a well-developed frame. if changes in structure have taken place, they have gradually appeared only during a long period of years. yet, when it is considered that man is a migratory creature, who can adapt himself to any condition of climate or other environment, and it is realized that in the early stage of his existence his time was occupied for a long period in hunting and fishing, and that from this practice he entered the pastoral life to continue, to a certain extent, his wanderings, it is evident that there is sufficient opportunity for the development of independent characteristics. also the effects of sun and storm, of climate and other environments have a great influence in the slow changes of the race which have taken place. the change in racial traits is dependent largely upon biological selection, but environment and social selection probably had at least indirect influence in the evolution of racial characters. _the evidences of man's ancient life in different localities_.--the sources of the remains of the life of primitive man are (1) caves, (2) shell mounds, (3) river and glacial drift, (4) burial mounds, (5) battlefields and village sites, and (6) lake dwellings. it is from these sources that most of the evidence of man's early life has come. _caves_ (1).--it has been customary to allude to the cave man as if he were a distinct species or group of the human race, when in reality men at all times through many thousands of years dwelt in caves according to their convenience. however, there was a period in european life when groups of the human race used caves for permanent habitations and thus developed certain racial types and habits. doubtless these were established long enough in permanent seats to develop a specialized type which might be known as the cave man, just as racial types have been developed in other conditions of habitation and life. what concerns us most here is that the protection which the cave afforded this primitive man has been a means of protecting the records of his life, and thus added to the evidence of human progress. many of these {72} caves were of limestone with rough walls and floor, and in most instances rifts in the roof allowed water to percolate and drop to the floor. frequently the water was impregnated with limestone solution, which became solidified as each drop left a deposit at the point of departure. this formed rough stalactites, which might be called stone icicles, because their formation was similar to the formation of an icicle of the water dropping from the roof. so likewise on the floor of the cave where the limestone solution dropped was built up from the bottom a covering of limestone with inverted stone icicles called stalagmites. underneath the latter were found layer after layer of relics from the habitation of man, encased in stone to be preserved forever or until broken into by some outside pressure. of course, comparatively few of all the relics around these habitations were preserved, because those outside of the stone encasement perished, as did undoubtedly large masses of remains around the mouth of the cave. in these caves of europe are found the bones of man, flint implements, ornaments of bone with carvings, and the necklaces of animals' teeth, along with the bones of extinct animals. in general the evidence shows the habits of the life of man and also the kind of animals with which he associated whose period of life was determined by other evidence. besides this general evidence, there was a special determination of the progress of man, because the relics were in layers extending over a long period of years, giving evidence that from time to time implements of higher order were used, either showing progress or that different races may have occupied the cave at different times and left evidences of their industrial, economic, and social life. in some of the caves skulls have been discovered showing a brain case of an average capacity, along with others of inferior size. probably the greater part of this cave life was in the upper part of the paleolithic stone age. in some of these caves at the time of the magdalenian {73} culture, which was a branch of the crã´-magnon culture, there are to be found drawings and paintings of the horse, the cave bear, the mammoth, the bison, and many other animals, showing strong beginnings of representative art. also, in these caves were found bones and stone implements of a more highly finished product than those of the earlier primitive types of europe. _shell mounds_ (2).--shell mounds of europe and america furnish definite records of man's life. the shell mounds of greatest historic importance are found along the shores of the baltic in denmark. here are remains of a primitive people whose diet seems to be principally shell-fish obtained from the shores of the sea. around their kitchens the shells of mussels, scallops, and oysters were piled in heaps, and in these shell mounds, or kitchenmiddens, as they are called (kjokkenmoddings), are found implements, the bones of birds and mammals, as well as the remains of plants. also, by digging to the bottom of these mounds specimens of pottery are found, showing that the civilization belonged largely to the neolithic period of man. there are evidences also of the succession of the varieties of trees corresponding to the evidences found in the peat bogs, the oak following the fir, which in turn gave way to the beech. these refuse heaps are usually in ridgelike mounds, sometimes hundreds of yards in length. the weight of the millions of shells and other refuse undoubtedly pressed the shells down into the soft earth and still the mound enlarged, the habitation being changed or raised higher, rather than to take the trouble to clear away the shells from the habitation. the variety of implements and the degrees of culture which they exhibit give evidence that men lived a long time in this particular locality. undoubtedly it was the food quest that caused people to assemble here. the evidences of the coarse, dark pottery, the stone axes, clubs, and arrow-heads, and the bones of dogs show a state of civilization in which differentiation of life existed. shell mounds are also found along the {74} pacific coast, showing the life of indians from the time when they first began to use shell-fish for food. in these mounds implements showing the relative stages of development have been found. _river and glacial drift_ (3).--the action of glaciers and glacial rivers and lakes has through erosion changed the surface of the soil, tearing out some parts of the earth's surface and depositing the soil elsewhere. these river floods carried out bones of man and the implements in use, and deposited them, together with the bones of animals with which he lived. many of these relics have been preserved through thousands of years and frequently are brought to light. the geological records are thus very important in throwing light upon the antiquity of man. it is in the different layers or strata of the earth caused by these changes that we find the relics of ancient life. the earth thus reveals in its rocks and gravel drift the permanent records of man's early life. historical geology shows us that the crust of the earth has been made by a series of layers, one above the other, and that the geologist determining the order of their creation has a means of ascertaining their relative age, and thus can measure approximately the life of the plants and animals connected with each separate layer.[7] the relative ages of fishes, reptiles, and mammals, including man, are thus readily determined. it is necessary to refer to the method of classification adopted by geologists, who have divided the time of earth-making into three great periods, representing the growth of animal life, determined by the remains found in the strata or drift. these periods mark general portions of time. below the first is the period of earliest rock formation (archaean), in which there is no life, and which is called azoic for that reason. there is a short period above this, usually reckoned as outside the ancient life, on account of the few forms of animals found there; but the first great period (paleozoic) represents non-vertebrate life, as well as the life of fishes and reptiles, and includes {75} also the coal measures, which represent a period of heavy vegetation. the middle period (mesozoic) includes the more completely developed lizards and crocodiles, and the appearance of mammals and birds. the animal life of the third period (cenozoic) resembles somewhat the modern species. this period includes the tertiary and the quaternary and the recent sub-periods. man, the highest being in the order of creation, appears in the quaternary period. of the immense ages of time represented by the geological periods the life of man represents but a small portion, just as the existence of man as recorded in history is but a modern period of his great life. the changes, then, which have taken place in the animals and plants and the climate in the different geological periods have been instrumental in determining the age of man; that is, if in a given stratum human remains are found, and the relative age of that stratum is known, it is easy to estimate the relative age of man. whether man existed prior to the glacial epoch is still in doubt. some anthropologists hold that he appeared at the latter part of the tertiary, that is, in the pliocene. reasons for assumption exist, though there is not sufficient evidence to make it conclusive. the question is still in controversy, and doubtless will be until new discoveries bring new evidence. if there is doubt about the finding of human relics in the tertiary, there is no doubt about the evidence of man during the quaternary, including the whole period of the glacial epoch, extending 500,000 years into the past. the relics of man which are found in the drift and elsewhere are the stone implements and the flakes chipped from the flint as he fashioned it into an axe, knife, or hatchet. the implements commonly found are arrow-heads, knives, lance-heads, pestles, etc. human bones have been found imbedded in the rock or the sand. articles made of horn, bones of animals, especially the reindeer, notched or cut pieces of wood have been found. also there are evidences of rude drawings on stone, bone, or ivory; fragments of charcoal, which give {76} evidence of the use of fire in cooking or creating artificial heat, are found, and long bones split longitudinally to obtain marrow for food, and, finally, the remnants of pottery. these represent the principal relics found in the stone age; to these may be added the implements in bronze and iron of later periods. a good example of the use of these relics to determine chronology is shown in the peat bogs of denmark. at the bottom are found trees of pine which grew on the edges of the bog and have fallen in. nearer the top are found oak and white birch-trees, and in the upper layer are found beech-trees closely allied to the species now covering the country. the pines, oaks, and birches are not to be seen in that part of the country at present. here, then, is evidence of the successive replacement of different species of trees. it is evident that it must have taken a long time for one species thus to replace another, but how long it is impossible to say. in some of these bogs is found a gradation of implements, unpolished stone at the bottom, polished stone above, followed by bronze, and finally iron. these are associated with the different forms of vegetable remains. in europe stone implements occur in association with fossil remains of the cave lion, the cave hyena, the old elephant and rhinoceros--all extinct species. also the bones and horns of the reindeer are prominent in these remains, for at that time the reindeer came farther south than at present. in southern france similar implements are associated with ivory and bones, with rude markings, and the bones of man--even a complete skeleton being found at one place. these are all found in connection with the bones of the elk, ibex, aurochs, and reindeer. _burial mounds_ (4).--it is difficult to determine at just what period human beings began to bury their dead. primarily the bodies were disposed of the same as any other carrion that might occur--namely, they were left to decay wherever they dropped, or were subject to the disposal by wild {77} animals. after the development of the idea of the perpetuation of life in another world, even though it were temporary or permanent, thoughts of preparing the body for its journey into the unknown land and for its residence thereafter caused people to place food and implements and clothing in the grave. this practice probably occurred about the beginning of the neolithic period of man's existence, and has continued on to the present date. hence it is that in the graves of primitive man we find deposited the articles of daily use at the period in which he lived. these have been preserved many centuries, showing something of the life of the people whose remains were deposited in the mounds. also in connection with this in furtherance of a religious idea were great dolmens and stone temples, where undoubtedly the ancients met to worship. they give some evidence at least of the development of the religious and ceremonial life among these primitive people and to that extent they are of great importance. it is evidence also, in another way, that the religious idea took strong hold of man at an early period of his existence. evidences of man in britain from the tumuli, or burial mounds, from rude stone temples like the famous stonehenge place his existence on the island at a very early date. judging from skulls and skeletons there were several distinct groups of prehistoric man in britain, varying from the extreme broad skulls to those of excessive length. they carry us back to the period of the early stone age. relics, too, of the implements and mounds show something of the primitive conditions of the inhabitants in britain of which we have any permanent record. _battlefields and village sites_ (5).--in the later neolithic period of man the tribes had been fully developed over a great part of the earth's surface, and fought for their existence, principally over territories having a food supply. other reasons for tribal conflict, such as real or imagined race differences and the ambition for race survival, caused constant warfare. {78} upon these battlefields were left the implements of war. those of stone, and, it may be said secondarily, of iron and bronze, were preserved. it is not uncommon now in almost any part of the united states where the rains fall upon a ploughed field over which a battle had been fought, to find exposed a large number of arrow-heads and stone axes, all other perishable implements having long since decayed. or in some instances the wind blowing the sand exposes the implements which were long ago deposited during a battle. also, wherever the indian villages were located for a period of years, the accumulations of utensils and implements occurred which were buried by the action of wind or water. this represents a source of evidence of man's early life. _lake dwellings_ (6).--the idea of protection is evidenced everywhere in the history of primitive man; protection against the physical elements, protection against wild beasts and wilder men. we find along the lakes and bays in both europe and america the tendency to build the dwelling out in the water and approach it from the land with a narrow walk which could be taken up when not used, or to approach it by means of a rude boat. in this way the dwellers could defend themselves against the onslaughts of tribal enemies. these dwellings have been most numerous along the swiss lakes, although some are found in scotland, in the northern coast of south america, and elsewhere. their importance rests in the fact that, like the shell mounds (kitchenmiddens), the refuse from these cabins shows large deposits of the implements and utensils that were in use during the period of tribal residence. here we find not only stone implements, running from the crude form of the unpolished stone age to the highly polished, but also records of implements of bronze and small implements for domestic use of bone and polished stone. also there are evidences that different tribes or specialized races occupied these dwellings at different times, because of the variation of civilization implied by the implements in use. the british museum has a very large classified collection of {79} the implements procured from lake dwellings of switzerland. other museums also have large collections. a part of them run back into the prehistoric period of man and part extend even down to the historic. _knowledge of man's antiquity influences reflective thinking_.--the importance of studying the antiquity of man is the light which it throws upon the causes of later civilization. in considering any phase of man's development it is necessary to realize he has been a long time on earth and that, while the law of the individual life is development, that of the human race is slowly evolutionary; hence, while we may look for immediate and rapid change, we can only be assured of a very slow progressive movement at all periods of man's existence. the knowledge of his antiquity will give us a historical view which is of tremendous importance in considering the purpose and probable result of man's life on earth. when we realize that we have evidence of the struggle of man for five hundred thousand years to get started as far as we have in civilization, and that more changes affecting man's progress may occur in a single year now than in a former thousand years, we realize something of the background of struggle before our present civilization could appear. we realize, also, that his progress in the arts has been very slow and that, while there are many changes in art formation of to-day, we still have the evidences of the primitive in every completed picture, or plastic form, or structural work. but the slow progress of all this shows, too, that the landmarks of civilization of the past are few and far between--distant mile-posts appearing at intervals of thousands of years. such a contemplation gives us food for thought and should invite patience when we wish in modern times for social transformations to become instantaneous, like the flash of the scimitar or the burst of an electric light. the evidence that man has been a long time on earth explodes the long-accepted theory of six thousand years as the age of man. it also explodes the theory of instantaneous {80} creation which was expressed by some of the mediaeval philosophers. indeed, it explodes the theory of a special creation of man without connection with the creation of other living beings. no doubt, there was a specialized creation of man, otherwise he never would have been greater than the anthropoids nor, indeed, than other mammals, but his specialization came about as an evolutionary process which gave him a tremendous brain-power whereby he was enabled to dominate all the rest of the world. so far as philosophy is concerned as to man's life, purpose, and destiny, the influence of the study of anthropology would change the philosopher's vision of life to a certain extent. the recognition that man is "part and parcel" of the universe, subject to cosmic law, as well as a specialized type, subject to the laws of evolution, and, indeed, that he is of a spiritual nature through which he is subjected to spiritual law, causes the philosopher to pause somewhat before he determines the purpose, the life, or the destiny of man. if we are to inquire how man came into the world, when he came, what he has been doing, how he developed, and whither the human trail leads, we shall encounter many unsolved theories. indeed, the facts of his life are suggestive of the mystery of being. if it be suggested that he is "part and parcel" of nature and has slowly arisen out of lower forms, it should not be a humiliating thought, for his daily life is dependent upon the lower elements of nature. the life of every day is dependent upon the dust of the earth. the food he eats comes from the earth just the same as that of the hog, the rabbit, or the fish. if, upon this foundation, he has by slow evolution built a more perfect form, developed a brain and a mind which give him the greatest flights of philosophy, art, and religion, is it not a thing to excite pride of being? could there be any greater miracle than evolving nature and developing life? indeed, is there any greater than the development of the individual man from a small germ not visible to the naked eye, through the egg, the embryo, infant, youth, to full-grown man? why not the working of the same law to {81} the development of man from the beginning. does it lessen the dignity of creation if this is done according to law? on the other hand, does it not give credit to the greatness and power of the creator if we recognize his wisdom in making the universe, including man, the most important factor, according to a universal plan worked out by far-reacting laws? subjects for further study 1. evidences of the great antiquity of man. 2. physical and mental traits of the anthropoid apes. 3. the life and culture of the neanderthal race. 4. what are the evidences in favor of the descent of man from a single progenitor? 5. explain the law of differentiation as applied to plants and animals. 6. compare in general the arts of man in the old stone age with those of the new stone age. 7. what has been the effect of the study of prehistoric man on modern thought as shown in the interpretation of history? philosophy? religion? [1] see diagram, p. 59. [2] see haeckel, schmidt, ward, robinson, osborn, todd. [3] see osborn, _men of the old stone age_. [4] see chapter ii. [5] after osborn. read from bottom up. [6] estimates of neanderthal vary from 150,000 to 50,000 years ago. [7] see p. 64. {82} chapter v the economic factors of progress _the efforts of man to satisfy physical needs_.--all knowledge of primitive man, whether derived from the records of cultures he has left or assumed from analogy of living tribes of a low order of civilization, discovers him wandering along the streams in the valleys or by the shores of lakes and oceans, searching for food and incidentally seeking protection in caves and trees. the whole earth was his so far as he could appropriate it. he cared nothing for ownership; he only wanted room to search for the food nature had provided. when he failed to find sufficient food as nature left it, he starved. so in his wandering life he adapted himself to nature as he found it. in the different environments he acquired different customs and habits of life. if he came in contact with other tribes, an exchange of knowledge and customs took place, and both tribes were richer thereby. however, the universality of the human mind made it possible for two detached tribes, under similar environment and similar stimuli, to develop the same customs and habits of life, provided they had the same degree of development. hence, we have independent group development and group borrowing. when nature failed to provide him with sufficient food, he learned to force her to yield a larger supply. when natural objects were insufficient for his purposes, he made artificial tools to supplement them. slowly he became an inventor. slowly he mastered the art of living. thus physical needs were gradually satisfied, and the foundation for the superstructure of civilization was laid. _the attempt to satisfy hunger and to protect from cold_.--to this statement must be added the fact that struggle with {83} his fellows arose from the attempt to obtain food, and we have practically the whole occupation of man in a state of savagery. at least, the simple activities represent the essential forces at the foundation of human social life. the attempt to preserve life either through instinct, impulse, emotion, or rational selection is fundamental in all animal existence. the other great factor at the foundation of human effort is the desire to perpetuate the species. this, in fact, is the mere projection of the individual life into the next generation, and is fundamentally important to the individual and to the race alike. all modern efforts can be traced to these three fundamental activities. but in seeking to satisfy the cravings of hunger and to avoid the pain of cold, man has developed a varied and active life. about these two centres cluster all the simple forces of human progress. indeed, invention and discovery and the advancement of the industrial arts receive their initial impulses from these economic relations. we have only to turn our attention to the social life around us to observe evidences of the great importance of economic factors. even now it will be observed that the greater part of economic activities proceeds from the effort to procure food, clothing, and shelter, while a relatively smaller part is engaged in the pursuit of education, culture, and pleasure. the excellence of educational systems, the highest flights of philosophy, the greatest achievement of art, and the best inspiration of religion cannot exist without a wholesome economic life at the foundation. it should not be humiliating to man that this is so, for in the constitution of things, labor of body and mind, the struggle for existence and the accumulations of the products of industry yield a large return in themselves in discipline and culture; and while we use these economic means to reach higher ideal states, they represent the ladder on which man makes the first rounds of his ascent. _the methods of procuring food in primitive times_.--judging from the races and tribes that are more nearly in a state of nature than any other, it may be reasonably assumed that {84} in his first stage of existence, man subsisted almost wholly upon a vegetable diet, and that gradually he gave more and more attention to animal food. his structure and physiology make it possible for him to use both animal and vegetable food. primarily, with equal satisfaction the procuring of food must have been rather an individual than a social function. each individual sought his own breakfast wherever he might find it. it was true then, as now, that people proceeded to the breakfast table in an aggregation, and flocked around the centres of food supply; so we may assume the picture of man stealing away alone, picking fruits, nuts, berries, gathering clams or fish, was no more common than the fact of present-day man getting his own breakfast alone. the main difference is that in the former condition individuals obtained the food as nature left it, and passed it directly from the bush or tree to the mouth, while in modern times thousands of people have been working indirectly to make it possible for a man to wait on himself. jack london, in his _before adam_, gives a very interesting picture of the tribe going out to the carrot field for its breakfast, each individual helping himself. however, such an aggregation around a common food supply must eventually lead to co-operative economic methods. but we do find even among modern living tribes of low degree of culture the group following the food quest, whether it be to the carrot patch, the nut-bearing trees, the sedgy seashore for mussels and clams, the lakes for wild rice, or to the forest and plains where abound wild game. we find it difficult to think otherwise than that the place of man's first appearance was one abounding in edible fruits. this fact arises from the study of man's nature and evidences of the location of his first appearance, together with the study of climate and vegetation. there are a good many suggestions also that man in his primitive condition was prepared for a vegetable diet, and indications are that later he acquired use of meat as food. indeed, the berries and edible roots of {85} certain regions are in sufficient quantity to sustain life throughout a greater part of the year. the weaker tribes of california at the time of the first european invaders, and for many centuries previous, found a greater part of their sustenance in edible roots extracted from the soil, in nuts, seeds of wild grains, and grasses. it is true they captured a little wild game, and in certain seasons many of them made excursions to the ocean or frequented the streams for fish or shell-fish, but their chief diet was vegetable. it must be remembered, also, that all of the cultivated fruits to-day formerly existed, in one variety or another, in the wild species. thus the citrous fruits, the date, the banana, breadfruit, papaw, persimmon, apple, cherry, plum, pear, all grew in a wild state, providing food for man if he were ready to take it as provided. rational selection has assisted nature in improving the quality of grains and fruits and in developing new varieties. in the tropical regions was found the greatest supply of edible fruits. thus the malays and the papuans find sufficient food on trees to supply their wants. many people in some of the groups in the south sea islands live on cocoanuts. in south america several species of trees are cultivated by the natives for the food they furnish. the palm family contributes much food to the natives, and also furnishes a large supply of food to the markets of the world. the well-known breadfruit tree bears during eight successive months in the year, and by burying the fruit in the ground it may be preserved for food for the remaining four months. thus a single plant may be made to provide a continuous food supply for the inhabitants of the moluccas and philippines. many other instances of fruits in abundance, such as the nuts from the araucarias of south america, and beans from the mesquite of mexico, might be given to show that it is possible for man to subsist without the use of animal food. _the variety of food was constantly increased_.--undoubtedly, one of the chief causes of the wandering of primitive man over the earth, in the valleys, along stream, lake, and ocean, {86} over the plains and through the hills, was the quest for food to preserve life; and even after tribes became permanent residents in a certain territory, there was a constant shifting from one source of food supply to another throughout the seasons. however, after tribes became more settled, the increase of population encroached upon the native food supply, and man began to use his invention for the purpose of its increase. he learned how to plant seeds which were ordinarily believed to be sown by the gods, and to till the soil and raise fruits and vegetables for his own consumption. this was a period of accidental agriculture, or hoe culture, whereby the ground was tilled by women with hoes of stone, or bone, or wood. in the meantime, the increase of animal food became a necessity. man learned how to snare and trap animals, to fish and to gather shell-fish, learning by degrees to use new foods as discovered as nature left them. life become a veritable struggle for existence as the population increased and the lands upon which man dwelt yielded insufficient supply of food. the increased variety of food allowed man to adapt himself to the different climates. thus in the colder climates animal food became desirable to enable him to resist more readily the rigors of climate. it was not necessary, it is supposed, to give him physical courage or intellectual development, for there appear to be evidences of tribes like the maoris of new zealand, who on the diet of fish and roots became a most powerful and sagacious people. but the change from a vegetable diet to a meat-and-fish diet in the early period brought forth renewed energy of body and mind, not only on account of the necessary physical exertion but on account of the invention of devices for the capture of fish and game. _the food supply was increased by inventions_.--probably the first meat food supply was in the form of shell-fish which could be gathered near the shores of lakes and streams. probably small game was secured by the use of stones and sticks and by running the animal down until he was exhausted or until he hid in a place inaccessible to the pursuer. the {87} boomerang, as used by the australians in killing game, may have been an early product of the people of neolithic europe. in the latter part of the paleolithic age, fish-hooks of bone were used, and probably snares invented for small game. the large game could not be secured without the use of the spear and the co-operation of a number of hunters. in all probability this occurred in the new stone age. the invention of the bow-and-arrow was of tremendous importance in securing food. it is not known what led to its invention, although the discovery of the flexible power of the shrub, or the small sapling, must have occurred to man as he struggled through the brush. it is thought by some that the use of the bow fire-drill, which was for the purpose of striking fire by friction, might have displayed driving power when the drill wound up in the string of the bow flew from its confinement. however, this is conjectural; but, judging from the inventions of known tribes, it is evident that necessity has always been the moving power in invention. the bow-and-arrow was developed in certain centres and probably through trade and exchange extended to other tribes and groups until it was universally used. it is interesting to note how many thousands of years this must have been the chief weapon for destroying animals or crippling game at a distance. even as late as the norman conquest, the bow-and-arrow was the chief means of defense of the anglo-saxon yeoman, and for many previous centuries in the historic period had been the chief implement in warfare and in the chase. the use of the spear in fishing supplemented that of the hook, and is found among all low-cultured tribes of the present day. the american indian will stand on a rock in the middle of a stream, silently, for an hour if necessary, watching for a chance to spear a salmon. these small devices were of tremendous importance in increasing the food supply, and the making of them became a permanent industry. along with the bow and arrow were developed many kinds of spears, axes, and hammers, invented chiefly to be used in {88} war, but also used for economic reasons. in the preparation of animal food, in the tanning of skins, in the making of clothing, another set of stone implements was developed. so, likewise, in the grinding of seeds, the mortar and pestle were used, and the small hand-mill or grinder was devised. the sign of the mortar and pestle at the front of drug-stores brings to mind the fact that its first use was not for preparing medicines, but for grinding grains and seeds. _the discovery and use of fire_.--the use of fire was practised in the early history of man. among the earliest records in caves are found evidences of the use of fire. charcoal is practically indestructible, and, although it may be crushed, the small particles maintain their shape in the clays and sands. in nearly all of the relics of man discovered in caves, the evidences of fire are to be found, and no living tribe has yet been discovered so low in the scale of life as to be without the knowledge of fire and probably its simple uses, although a few tribes have been for the time being without fire when first discovered. this might seem to indicate that at a very early period man did not know how to create fire artificially, but carried it and preserved it in his wanderings. there are indications that a certain individual was custodian of the fire, and later it was carried by the priest or _cacique_. here, as in other instances in the development of the human race, an economic factor soon assumes a religious significance, and fire becomes sacred. there are many conjectures respecting the discovery of fire. probably the two real sources are of lightning that struck forest trees and set them on fire and the action of volcanoes in throwing out burning lava, which ignited combustible material. either one or the other, and perhaps both, of these methods may have furnished man with fire. others have suggested that the rubbing together of dead limbs of trees in the forests after they were moved by the winds, may have created fire by friction. it is possible, also, that the sun's rays may have, when concentrated on combustible {89} material, caused spontaneous ignition. the idea has been advanced that some of the forest fires of recent times have been ignited in this way. however, it is evident that there are enough natural sources in the creation of fire to enable tribes to use it for the purposes of artificial heat, cooking, and later, in the age of metals, of smelting ores. there has always been a mystery connected with the origin and use of fire, which has led to many myths. thus, the greeks insisted that prometheus, in order to perform a great service to humanity, stole fire from heaven and gave it to man. for this crime against the authority of the gods, he was chained to a rock to suffer the torture of the vulture who pecked at his vitals. aeschylus has made the most of this old legend in his great drama of _prometheus bound_. nearly every tribe or nation has some tradition regarding the origin of fire. because of its mystery and its economic value, it was early connected with religion and made sacred in many instances. it was thus preserved at the altar, never being allowed to become extinct without the fear of dire calamity. perhaps the economic and religious ideas combined, because tribes in travelling from place to place exercised great care to preserve it. the use of fire in worship became almost universal among tribes and ancient nations. thus the hebrews and the aryans, including greeks, romans, and persians, as well as the chinese and japanese, used fire in worship. among other tribes it was worshipped as a symbol or even as a real deity. even in the christian religion, the use of the burning incense may have some psychological connection with the idea of purification through fire. whether its mysterious nature led to its connection with worship, and the superstition connected with its continued burning, or whether from economic reasons it became a sacred matter, has never been determined. the custom that a fire should never go out upon the altar, and that it should be carried in migrations from place to place, would seem to indicate that these two motives were closely allied, if not related in cause and effect. {90} evidently, fire was used for centuries before man invented methods of reproducing it. simple as the process involved, it was a great invention; or it may be stated that many devices were resorted to for the creation of artificial fire. perhaps the earliest was that of rubbing two pieces of dry wood together, producing fire by friction. this could be accomplished by persistent friction of two ordinary pieces of dry wood, or by drilling a hole in a dry piece of wood with a pointed stick until heat was developed and a spark produced to ignite pieces of dry bark or grass. another way was to make a groove in a block of wood and run the end of a stick rapidly back and forth through the groove. an invention called the fire-drill was simply a method of twirling rapidly in the hand a wooden drill which was in contact with dry wood, or by winding a string of the bow several times around the drill and moving the bow back and forth horizontally, giving rapid motion to the drill. as tribes became more advanced, they used two pieces of flint with which to strike fire, and after the discovery of iron, the flint and iron were used. how many centuries these simple devices were essential to the progress and even to the life of tribes, is not known; but when we realize that but a few short years ago our fathers lighted the fire with flint and steel, and that before the percussion cap was invented, the powder in the musket was ignited by flint and hammer, we see how important to civilization were these simple devices of producing fire artificially. so simple an invention as the discovery of the friction match saved hours of labor and permitted hours of leisure to be used in other ways. it is one of the vagaries of human progress that a simple device remains in use for thousands of years before its clumsy method gives way to a new invention only one step in advance of the old. _cooking added to the economy of the food supply_.--primitive man doubtless consumed his food raw. the transition of the custom of uncooked food to cooked food must have been gradual. we only know that many of the backward tribes of {91} to-day are using primitive methods of cooking, and the man of the stone ages had methods of cooking the meat of animals. in all probability, the suggestion came as people were grouped around the fire for artificial heat, and then, either by intention or desire, the experiment of cooking began. after man had learned to make water-tight baskets, a common device of cooking was to put water in the basket and, after heating stones on a fire, put them in the basket to heat the water and then place the food in the basket to be cooked. this method is carried on by the indians in some parts of alaska to this day, where they use a water-tight basket for this purpose. probably this method of cooking food was a later development than the roasting of food on coals or in the ashes, or in the use of the wooden spit. catlin, in his _north american indians_, relates that certain tribes of indians dig a hole in the ground and line it with hide filled with water, then place hot stones in the water, in which they place their fish, game, or meat for cooking. this is interesting, because it carries out a more or less universal idea of adaptation to environment. probably the plains indians had no baskets or other vessels to use for this purpose, but they are found to have used similar methods of cooking grasshoppers. they dig a hole in the ground, build a fire in the hole, and take the fire out and put in the grasshoppers. thus, they have an exhibition of the first fireless cooker. it is thought by some that the need of vessels which would endure the heat was the cause of the invention of pottery. while there seems to be little evidence of this, it is easy to conjecture that when water was needed to be heated in a basket, a mass of clay would be put on the bottom of the basket before it was put over the coals of fire. after the cooking was done, the basket could easily be detached from the clay, leaving a hard-baked bowl. this led to the suggestion of making bowls of clay and baking them for common use. others suggest that the fact of making holes in the ground for cooking purposes gave the suggestion that by the use of clay a portable vessel might be made for similar purposes. {92} the economic value of cooking rests in the fact that a larger utility comes from the cooked than from the raw food. though the phenomena of physical development of tribes and nations cannot be explained by the chemical constituents of food, although they are not without a positive influence. evidently the preparation of food has much to do with man's progress, and the art of cooking was a great step in advance. the better utilization of food was a time-saving process--and, indeed, in many instances may have been a life-saving affair. _the domestication of animals_.--the time and place of the domestication of animals are not satisfactorily determined. we know that paleolithic man had domesticated the dog, and probably for centuries this was the only animal domesticated; but it is known that low forest tribes have tamed monkeys and parrots for pets, and savage tribes frequently have a band of dogs for hunting game or guarding the hut. while it may be supposed that domestication of animals may have occurred in the prehistoric period, the use of such animals has been in the historic period. there are many evidences of the domesticated dog at the beginning of the neolithic period. however, these animals may have still been nearly half wild. it is not until the period of the lake dwellings of switzerland that we can discriminate between the wild animals and those that have been tamed. in the lake dwelling dã©bris are found the bones of the wild bull, or _urus_, of europe. probably this large, long-horned animal was then in a wild state, and had been hunted for food. alongside of these remains are those of a small, short-horned animal, supposed to have been domesticated. later, though still in the neolithic period, remains of short-horned tame cattle appear in the refuse of the lake dwellings. it is thought by some that these two varieties--the long-horned _urus_ and the short-horned domesticated animal brought from the south--were crossed, which gave rise to the origin of the present stock of modern cattle in central europe. pigs and sheep were probably domesticated in asia {93} and brought into europe during the later neolithic or early bronze period. the horse was domesticated in asia, and clark wissler[1] shows that to be one great centre of cultural distribution for this animal. it spread from asia into europe, and from europe into america. the llama was early domesticated in south america. the american turkey had its native home in mexico, the hen in asia. the dog, though domesticated very early in asia, has gone wherever the human race has migrated, as the constant companion of man. the horse, while domesticated in asia, depends upon the culture of europe for his large and extended use, and has spread over the world. we find that in the historic period the aryan people everywhere made use of the domesticated goat, horse, and dog. in the northern part of europe, the reindeer early became of great service to the inhabitants for milk, meat, and clothing. the great supply of milk and meat from domesticated animals added tremendously to the food supply of the race, and made it possible for it to develop in other lines. along with the food supply has been the use of these animals for increasing the clothing supply through hides, furs, skins, and wool. the domestication of animals laid the foundation for great economic advancement. _the beginnings of agriculture were very meagre_.--man had gathered seeds and fruit and berries for many years before he conceived the notion of planting seeds and cultivating crops. it appears to be a long time before he knew enough to gather seeds and plant them for a harvest. having discovered this, it was only necessary to have the will and energy to prepare the soil, sow the seed, and harvest a crop in order to enter upon agriculture. but to learn this simple act must have required many crude experiments. in the migrations of mankind they adopted a little intermittent agriculture, planting the grains while the tribe paused for pasture of flocks and herds, and resting long enough for a crop to be harvested. {94} they gradually began to supplement the work of the pastoral with temporary agriculture, which was used as a means of supplementing the food supply. it was not until people settled in permanent habitations and ceased their pastoral wanderings that real agriculture became established. even then it was a crude process, and, like every other economic industry of ancient times, its development was excessively slow. the wandering tribes of north america at the time of the discovery had reached the state of raising an occasional crop of corn. indeed, some tribes were quite constant in limited agriculture. the sedentary indians of new mexico, old mexico, and peru also cultivated corn and other plants, as did those of central america. the first tillage of the soil was meagre, and the invention of agricultural implements proceeded slowly. at first wandering savages carried a pointed stick to dig up the roots and tubers used for food. the first agriculturists used sticks for stirring the soil, which finally became flattened in the form of a paddle or rude spade. the hoe was evolved from the stone pick or hatchet. it is said that the women of the north american tribes used a hoe made of an elk's shoulder-blade and a handle of wood. in sweden the earliest records of tillage represent a huge hoe made from a stout limb of spruce with the sharpened root. this was finally made heavier, and men dragged it through the soil in the manner of ploughing. subsequently the plough was made in two pieces, a handle having been added. finally a pair of cows yoked together were compelled to drag the plough. probably this is a fair illustration of the manner of the evolution of the plough in other countries. it is also typical of the evolution of all modern agricultural implements. we need only refer to our own day to see how changes take place. the writer has cut grain with the old-fashioned sickle, the scythe, the cradle, and the reaper, and has lived to see the harvester cut and thresh the grain in the field. the egyptians use until this day wooden ploughs of an ancient type formed from limbs of trees, having a share pointed with metal. {95} the old spanish colonists used a similar plough in california and mexico as late as the nineteenth century. from these ploughs, which merely stirred the soil imperfectly, there has been a slow evolution to the complete steel plough and disk of modern times. a glance at the collection of perfected farm machinery at any modern agricultural fair reveals what man has accomplished since the beginning of the agricultural art. in forest countries the beginning of agriculture was in the open places, or else the natives cut and burned the brush and timber, and frequently, after one or two crops, moved on to other places. the early settlers of new territories pursue the same method with their first fields, while the turning of the prairie sod of the western plains was frequently preceded by the burning of the prairie grass and brush. the method of attachment to the soil determined economic progress. man in his early wanderings had no notion of ownership of the land. all he wished was to have room to go wherever the food quest directed him, and apparently he had no reflections on the subject. the matters of fact regarding mountain, sea, river, ocean, and glacier which influenced his movements were practically no different from the fact of other tribes that barred his progress or interfered with his methods of life. in the hunter-fisher stage of existence, human contacts became frequent, and led to contention and warfare over customary hunting grounds. even in the pastoral period the land was occupied by moving upon it, and held as long as the tribe could maintain itself against other tribes that wished the land for pasture. gradually, however, even in temporary locations, a more permanent attachment to the soil came through clusters of dwellings and villages, and the habit of using territory from year to year for pastorage led to a claim of the tribe for that territory. so the idea of possession grew into the idea of permanent ownership and the idea of rights to certain parts of the territory became continually stronger. this method of settlement had much to do with not only the economic life of people, but in determining the nature of their {96} social organizations and consequently the efficiency of their social activity. evidently, the occupation of a certain territory as a dwelling-place was the source of the idea of ownership in land. nearly all of europe, at least, came into permanent cultivation through the village community.[2] a tribe settled in a given valley and held the soil in common. there was at a central place an irregular collection of rude huts, called the village. each head of the family owned and permanently occupied one of these. the fertile or tillable land was laid out in lots, each family being allowed the use of a lot for one or more years, but the whole land was the common property of the tribe, and was under the direction of the village elders. the regulation of the affairs of the agricultural community developed government, law, and social cohesion. the social advancement after the introduction of permanent agriculture was great in every way. the increased food supply was an untold blessing; the closer association necessary for the new kind of life, the building of distinct homes, and the necessity of a more general citizenship and a code of public law brought forth the social or community idea of progress. side by side with the village community system there was a separate development of individual ownership and tillage, which developed into the manorial system. it is not necessary to discuss this method here except to say that this, together with the permanent occupation of the house-lot in the village, gave rise to the private ownership of property in land. as to how private ownership of personal property began, it is easy to suppose that, having made an implement or tool, the person claimed the right of perpetual possession or ownership; also, that in the chase the captured game belonged to the one who made the capture; the clothing to the maker. in some instances where game was captured by the group, each was given a share in proportion to his station in life, or again in proportion to the service each performed in the capture. yet, in this {97} early period possessory right was frequently determined on the basis that might makes right. _the manufacture of clothing_.--the motive of clothing has been that of ornament and protection from the pain of cold. the ornamentation of the body was earlier in its appearance in human progress than the making of clothing for the protection of the body; and after the latter came into use, ornamentation continued, thus making clothing more and more artistic. as to how man protected his body before he began to kill wild animals for food, is conjectural. probably he dwelt in a warm climate, where very little clothing was needed, but, undoubtedly, the cave man and, in fact, all of the groups of the race occurring in europe and asia in the latter part of the old stone age and during the new stone age used the skins of animals for clothing. later, after weaving had begun, grasses and fibres taken from plants in a rude way were plaited for making clothing. subsequently these fibres were prepared, twisted into thread, and woven regularly into garments. the main source of supply came from reeds, rushes, wild flax, cotton, fibres of the century plant, the inner bark of trees, and other sources according to the environment. nothing can be more interesting than the progress made in clothing, combining as it does the objects of protection from cold, the adornment of the person, and the preservation of modesty. indians of the forests of the tropical regions and on the pacific coast, when first discovered, have been found entirely naked. these were usually without modesty. that is, they felt no need of clothing on account of the presence of others. there are many evidences to show that the first clothing was for ornament and for personal attraction rather than for protection. the painting of the body, the dressing of the hair, the wearing of rings in the nose, ears, and lips, the tattooing of the body, all are to be associated with the first clothing, which may be merely a narrow belt or an ornamental piece of cloth--all merely for show, for adornment and attraction. {98} there are relics of ornaments found in caves of early man, and, as before mentioned, relics of paints. the clothing of early man can be conjectured by the implements with which he was accustomed to dress the skins of animals. among living tribes the bark of trees represents the lowest form of clothing. in brazil there is found what is known as the "shirt tree," which provides covering for the body. when a man wants a new garment he pulls the bark from a tree of a suitable size, making a complete girdle. this he soaks and beats until it is soft, and, cutting holes for the arms, dons his tailor-made garment. in some countries, particularly india, aprons are made of leaves. but the garment made of the skins of animals is the most universal among living savage and barbarous tribes, even after the latter have learned to spin and weave fabrics. the tanning of skins is carried on with a great deal of skill, and rich and expensive garments are worn by the wealthier members of savage tribes. the making of garments from threads, strings, or fibres was an art discovered a little later. at first rude aprons were woven from long strips of bark. the south sea islanders made short gowns of plaited rushes, and the new zealanders wore rude garments from strings made of native flax. these early products were made by the process of working the fibres by hand into a string or thread. the use of a simple spindle, composed of a stone like a large button, with a stick run through a hole in the centre, facilitated the making of thread and the construction of rude looms. it was but a step from these to the spinning-wheels and looms of the middle ages. when the spaniards discovered the pueblo indians, they were wearing garments of their own weaving from cotton and wood fibres. strong cords attached to the limbs of trees and to a piece of wood on the ground formed the framework of the loom, and the native sat down to weave the garment. with slight improvements on this old style, the navajos continue to weave their celebrated blankets. what an effort it must have cost, what a necessity must have crowded man to have compelled him to resort to this method of procuring clothing! {99} the artistic taste in dress has always accompanied the development of the useful, although dress has always been used more or less for ornament, and taste has changed by slow degrees. the primitive races everywhere delighted in bright colors, and in most instances these border on the grotesque in arrangement and combination. but many people not far advanced in barbarism have colors artistically arranged and dress with considerable skill. ornaments change in the progress of civilization from coarse, ungainly shells, pieces of wood, or bits of metal, to more finely wrought articles of gold and silver. _primitive shelters and houses_.--the shelters of primitive man were more or less temporary, for wherever he happened to be in his migrations he sought shelter from storm or cold in the way most adaptable to his circumstances. there was in this connection, also, the precaution taken to protect against predatory animals and wild men. as his stay in a given territory became more permanent, the home or shelter gradually grew more permanent. so far as we can ascertain, man has always been known to build some sort of shelter. as apes build their shelters in trees, birds build their nests, and beavers dam water to make their homes, it is impossible to suppose that man, with superior intelligence, was ever simple enough to continue long without some sort of shelter constructed with his own hands. at first the shelter of trees, rocks, and caves served his purpose wherever available. subsequently, when he had learned to build houses, their structure was usually dependent more upon environment than upon his inventive genius. whether he built a platform house or nest in a tree, or provided a temporary brush shelter, or bark hut, or stone or adobe building, depended a good deal upon the material at hand and the necessity of protection. the main thing was to protect against cold or storm, wild animals, and, eventually, wild men. the progress in architecture among the nations of ancient civilization was quite rapid. massive structures were built for capacity and strength, which the natives soon learned to {100} decorate within and without. the buildings were made of large blocks of hewn stone, fitted together mechanically by the means of cement, which made secure foundations for ages. when in the course of time the arch was discovered, it alone became a power to advance the progress of architecture. we have seen pass before our eyes a sudden transition in dwelling houses. the first inhabitants of some parts of the western prairies dwelt in tents. these were next exchanged for the "dugout," and this for a rude hut. subsequently the rude hut was made into a barn or pig-pen, and a respectable farmhouse was built; and finally this, too, has been replaced by a house of modern style and conveniences. if we could consider this change to have extended over thousands of years, from the first shelter of man to the finished modern building, it would be a picture of the progress of man in the art of building. in this slow process man struggled without means and with crude notions of life in every form. the aim, first, was for protection, then comfort and durability, and finally for beauty. the artistic in building has kept pace with other forms of civilization evinced in other ways. one of the most interesting exhibits of house-building for protection is found in the cliff dwellings, whose ruins are to be seen in arizona and new mexico. tradition and other evidences point to the conclusion that certain tribes had developed a state of civilization as high as a middle period of barbarism, on the plains, where they had made a beginning of systematic agriculture, and that they were afterward driven out by wilder tribes and withdrew, seeking the cliffs for protection. there they built under the projecting cliffs the large communal houses, where they dwelt for a long period of time. subsequently their descendants went into the valleys and developed the pueblo villages, with their large communal houses of _adobe_. _discovery and use of metals_.--it is not known just when the human race first discovered and used any one of the metals {101} now known to commerce and industry, but it can be assumed that their discovery occurred at a very early period and their use followed quickly. reasoning back from the nature and condition of the wild tribes of to-day, who are curiously attracted by bright colors, whether in metals or beads or clothing, and realizing how universally they used the minerals and plants for coloring, it would be safe to assume that the satisfaction of the curiosity of primitive man led to the discovery of bright metals at a very early time. pieces of copper, gold, and iron would easily have been found in a free state in metal-bearing soil, and treasured as articles of value. copper undoubtedly was used by the american indians, and probably by the inhabitants of europe during the neolithic age--it being found in a native state in sufficient quantities to be hammered into implements. thus copper has been found in large pieces in its native state, not only in europe but in mexico and other parts of north america, particularly in the lake superior region; but as the soft hematite iron was found in larger quantities in a free state, it would seem that the use of iron in a small degree must have occurred at about the same time, or perhaps a little later. the process of smelting must have been suggested by the action of fire built on or near ore beds, where a crude process of accidental smelting took place. combined with tin ore, the copper was made into bronze in peru and mexico at the time of the discovery. in europe there are abundant remains to show the early use of metals. probably copper and tin were in use before iron, although iron may have been discovered first. there are numerous tin mines in asia and copper mines in cyprus. at first, metals were probably worked while cold through hammering, the softest metals doubtless being used before others. it is difficult to tell how smelting was discovered, although the making and use of bronze implements is an indication of the first process of smelting ores and combining metals. when tin was first discovered is not known, but we know that bronze {102} implements made from an alloy of copper, tin, and usually other metals were used by the greeks and other aryan peoples in the early historic period, about six thousand years ago. in egypt and babylon many of the inscriptions make mention of the use of iron as well as bronze, although the extended use of the former must have come about some time after the latter. at first all war instruments were stone and wood and later bronze, which were largely replaced by iron at a still later period. the making of spears, swords, pikes, battle-axes, and other implements of war had much to do with the development of ingenious work in metals. the final perfection of metal work could only be attained by the manufacture of finely treated steel. probably the tempering of steel began at the time iron came prominently into use. other metals, such as silver, quicksilver, gold, and lead, came into common use in the early stages of civilization, all of which added greatly to the arts and industries. nearly all of the metals were used for money at various times. the aids to trade and commerce which these metals gave on account of their universal use and constant measure of value cannot be overestimated. _transportation as a means of economic development_.--early methods of carrying goods from one place to another were on the backs of human beings. many devices were made for economy of service and strength in carrying. bands over the shoulders and over the head were devised for the purpose of securing the pack on the back. an indian woman of the southwest would carry a large basket, or _keiho_, on her back, secured by a band around her head for the support of the load. a pueblo woman will carry a large bowl filled with water or other material, on the top of her head, balancing it by walking erect. indeed, in more recent times washerwomen in europe, and of the colored race in america, carry baskets of clothes and pails of water on their heads. the whole process of the development of transportation came about through invention to be relieved from this bodily service. {103} as the dog was the first animal domesticated, he was early used to help in transportation by harnessing him to a rude sled, or drag, by means of which he pulled articles from one place to another. the eskimos have used dogs and the sled to a greater extent than any other race. the use of the camel, the llama, the horse, and the ass for packing became very common after their domestication. huge packs were strapped upon the backs of these animals, and goods thus transported from one place to another. to such an extent was the camel used, even in the historic period, for transportation in the orient that he has been called the "ship of the desert." the plains indians had a method of attaching two poles, one at each side of an indian pony, which extended backward, dragging on the ground. upon these poles was built a little platform, on which goods were deposited and thus transported from one camp to another. it must have been a long time before water transportation performed any considerable economic service. it is thought by some that primitive man conceived the idea of the use of water for transportation through his experience of floating logs, or drifts, or his own process of swimming and floating. jack london pictures two primitives playing on the logs near the shore of a stream. subsequently the logs cast loose, and the primitives were floated away from the shore. they learned by putting their hands in the water and paddling that they could make the logs move in the direction which they wished to go. perhaps this explanation is as good as any, inasmuch as the beginnings of modern transportation still dwell in the mist of the past. however, in support of the log theory is the fact that modern races use primitive boats made of long reeds tied together, forming a loglike structure. the _balsa_ of the indians of the north coasts of south america is a very good representation of this kind of boat. evidently, the first canoes were made by hollowing logs and sharpening the ends at bow and stern. this form of boat-making has been carried to a high degree of skill by the {104} indians of the northwest coast of america and by the natives of the hawaiian islands. the birch-bark canoe, made for lighter work and overland transportation, is more suggestive of the light reed boat than of the log canoe. also, the boats made of a framework covered with the skins of animals were prominent at certain periods of the development of races who lived on animal food. but later the development of boats with frames covered with strips of board and coated with pitch became the great vehicle of commerce through hundreds of years. it certainly is a long journey from the floating log to the modern floating passenger palace, freight leviathan, or armed dreadnought, but the journey was accomplished by thousands of steps, some short and some long, through thousands of years of progress. _trade, or exchange of goods_.--in mr. clark wissler's book on _man and culture_, he has shown quite conclusively that there are certain culture areas whereby certain inventions, discoveries, or customs have originated and spread over a given territory. this recognition of a centre of origin of custom or invention is in accordance with the whole process of social development. for instance, in a given area occupied by modern civilized people, there are a very few who invent or originate things, and others follow through imitation or suggestion. so it was with the discoveries and inventions of primitive man. for example, we know that in oklahoma and arkansas, as well as in other places in the united states, certain stone quarries or mines are found that produce a certain kind of flint or chert used in making arrow-heads or spearheads and axes. tribes that developed these traded with other tribes that did not have them, so that from these centres implements were scattered all over the west. a person may pick up on a single village site or battle-ground different implements coming from a dozen or more different quarries or centres and made by different tribes hundreds of miles apart in residence. this diffusion of knowledge and things of material {105} workmanship, or of methods of life, is through a system of borrowing, trading, or swapping--or perhaps sometimes through conquest and robbery; but as soon as an article of any kind could be made which could be subjected to general use of different tribes in different localities, it began to travel from a centre and to be used over a wide area. certain tribes became special workers in specialized lines. thus some were bead-makers, others expert tanners of hides, others makers of bows and arrows of peculiar quality, and others makers of stone implements. the incidental swapping of goods by tribes finally led to a systematic method of a travelling trader who brought goods from one tribe to another, exchanging as he went. this early trade had an effect in more rapid extension of culture, because in that case one tribe could have the invention, discovery, and art of all tribes. in connection with this is to be noted the slow change of custom regarding religious belief and ceremony or tribal consciousness. the pride of family and race development, the assumption of superiority leading to race aversion, interfered with intelligence and the spread of ideas and customs; but most economic processes that were not bound up with religious ceremonies or tribal customs were easily exchanged and readily accepted between the tribes. exchange of goods and transportation went hand in hand in their development, very slowly and surely. after trade had become pretty well established, it became necessary to have a medium of exchange. some well-known article whose value was very well recognized among the people who were trading became the standard for fixing prices in exchange. thus, in early anglo-saxon times the cow was the unit of the measure of value. sometimes a shell, as a _cowrie_ of india or the wampum of the american indian, was used for this purpose. wheat has been at one time in america, and tobacco in another, a measure of exchange because of the scarcity of money. gradually, as the discovery and use of precious metals became common and desirable because of their brightness {106} and service in implement and ornament, they became the medium of exchange. thus, copper and gold, iron and bronze have been used as metallic means of exchange--that is, as money. so from the beginning of trade and swapping article for article, it came to be common eventually to swap an article for something called money and then use the money for the purchase of other desirable articles. this made it possible for the individual to carry about in a small compass the means of obtaining any article in the market within the range of the purchasing power of his money. trade, transportation, and exchange not only had a vast deal to do with economic progress but were of tremendous importance in social development. they were powerful in diffusion, extension, and promotion of culture. _the struggle for existence develops the individual and the race_.--the remnants and relics of the arts and industries of man give us a fair estimate of the process of man's mind and the accomplishment of his physical labor. it is through the effort involved in the struggle for existence that he has made his various steps forward. truly the actual life of primitive man tends to verify the adage that "necessity is the mother of invention." it was this tremendous demand on him for the means of existence that caused him to create the things that protected and improved his life. it was the insistent struggle which forced him to devise means of taking advantage of nature and thus led to invention and discovery. every new invention and every new discovery showed the expansion of his mind, as well as gave him the means of material improvement. it also added to his bodily vigor and added much to the development of his physical powers. upon this economic foundation has been built a superstructure of intellectual power, of moral worth and social improvement, for these in their highest phases of existence may be traced back to the early beginnings of life, where man was put to his utmost effort to supply the simplest of human wants. {107} subjects for further study 1. the change in social life caused by the cultivation of the soil. 2. the effect of the discovery and use of fire on civilization. 3. what was the social effect of the exchange of economic products? 4. what influence had systematic labor on individual development? 5. show how the discovery and use of a new food advances civilization. 6. compare primitive man's food supply with that of a modern city dweller. 7. trace a cup of coffee to its original source and show the different classes of people engaged in its production. [1] _man and culture_. [2] see chapter iii. {108} chapter vi primitive social life _the character of primitive social life_.--judging from the cultures of prehistoric man in europe and from analogies of living races that appear to have the same state of culture, strong inferences may be drawn as to the nature of the beginnings of human association. the hypothesis that man started as an individual and developed social life through mutual aid as he came in contact with his fellows does not cover the whole subject. it is not easy to conceive man in a state of isolation at any period of his life, but it appears true that his early associations were simple and limited to a few functions. the evidence of assemblage in caves, the kind of implements used, and the drawings on the walls of caves would appear to indicate that an early group life existed from the time of the first human cultures. the search for food caused men to locate at the same place. the number that could be supplied with food from natural subsistence in a given territory must have been small. hence, it would appear that the early groups consisted of small bands. they moved on if the population encroached upon the food supply. also, the blood-related individuals formed the nucleus of the group. the dependency of the child on the mother led to the first permanent location as the seat of the home and the foundation of the family. as the family continued to develop and became the most permanent of all social institutions, it is easy to believe as a necessity that it had a very early existence. it came out of savagery into barbarism and became one of the principal bulwarks of civilization. it may be accepted as a hypothesis that there was a time in the history of every branch of the human race when social order was indefinite and that out of this incoherence came by {109} degrees a complex organized society. it was in such a rude state that the relations of individuals to each other were not clearly defined by custom, but were temporary and incidental. family ties were loose and irregular, custom had not become fixed, law was unheard of, government was unknown unless it was a case of temporary leadership, and unity of purpose and reciprocal social life were wanting. indeed, it is a picture of a human horde but little above the animal herd in its nature and composition. living tribes such as the fuegians and australians, and the extinct tasmanians, represent very nearly the status of the horde--a sort of social protoplasm. they wander in groups, incidentally through the influence of temporary advantage or on account of a fitful social instinct. co-operation, mutual aid, and reciprocal mental action were so faint that in many cases life was practically non-social. nevertheless, even these groups had aggregated, communicated, and had language and other evidences of social heredity. _the family is the most persistent of social origins_.--the relation of parent and child was the most potent influence in establishing coherency of the group, and next to it, though of later development, was the relation of man and woman--that is, the sex relation. while the family is a universal social unit, it appears in many different forms in different tribes and, indeed, exhibits many changes in its development in the same tribe. there is no probability that mankind existed in a complete state of promiscuity in sex relations, yet these relations varied in different tribes. mating was always a habit of the race and early became regulated by custom. the variety of forms of mating leads us to think the early sex life of man was not of a degraded nature. granted that matrimony had not reached the high state of spiritual life contemplated in modern ideals, there are instances of monogamic marriage and pure, dignified rites in primitive peoples. polygamy and polyandry were of later development. a study of family life within the historic period, especially of greeks, romans, and teutons, and possibly the hebrews, {110} compared with the family life of the australian and some of the north american indian tribes, reveals great contrasts in the prevailing customs of matrimony. all forms of marriage conceivable may be observed from rank animalism to high spiritual union; of numerous ideals, customs, and usages and ceremonies, as well as great confusion of purpose. it may be assumed, therefore, that there was a time in the history of every branch of the human race when family customs were indefinite and family coherence was lacking. also that society was in a rude state in which the relations of individuals to each other and to the general social group were not clearly defined. there are found to-day among the lower races, in the pacific islands, africa, and south america, evidences of lack of cohesive life. they represent groups of people without permanent organization, held together by temporary advantage, with crude, purposeless customs, with the exercise of fitful social instinct. however, it is out of such conditions that the tribes, races, and nations of the early historic period have evolved into barbaric organization. reasoning backward by the comparative method, one may trace the survivals of ancient customs. following the social heredity of the oldest civilized tribes, such as the egyptians, babylonians, greeks, romans, and teutonic peoples, there is evidence of the rise from a rude state of savagery to a higher social life. historical records indicate the passage from the middle state of barbarism to advanced civil life, even though the earlier phases of social life of primitive man remain obscure. the study of tradition and a comparison of customs and language of races yield a definite knowledge of the evolution of society. _kinship is a strong factor in social organization_.--of all causes that held people in coherent union, perhaps kinship, natural and artificial, was the most potent. all of the direct and indirect offspring of a single pair settled in the same family group. this enlarged family took its place as the only organ of social order. not only did all the relatives settle and {111} become members of one body, but also strangers who needed protection were admitted to the family by subscribing to their customs and religion. thus the father of the family had a numerous following, composed of relatives by birth and by adoption. he was the ruler of this enlarged household, declaring the customs of his fathers, leading the armed men in war, directing the control of property, for he alone was the owner of all their possessions, acting as priest in the administration of religious ceremonies--a service performed only by him--and acting as judge in matters of dispute or discipline. thus the family was a compact organization with a central authority, in which both chief and people were bound by custom. individuals were born under status and must submit to whatever was customary in the rule of the family or tribe. there was no law other than custom to determine the relation of individuals to one another. each must abide in the sphere of activity into which he was born. he could not rise above it, but must submit to the arbitrary rule of traditional usage. the only position an individual had was in the family, and he must observe what custom had taught. this made family life arbitrary and conventional. _the earliest form of social order_.--the family is sometimes called the unit of society. the best historical records of the family are found in the aryan people, such as the greeks, the romans, and the teutons. outside of this there are many historical references to the aryans in their primitive home in asia, and the story of the hebrew people, a branch of the semitic race, shows many phases of tribal and family life. the ancient family differed from the modern in organization and composition. the first historical family was the patriarchal, by which we mean a family group in which descent was traced in the male line, and in which authority was vested in the eldest living male inhabitant. it is held by some that this is the original family type, and that the forms which we find among savage races are degenerate forms of the above. some have {112} advocated that the patriarchal family was the developed form of the family, and only occurred after a long evolution through states of promiscuity, polygamy, and polyandry. there is much evidence that the latter assumption is true. but there is evidence that the patriarchal family was the first political unit of all the aryan races, and also of the semitic as well, and that monogamic marriage was developed in these ancient societies so far as historical evidence can determine. the ancient aryans in their old home, those who came into india, greece, rome, and the northern countries of europe, whether celt or teuton, all give evidence of the permanency of early family organization. _the reign of custom_.--for a long period custom reigned supreme, and arbitrary social life became conventionalized, and the change from precedent became more and more difficult. the family was despotic, exacting, unyielding in its nature, and individual activity was absorbed in it. so powerful was this early sway of customary law that many tribes never freed themselves from its bondage. others by degrees slowly evolved from its crystallizing influences. changes in custom came about largely through the migration of tribes, which brought new scenes and new conditions, the intercourse of one tribe with another in trade and war, and the gradual shifting of the internal life of the social unit. those tribes that were isolated were left behind in the progress of the race, and to many of them still clung the customs practised thousands of years before. those that went forward from this first status grew by practice rather than by change of ideals. it is the law of all progress that ideals are conservative, and that they can be broken away from only by the procedure of actual practice. gradually the reign of customary law gave way to the laws framed by the people. the family government gave way to the political; the individual eventually became the political unit, and freedom of action prevailed in the entire social body. _the greek and roman family was strongly organized_.--in greece and rome the family enlarged and formed the gens, {113} the gentes united into a tribe, and the tribe passed into the nation. in all of this formulated government the individual was represented by his family and received no recognition except as a member of such. the tribal chief became the king, or, as he is sometimes called, the patriarchal president, because he presided over a band of equals in power, namely, the assembled elders of the tribe. the heads of noble families were called together to consider the affairs of government, and at a common meal the affairs of the nation were discussed over viands and wine. the king thus gathered the elders about him for the purpose of considering measures to be laid before the people. the popular assembly, composed of all the citizens, was called to sanction what the king and the elders had decreed. slowly the binding forms of traditional usage were broken down, and the king and his people were permitted to enact those laws which best served the immediate ends of government. true, the old formal life of the family continued to exist. there were the gentes, tribes, and phratries, or brotherhoods, that still existed, and the individual entered the state in civil capacity through his family. but by degrees the old family rã©gime gave way to the new political life, and sovereign power was vested in monarchy, democracy, or aristocracy, according to the nature of the sovereignty. the functions or activities and powers of governments, which were formerly vested in the patriarchal chief, or king, and later in king, people, and council, gradually became separated and were delegated to different authorities, though the sharp division of legislative, judicial, and executive functions which characterizes our modern governments did not exist. these forms of government were more or less blended, and it required centuries to distribute the various powers of government into special departments and develop modern forms. _in primitive society religion occupied a prominent place_.--while kinship was first in order in the foundation of units of social organization, religion was second to it in importance. {114} indeed, it is considered by able writers as the foundation of the family and, as the ethnic state is but the expanded family, the vital power in the formation of the state. among the aryan tribes religion was a prominent feature of association. in the greek household stood the family altar, resting upon the first soil in possession of the family. only members of the household could worship at this shrine, and only the eldest male members of the family in good standing could conduct religious service. when the family grew into the gens it also had a separate altar and a separate worship. likewise, the tribe had its own worship, and when the city was formed it had its own temple and a particular deity, whom the citizens worshipped. in the ancient family the worship of the house spirit or a deified ancestor was the common practice. this practice of the worship of departed heroes and ancestors, which prevailed in all of the various departments of old greek society, tended to develop unity and purity of family and tribe. as family forms passed into political, the religion changed from a family to a national religion. among the lower tribes the religious life is still most powerful in influencing their early life. mr. tylor, in his valuable work on _primitive culture_, has devoted a good part of two large volumes to the treatment of early religious belief. while recognizing that there is no complete definition of religion, he holds that "belief in spiritual beings" is a minimum definition which will apply to all religions, and, indeed, about the only one that will. the lower races each had simple notions of the spiritual world. they believed in a soul and its existence after death. nearly all believed in both good and evil spirits, and in one or more greater gods or spirits who ruled and managed the universe. in this early stage of religious belief philosophy and religion were one. the belief in the after life of the spirit is evidenced by implements which were placed in the grave for the use of the departed, and by food which was placed at the grave for his subsistence on the journey. indeed, some even set aside food at each meal for the departed; others, as {115} instanced by the greeks, placed tables in the burying ground for the dead. many views were entertained by the early people concerning the origin of the soul and its course after death. but in all of the rude conditions of life religion was indefinite and uncultured. from lower simple forms it arose to more complex systems and to higher generalizations. religious influence on progress has been very great. there are those who have neglected the subject of religion in the discussion of the history of civilization. other writers have considered it of little importance, and still others believe it to have been a positive hindrance to the development of the race. religion, in general, as practised by savage and barbarous races, based, as it is largely, on superstition, must of a necessity be conservative and non-progressive. yet the service which it performs in making the tribe or family cohesive and in giving an impetus to the development of the mind before the introduction of science and art as special studies is, indeed, great. the early forms of culture are found almost wholly in religious belief and practice. the religious ceremonies at the grave of a departed companion, around the family altar or in the congregation, whether in the temple or in the open air, tended to social cohesion and social activity. the exercise of religious belief in a superior being and a recognition of his authority, had a tendency to bring the actions of individuals into orderly arrangement and to develop unity of life. it also had a strong tendency to prepare the simple mind of the primitive man for later intellectual development. it gave the mind something to contemplate, something to reason about, before it reached a stage of scientific investigation. its moral influence is unquestioned. while some of the early religions are barbarous in the extreme in their degenerate state, as a whole they teach man to consider himself and his fellows, and develop an ethical relationship. and while altruism as a great factor in religious and in social progress appeared at a comparatively recent period, it has been in existence from the earliest associations of men to {116} the present time, and usually makes its strongest appeal through religious belief. religion thus becomes a great society-builder, as well as a means of individual culture. _spirit worship_.--the recognition of the continued journey of the spirit after death was in itself an altruistic practice. much of the worship of the controlling spirit was conducted to secure especial favor to the departed soul. the burial service in early religious practice became a central idea in permanent religious rites. perhaps the earliest phase of religious belief arises out of the idea that the spirit or soul of man has control over the body. it gives rise to the notion of spirit and the idea of continued existence. considering the universe as material existence, according to primitive belief, it is the working of the superior spirit over the physical elements that gives rise to natural phenomena. one of the early stages of religious progress is to attempt to form a meeting-place with the spirit. this desire is seen in the lowest tribes and in the highest civilization of to-day. when cabrillo came to the coast of southern california he found natives that had never before come in contact with civilized people. he describes a rude temple made by driving stakes in the ground in a circular form, and partitioning the enclosure by similar rows of stakes. at the centre was a rude platform, on which were placed the feathers of certain birds pleasing to the spirit. the natives came to this temple occasionally, and, circling around it, went through many antics of worship. this represents the primitive idea of location in worship. not different in its fundamental conception from the rude altar of stones built by abraham at bethel, the greek altar, or the mighty columns of st. peter's, it was the simple meeting-place of man and the spirit. for all of these represent location in worship, and just as the modern worshipper enters the church or cathedral to meet god, so did the primitive savage fix locations for the meeting of the spirit. man finally attempted to control the spirit for his own advantage. a rude form of religion was reached, found in {117} certain stages of the development of all religions, in which man sought to manipulate or exorcise the spirits who existed in the air or were located in trees, stones, and other material forms. out of this came a genuine worship of the powerful, and supplication for help and support. seeking aid and favor became the fundamental ideas in religious worship. simple in the beginning, it sought to appease the wrath of the evil spirit and gain the favor of the good. but finally it sought to worship on account of the sublimity and power possessed by the object of worship. with the advancement of religious practice, religious beliefs and religious ceremonies became more complex. great systems of mythology sprang up among nations about to enter the precincts of civilization, and polytheism predominated. purely ethical religions were of a later development, for the notion of the will of the gods concerning the treatment of man by his fellows belongs to an advanced stage of religious belief. the ethical importance of religion reaches its culmination in the religion of jesus christ. _moral conditions_.--the slow development of altruistic notions presages a deficiency of moral action in the early stages of human progress. true it is that moral conditions seem never to be entirely wanting in this early period. there are many conflicting accounts of the moral practice of different savage and barbarous tribes when first discovered by civilized man. tribes differ much in this respect, and travellers have seen them from different standpoints. wherever a definite moral practice cannot be observed, it may be assumed that the standard is very low. moral progress seems to consist in the constantly shifting standards of right and wrong, of justice and injustice. perhaps the moral action of the savage should be viewed from two standpoints--namely, the position of the average savage of the tribe, and from the vantage of modern ethical standards. it is only by considering it from these two views that we have the true estimation of his moral status. there must be a difference between conventionality and morality, and many who have judged the moral status of {118} the savage have done so more from a conventional than from a moral standard. true that morality must be judged from the individual motive and from social effects of individual action. hence it is that the observance of conventional rules must be a phase of morality; yet it is not all of morality. where conventionality does not exist, the motive of action must be the true moral test. the actions of some savages and of barbarous people are revolting in the extreme, and so devoid of sympathy for the sufferings of their fellow-beings as to lead us to assume that they are entirely without moral sentiment. the repulsive spectacle of human sacrifice is frequently brought about by religious fervor, while the people have more or less altruistic practice in other ways. this practice was common to very many tribes, and indeed to some nations entering the pale of civilization. cannibalism, revolting as it may seem, may be practised by a group of people which, in every other respect, shows moral qualities. it is composed of kind husbands, mothers, brothers, and sisters, who look after each other's welfare. the treatment of infants, not only by savage tribes but by the greek and roman nations after their entrance into civilized life, represents a low status of morality, for it was the common custom to expose infants, even in these proud nations. the degraded condition of woman, as slave and tool of man in the savage state, and indeed in the ancient civilization, does not speak well for the high standard of morality of the past. more than this, the disregard of the rights of property and person and the common practice of revolting brutality, are conclusive evidence of the low moral status of early mankind. speaking of the sioux indians, a writer says: "they regard most of the vices as virtues. theft, arson, rape, and murder are among them regarded with distinction, and the young indian from childhood is taught to regard killing as the highest of virtues." and a writer who had spent many years among the natives of the pacific coast said that "whatever is {119} falsehood in the european is truth in the indian, and vice versa." whether we consider the savages or barbarians of modern times, or the ancient nations that laid claim to civilization, we find a gradual evolution of the moral practice and a gradual change of the standard of right. this standard has constantly advanced until it rests to-day on the golden rule and other altruistic principles of christian teaching. _warfare and social progress_.--the constant warfare of savages and barbarians was not without its effects in developing the individual and social life. cruel and objectionable as it is, the study and practice of war was an element of strength. it developed physical courage, and taught man to endure suffering and hardships. it developed intellectual power in the struggle to circumvent and overcome enemies. it led to the device and construction of arms, machines, engines, guns, and bridges, for facilitating the carrying on of successful warfare; all of this was instrumental in developing the inventive genius and engineering skill of man. in a political way warfare developed tribal or national unity, and bound more closely together the different groups in sympathy and common interest. it thus became useful in the preparation for successful civil government. it prepared some to rule and others to obey, and divided the governing from the governed, an essential characteristic of all forms of government. military organization frequently accompanied or preceded the formation of the modern state. sparta and rome, and in more modern times prussia, were built upon military foundations. the effect of war in depopulating countries has proved a detriment to civilization by disturbing economic and social development and by destroying thousands of lives. looking back over the track which the human race has made in its persistent advance, it is easy to see that the ravages of war are terrible. while ethical considerations have entered into warfare and made its effects less terrible, it still is deplorable. it is not a necessity to modern civilization for the {120} development of intellectual or physical strength, nor for the development of either patriotism or courage. modern warfare is a relic of barbarism, and the sooner we can avoid it the better. social progress means the checking of war in every way and the development of the arts of peace. it is high time that the ethical process between nations should take the place of the art of war. _mutual aid developed slowly_.--owing to ignorance and to the instinct for self-preservation, man starts on his journey toward progress on an individualistic and selfish basis. gradually he learns to associate with his fellows on a co-operative basis. the elements which enter into this formal association are the exercise of a general blood relationship, religion, economic life, social and political organization. with the development of each of these, social order progresses. yet, in the clashing interests of individuals and tribes, in the clumsy methods adopted in the mastery of nature, what a waste of human energy; what a loss of human life! how long it has taken mankind to associate on rational principles, to develop a pure home life, to bring about toleration in religion, to develop economic co-operation, to establish liberality in government, and to promote equality and justice! by the rude master, experience, has man been taught all this at an immense cost. yet there was no other way possible. subjects for further study 1. study your community to determine that society is formed by the interactions of individuals. 2. discuss the earliest forms of mutual aid. 3. why is the family called the unit of social organization? 4. why did religion occupy such an important place in primitive society? 5. to what extent and in what manner did the patriarchal family take the place of the state? 6. what is the relation of morals to religion? 7. what are the primary social groups? what the secondary? {121} chapter vii language and art as a means of culture and social development _the origin of language has been a subject of controversy_.--since man began to philosophize on the causes of things, tribes and races and, indeed, philosophers of all times have attempted to determine the origin of language and to define its nature. in early times language was a mystery, and for lack of better explanation it was frequently attributed to the direct gift of the deity. the ancient aryans deified language, and represented it by a goddess "which rushes onward like the wind, which bursts through heaven and earth, and, awe-inspiring to each one that it loves, makes him a brahmin, a poet, and a sage." men used language many centuries before they seriously began to inquire into its origin and structure. the ancient hindu philosophers, the greeks, and all early nations that had begun a speculative philosophy, wonderingly tried to ascertain whence language came. modern philologists have carried their researches so far as to ascertain with tolerable accuracy the history and life of language and to determine with the help of other scientists the facts and phenomena of its origin. language, in its broadest sense, includes any form of expression by which thoughts and feelings are communicated from one individual to another. words may be spoken, gestures made, cries uttered, pictures or characters drawn, or letters made as means of expression. the deaf-mute converses with his fingers and his lips; the savage communicates by means of gesticulation. it is easy to conceive of a community in which all communication is carried on in sign language. it is said that the grebos of africa carry this mode of expression {122} to such an extent that the persons and tenses of the mood are indicated with the hands alone. it has been advocated by some that man first learned to talk by imitating the sounds of nature. it is sometimes called the "bow-wow" theory of the origin of language. words are used to express the meaning of nature. thus the purling of the brook, the lowing of the cow, the barking of the dog, the moaning of the wind, the rushing of water, the cry of animals, and other expressions of nature were imitated, and thus formed the root words of language. this theory was very commonly upheld by the philosophers of the eighteenth century, but is now regarded as an entirely inadequate explanation of the process of the development of language. it is true that every language has words formed by the imitation of sound, but these are comparatively few, and as languages are traced toward their origin, such words seem to have continually less importance. nothing conclusive has been proved concerning the origin of any language by adopting this theory. another theory is that the exclamations and interjections suddenly made have been the formation of root words, which in turn give rise to the complex forms of language. this can scarcely be considered of much force, for the difference between sudden explosive utterance and words expressing full ideas is so great as to be of little value in determining the real formation of language. these sudden interjections are more of the nature of gesture than of real speech. the theologians insisted for many years that language was a gift of god, but failed to show how man could learn the language after it was given him. they tried to show that man was created with his full powers of speech, thought, and action, and that a vocabulary was given him to use on the supposition that he would know how to use it. but, in fact, nothing yet has been proved concerning the first beginnings of language. there is no reason why man should be fully equipped in language any more than in intellect, moral quality, or economic condition, and it is shown conclusively that in all these {123} characteristics he has made a slow evolution. likewise the further back towards its origin we trace any language or any group of languages the simpler we find it, coming nearer and yet nearer to the root speech. if we could have the whole record of man, back through that period into which historical records cannot go, and into which comparative philology throws but a few rays of light, doubtless we should find that at one time man used gesture, facial expression, and signs, interspersed with sounds at intervals, as his chief means of expression. upon this foundation mankind has built the superstructure of language. some philosophers hold that the first words used were names applied to familiar objects. around these first names clustered ideas, and gradually new words appeared. with the names and gestures it was easy to convey thought. others, refuting this idea, have held that the first words represented general notions and not names. from these general notions there were gradually instituted the specific words representing separate ideas. others have held that language is a gift, and springs spontaneously in the nature of man, arising from his own inherent qualities. possibly from different standpoints there is a grain of truth in each one of these theories, although all combined are insufficient to explain the whole truth. no theory yet devised answers all the questions concerning the origin of language. it may be truly asserted that language is an acquisition, starting with the original capacity for imperfect speech found in the physiological structure of man. this is accompanied by certain tendencies of thought and life which furnish the psychical notion of language-formation. these represent the foundations of language, and upon this, through action and experience, the superstructure of language has been built. there has been a continuous evolution from simple to complex forms. _language is an important social function_.--whatever conjectures may be made by philosophers or definite knowledge determined by philologists, it is certain that language has been {124} built up by human association. granted that the physiological function of speech was a characteristic of the first beings to bear the human form, it is true that its development has come about by the mental interactions of individuals. no matter to what extent language was used by a given generation, it was handed on through social heredity to the next generation. thus, language represents a continuous stream of word-bearing thought, moving from the beginning of human association to the present time. it is through it that we have a knowledge of the past and frame the thoughts of the present. while it is easy to concede that language was built up in the attempt of man to communicate his feelings, emotions, and thoughts to others, it in turn has been a powerful coercive influence and a direct social creation. only those people who could understand one another could be brought into close relationships, and for this purpose some generally accepted system of communicating ideas became essential. moreover, the tribes and assimilated nations found the force of common language in the coherency of group life. thus it became a powerful instrument in developing tribal, racial, or national independence. if the primal force of early family or tribal organization was that of sex and blood relationship, language became a most powerful ally in forcing the group into formal social action, and in furnishing a means of defense against the social encroachments of other tribes and nations. it must be observed, however, that the social boundaries of races are not coincident with the divisions of language. in general the tendency is for a race to develop an independent language, for racial development was dependent upon isolation from other groups. but from the very earliest associations to the present time there has been a tendency for assimilation of groups even to the extent of direct amalgamation of those occupying contiguous territory, or through conquest. in the latter event, the conquered group usually took the language of the conquerors, although this has not always followed, as eventually the stronger language becomes the more important {125} through use. for instance, for a time after the norman conquest, norman french became, in the centres of government and culture at least, the dominant language, but eventually was thrown aside by a more useful language as english institutions came to the front. as race and language may not represent identical groups, it is evident that a classification of language cannot be taken as conclusive evidence in the classification of races. however, in the main it is true. a classification of all of the languages of the indians of north america would be a classification of all the tribes that have been differentiated in physical structure and other racial traits, as well as of habits and customs. yet a tribe using a common language may be composed of a number of racial elements. when it comes to the modern state, language does not coincide with natural boundaries. thus, in switzerland german is spoken in the north and northeast, french in the southwest, and italian in the southeast. however, in this case, german is the dominant language taught in schools and used largely in literature. also, in belgium, where one part of the people speak flemish and the other french, they are living under the same national unity so far as government is concerned, although there have always remained distinctive racial types. in mexico there are a number of tribes that, though using the dominant spanish language, called mexican, are in their closer associations speaking the primitive languages of their race or tribe which have come down to them through long ages of development. sometimes, however, a tribe shows to be a mosaic of racial traits and languages, brought about by the complete amalgamation of tribes. a very good example of this complete amalgamation would be that of the hopi indians of new mexico, where distinctive group words and racial traits may be traced to three different tribes. but to refer to a more complete civilization, where the spanish language is spoken in spain, we find the elements of latin, teutonic, arabic, and old iberian speech, which are suggestive of different racial traits pointing to different racial origins. {126} regardless of origin and tradition, language gradually conforms to the type of civilization in existence. a strong, vigorous industrial nation would through a period of years develop a tendency for a vigorous language which would express the spirit and life of the people, while a dreamy, conservative nation would find little change in the language. likewise, periods of romance or of war have a tendency to make changes in the form of speech in conformity to ideals of life. on the other hand, social and intellectual progress is frequently dependent upon the character of the language used to the extent that it may be said that language is an indication of the progress of a people in the arts of civilized life. it is evident in comparing the chinese language with the french, great contrasts are shown in the ease in which ideas are represented and the stream of thought borne on its way. the chinese language is a clumsy machine as compared with the flexible and smooth-gliding french. it appears that if it were possible for the chinese to change their language for a more flexible, smooth-running instrument, it would greatly facilitate their progress in art, science, and social life. _written language followed speech in order of development_.--many centuries elapsed before any systematic writing or engraving recorded human events. the deeds of the past were handed on through tradition, in the cave, around the campfire, and in the primitive family. stories of the past, being rehearsed over and over, became a permanent heritage, passing on from generation to generation. but this method of descent of knowledge was very indefinite, because story-tellers, influenced by their environment, continually built the present into the past, and so the truth was not clearly expressed. slowly man began to make a permanent record of deeds and events, the first beginnings of which were very feeble, and were included in drawings on the walls of caves, inscriptions on bone, stone, and ivory, and symbols woven in garments. all represented the first beginnings of the representative art of language. {127} gradually picture-writing became so systematized that an expression of continuous thought might be recorded and transferred from one to another through the observation of the symbols universally recognized. but these pictures on rocks and ivory, and later on tablets, have been preserved, and are expressive of the first steps of man in the art of written language. the picture-writing so common to savages and barbarians finally passes from a simple _rebus_ to a very complex written language, as in the case of the egyptian or mexican. the north american indians used picture-writing in describing battles, or an expedition across a lake, or an army on a march, or a buffalo hunt. a simple picture shows that fifty-one warriors, led by a chief and his assistant, in five canoes, took three days to cross a lake and land their forces on the other side. the use of pictographs is the next step in the process of written language. it represents a generalized form of symbols which may be put together in such a way as to express complete thoughts. originally they were merely symbols or signs of ideas, which by being slightly changed in form or position led to the expression of a complete thought. following the pictograph is the ideograph, which is but one more step in the progress of systematic writing. here the symbol has become so generalized that it has a significance quite independent of its origin. in other words, it becomes idealized and conventionalized, so that a specific symbol stood for a universal idea. it could be made specific by changing its form or position. all that was necessary now was to have a sufficient number of general symbols representing ideas, to build up a constructive language. the american indian and the chinese have apparently passed through all stages of the picture-writing, the use of the pictograph and of the ideograph. in fact, the chinese language is but an extension of these three methods of expression. the objects were originally designated by a rude drawing, and then, to modify the meaning, different characters were attached to the picture. thus a monosyllabic {128} language was built up, and the root word had many meanings by the modification of its form and sometimes by the change of its position. the hieroglyphic writings of the egyptians, moabites, persians, and assyrians went through these methods of language development, as their records show to this day. _phonetic writing was a step in advance of the ideograph_.--the difference between the phonetic writing and the picture-writing rests in the fact that the symbol representing the object is expressive of an idea or a complete thought, while in phonetic writing the symbol represents a sound which combined with other sounds expresses an idea called a word and complete thoughts through combination of words. the discovery and use of a phonetic alphabet represent the key to modern civilization. the invention of writing elevated man from a state of barbarism to a state of civilization. about the tenth century before christ the phoenicians, hebrews, and other allied semitic races began to use the alphabet. each letter was named from a word beginning with it. the greeks learned the alphabet from the phoenicians, and the greeks, in turn, passed it to the romans. the alphabet continually changed from time to time. the old phoenician was weak in vowel sounds, but the defect was remedied in the greek and roman alphabets and in the alphabets of the teutonic nations. fully equipped with written and spoken speech, the nations of the world were prepared for the interchange of thought and ideas and for the preservation of knowledge in an accurate manner. history could be recorded, laws written and preserved, and the beginnings of science elaborated. _the use of manuscripts and books made permanent records_.--at first all records were made by pen, pencil, or stylus, and manuscripts were represented on papyrus paper or parchment, and could only be duplicated by copying. in alexandria before the christian era one could buy a copy of the manuscript of a great author, but it was at a high price. it finally became customary for monks, in their secluded retreats, to spend a good part of their lives in copying and preserving {129} the manuscript writings of great authors. but it was not until printing was invented that the world of letters rapidly moved forward. probably about the sixth century a.d. the chinese began to print a group of characters from blocks, and by the tenth century they were engaged in keeping their records in this way. gutenberg, faust, and others improved upon the chinese method by a system of movable type. but what a wonderful change since the fourteenth century printing! now, with modern type-machines, fine grades of paper made by improved machinery, and the use of immense steam presses, the making of an ordinary book is very little trouble. looking back over the course of events incident to the development of the modern complex and flexible language we observe, first, the rude picture scrawled on horn or rock. this was followed by the representation of the sound of the name of the picture, which passed into the mere sound sign. finally, the relation between the figure and the sound becomes so arbitrary that the child learns the a, b, c as pure signs representing sounds which, in combination, make words which stand for ideas. _language is an instrument of culture_.--culture areas always spread beyond the territory of language groups. culture depends upon the discovery and utilization of the forces of nature through invention and adaptation. it may spread through imitation over very large human territory. man has universal mental traits, with certain powers and capacities that are developed in a relative order and in a degree of efficiency; but there are many languages and many civilizations of high and low degree. through human speech the life of the past may be handed on to others and the life of the present communicated to one another. the physiological power of speech which exists in all permits every human group to develop a language in accordance with its needs and as influenced by its environment. thus language advanced very rapidly as an instrument of communication even at a very early period of cultural development. a recent study of the {130} languages of the american indians has shown the high degree of the art of expression among people of the neolithic culture. this would seem to indicate that primitive peoples are more definite in thought and more observant in the relation of cause and effect than is usually supposed. thus, definite language permits more precise thought, and definite thought, in turn, insists on more exact expression in language. the two aid each other in development of cultural ideas, and invention and language move along together in the development of the human race. it becomes a great human invention, and as such it not only preserves the thoughts of the past but unlocks the knowledge of the present. not only is language the means of communication, and the great racial as well as social bond of union, but it represents knowledge, culture, and refinement. the strength and beauty of genuine artistic expression have an elevating influence on human life and become a means of social progress. the drama and the choicest forms of prose and poetry in their literary aspects furnish means of presenting great thoughts and high ideals, and, thus combined with the beauty of expression, not only furnish the best evidence of moral and intellectual progress but make a perennial source of information in modern social life. hence it is that language and culture in all of their forms go hand in hand so closely that a high degree of culture is not attained without a dignified and expressive language. _art as a language of aesthetic ideas_.--the development of aesthetic ideas and aesthetic representations has kept pace with progress in other phases of civilization. the notion of beauty as entertained by the savage is crude, and its representation is grotesque. its first expression is observed in the adornment of the body, either by paint, tattooing, or by ornaments. the coarse, glaring colors placed upon the face or body, with no regard for the harmony of color, may attract attention, but has little expression of beauty from a modern standard. the first adornment in many savage tribes consisted in tattooing the body, an art which was finally rendered {131} useless after clothing was fully adopted, except as a totemic design representing the unity of the tribe. this custom was followed by the use of rude jewelry for arms, neck, ears, nose, or lips. other objects of clothing and ornament were added from time to time, the bright colors nearly always prevailing. there must have been in all tribes a certain standard of artistic taste, yet so low in many instances as to suggest only the grotesque. the taste displayed in the costumes of savages within the range of our own observation is remarkable for its variety. it ranges all the way from a small piece of cloth to the elaborate robes made of highly colored cotton and woollen goods. the celts were noted for their highly colored garments and the artistic arrangement of the same. the greeks displayed a grace and simplicity in dress never yet surpassed by any other nation. yet the dress of early greeks, romans, and teutons was meagre in comparison with modern elaborate costumes. all of this is a method of expression of the emotions and ideas and, in one sense, is a language of the aesthetic. representative art, even among primitive peoples, carries with it a distinctive language. it is a representation of ideas, as well as an attempt at beauty of expression. the figures on pottery and basketry frequently carry with them religious ideas for the expression and perpetuation of religious emotion and belief. even rude drawings attempt to record the history of the deeds of the race. progress is shown in better lines, in better form, and a more exquisite blending of colors. that many primitive people display a high degree of art and a low degree of general culture is one of the insoluble problems of the race. perhaps it may be attributed primarily to the fact that all artistic expression originally sprang from the emotional side of life, and, in addition, may be in part attributed to the early training in the acute observation of the forms of nature by primitive people upon which depended their existence. _music is a form of language_.--early poetry was a recital of deeds, and a monotonous chant, which finally became recorded as language developed. the sagas and the war songs {132} were the earliest expressions which later were combined with dramatic action. the poetry of primitive races has no distinguishing characteristics except metre or rhythm. it is usually an oft-recurring expression of the same idea. yet there are many fragmentary examples of lyric poetry, though it is mostly egoistic, the individual reciting his deeds or his desires. from the natives of greenland we have the following about the hovering of the clouds about the mountain: "the great koonak mountain, over there- i see it; the great koonak mountain, over there- i am looking at it; the bright shining in the south, over there- i admire it; the other side of koonak- it stretches out- that which koonak- seaward encloses. see how they in the south move and change- see how in the south they beautify one another; while it toward the sea is veiled--by changing clouds veiled toward the sea beautifying one another." the emotional nature of savages varies greatly in different tribes. the lives of some seem to be moved wholly through the emotions, while others are stolid or dull. the variations in musical ability and practice of savage and barbarous races are good evidence of this. many of the tribes in africa have their rude musical instruments, and chant their simple, monotonous music. the south sea islanders beat hollow logs with clubs, marking time and creating melody by these notes. the dahomans use a reed fife, on which they play music of several notes. in all primitive music, time is the chief element, and this is not always kept with any degree of accuracy. the {133} chanting of war songs, the moaning of the funeral dirge, or the sprightly singing with the dance, shows the varied expression of the emotional nature. no better illustration of the arts of pleasure may be observed than the practices of the zuã±i indians and other pueblo indians of new mexico. the zuã±i melodies are sung on various festival occasions. some are sacred melodies, used in worship; others are on the occasion of the celebration of the rabbit hunt, the rain dances, and the corn dances. among the pueblo indians the cachina dance is for the purpose of invoking bountiful rains and good harvests. in all of their feasts, games, plays, and dances there are connected ceremonies of a religious nature. religion occupies a very strong position in the minds of the people. possessed of a superstitious nature, it was inevitable that all the arts of pleasure should partake somewhat of the religious ceremony. the song and the dance and the beating of the drums always accompanied every festival. _the dance as a means of dramatic expression_.--among primitive peoples the dance, poetry, and music were generally introduced together, and were parts of one drama. as such it was a social institution, with the religious, war, or play element fully represented. most primitive dances were conducted by men only. in the celebrated _corroboree_ of the australians, men danced and the women formed the orchestra.[1] this gymnastic dance was common to many tribes. the dances of the moros and igorrotes at the st. louis exposition partook, in a similar way, of the nature of the gymnastic dance. the war dances of the plains indians of america are celebrated for their grotesqueness. the green-corn dance and the cachina of the pueblos and the snake dance of the moqui all have an economic foundation. in all, however, the play element in man and the desire for dramatic expression and the art of mimicry are evident. the chief feature of the dance of the primitive people is the regular time beat. this is more prominent than the grace of movement. yet this agrees with {134} the nature of their music, for in this the time element is more prominent than the tune. rhythm is the strong element in the primitive art of poetry, music, or the dance, but all have an immense socializing influence. the modern dance has added to rhythm the grace of expression and developed the social tendencies. in it love is a more prominent feature than war or religion. catlin, in his _north american indians_, describes the buffalo dance of the mandan indians, which appears to be more of a service toward an economic end than an art of pleasure. after an unsuccessful hunt the returned warriors bring out their buffalo masks, made of the head and horns and tail of the buffalo. these they don, and continue to dance until worn out. ten or fifteen dancers form a ring and, accompanied by drumming, yelling, and rattling, dance until the first exhausted one goes through the pantomime of being shot with the bow and arrow, skinned, and cut up; but the dance does not lag, for another masked dancer takes the place of the fallen one. the dance continues day and night, without cessation, sometimes for two or three weeks, or until a herd of buffaloes appears in sight; then the warriors change the dance for the hunt. the dancing of people of lower culture was carried on in many instances to express feelings and wishes. many of the dances of egypt, greece, and other early civilizations were of this nature. sacred hymns to the gods were chanted in connection with the dancing; but the sacred dance has become obsolete, in western civilization its place being taken by modern church music. _the fine arts follow the development of language_.--while art varied in different tribes, we may assume in general that there was a continuity of culture development from the rude clay idol of primitive folk to the venus de milo or the winged victory; from the pictures on rocks and in caves to the sistine madonna; from the uncouth cooking bowl of clay to the highest form of earthenware vase; and from the monotonous {135} strain of african music to the lofty conception of mozart. but this is a continuity of ideas covering the whole human race as a unit, rather than the progressive development of a single branch of the race. consider for a moment the mental and physical environment of the ancient cave or forest dweller. the skies to him were marked only as they affected his bodily comfort in sunshine or storm; the trees invited his attention as they furnished him food or shelter; the roaring torrent was nothing to him except as it obstructed his journey; the sun and the moon and the stars in the heavens filled him with portentous awe, and the spirits in the invisible world worked for his good or for his evil. beyond his utilitarian senses no art emotion stirred in these signs of creation. perhaps the first art emotion was aroused in contemplation of the human body. through vanity, fear, or love he began to decorate it. he scarifies or tattoos his naked body with figures upon his back, arms, legs, and face to represent an idea of beauty. while the tribal or totemic design may have originated the custom, he wishes to be attractive to others, and his first emotions of beauty are thus expressed. the second step is to paint his face and body to express love, fear, hate, war, or religious emotions. this leads on to the art of decorating the body with ornaments, and subsequently to the ornamentation of clothing. the art of representation at first possessed little artistic beauty, though the decorations on walls of caves show skill in lines and color. the first representations sought only intelligence in communicating thought. the bas-reliefs of the ancients showed skill in representation. the ideal was finally developed until the aesthetic taste was improved, and the greek sculpture shows a high development of artistic taste. in it beauty and truth were harmoniously combined. the arts of sculpture and painting are based upon the imagination. through its perfect development, and the improvement in the art of execution, have been secured the aesthetic products of man. yet there is always a mingling of the emotional nature {136} in the development of fine arts. the growth of the fine arts consists in intensifying the pleasurable sensations of eye and ear. this is done by enlarging the capacity for pleasure and increasing the opportunity for its satisfaction. the beginnings of the fine arts were small, and the capacity to enjoy must have been slowly developed. of the arts that appeal to the eye there may be enumerated sculpture, painting, drawing, landscape-gardening, and architecture. the pleasure from all except the last comes from an attempt to represent nature. architecture is founded upon the useful, and combines the industrial and the fine arts in one. the attempt to imitate nature is to satisfy the emotions aroused in its contemplation. _the love of the beautiful slowly develops_.--there must have developed in man the desire to make a more perfect arrow-head, axe, or celt for the efficiency of service, and later for beauty of expression. there must early have developed an idea of good form and bright colors in clothing. so, too, in the mixing of colors for the purpose of expressing the emotions there gradually came about a refinement in blending. nor could man's attention be called constantly to the beautiful plants and flowers, to the bright-colored stones, metals, and gems found in the earth without developing something more than mere curiosity concerning them. he must early have discovered the difference between objects which aroused desire for possession and those that did not. ultimately he preferred a more beautifully finished stone implement than one crudely constructed--a more beautiful and showy flower than one that was imperfect, and likewise more beautiful human beings than those that were crude and ugly. the pleasure of sound manifested itself at an earlier stage than the pleasure of form, although the degree of advancement in music varies in different tribes. thus the inhabitants of africa have a much larger capacity for recognizing and enjoying the effect of harmonious sounds than the aborigines of america. while all nations have the faculty of obtaining pleasure from harmonious sounds, it varies greatly, yet not more {137} widely than between separate individuals. it may be considered quite a universal faculty. the love of the beautiful in form, color, and in harmonious sound, is a permanent social force, and has much to do in the progress of civilization. yet it is not an essential force, for the beginnings of civilization could have been made without it. however, it gives relief to the cold business world; the formal association of men is softened and embellished by painting, poetry, and music. thus considered, it represents an important part of the modern social development. art culture, which represents the highest expression of our civilization, has its softening influences on human life. subjects for further study 1. the importance of language in the development of culture. 2. does language always originate the same way in different localities? 3. does language develop from a common centre or from many centres? 4. what bearing has the development of language upon the culture of religion, music, poetry, and art? 5. which were the more important impulses, clothing for protection or for adornment? 6. show that play is an important factor in society-building. 7. compare pictograph, ideograph, and phonetic writing. [1] keane, _the world's peoples_, p. 49. {141} _part iii_ the seats of early civilizations chapter viii the influence of physical nature on human progress _man is a part of universal nature_.--he is an integral part of the universe, and as such he must ever be subject to the physical laws which control it. yet, as an active, thinking being, conscious of his existence, it is necessary to consider him in regard to the relations which he sustains to the laws and forces of physical nature external to himself. he is but a particle when compared to a planet or a sun, but he is greater than a planet because he is conscious of his own existence, and the planet is not. yet his whole life and being, so far as it can be reasoned about, is dependent upon his contact with external nature. by adaptation to physical environment he may live; without adaptation he cannot live. as a part of evolved nature, man comes into the world ignorant of his surroundings. he is ever subject to laws which tend to sweep him onward with the remaining portions of the system of which he is a part, but his slowly awakening senses cause him to examine his surroundings. first, he has a curiosity to know what the world about him is like, and he begins a simple inquiry which leads to investigation. the knowledge he acquires is adapted to his use day by day as his vision extends. through these two processes he harmonizes his life with the world about him. by degrees he endeavors to bring the materials and the forces of nature into subjection to his will. thus he progresses from the student to the master. external nature is unconscious, submitting passively to the laws that control it, but man, ever conscious of himself and his effort, attempts to dominate the forces surrounding him and this struggle to overcome environment has characterized his {142} progress. but in this struggle, nature has reciprocated its influence on man in modifying his development and leaving her impress on him. limited he has ever been and ever will be by his environment. yet within the limits set by nature he is master of his own destiny and develops by his own persistent endeavor. indeed, the epitome of civilization is a struggle of nature and thought, the triumph of the psychical over the physical; and while he slowly but surely overcomes the external physical forces and makes them subordinate to his own will and genius, civilization must run along natural courses even though its products are artificial. in many instances nature appears bountiful and kind to man, but again she appears mean and niggardly. it is man's province to take advantage of her bounty and by toil and invention force her to yield her coveted treasures. yet the final outcome of it all is determined by the extent to which man masters himself. _favorable location is necessary for permanent civilization_.--in the beginning only those races have made progress that have sought and obtained favorable location. reflect upon the early civilizations of the world and notice that every one was begun in a favorable location. observe the geographical position of egypt, in a narrow, fertile valley bounded by the desert and the sea, cut off from contact with other races. there was an opportunity for the egyptians to develop continuity of life sufficient to permit the beginnings of civilization. later, when wealth and art had developed, egypt became the prey of covetous invading nations. so ancient chaldea, for a time far removed from contact with other tribes, and protected by desert, mountain, and sea, was able to begin a civilization. but far more favorable, not only for a beginning of civilization but for a high state of development, was the territory occupied by the grecian tribes. shut in from the north by a mountain range, surrounded on every other side by the sea, a fertile and well-watered land, of mild climate, it was protected {143} from the encroachments of "barbarians." the influence of geographical contour is strongly marked in the development of the separate states of greece. the small groups that settled down on a family basis were separated from each other by ranges of hills, causing each community to develop its own characteristic life. these communities had a common language, differing somewhat in dialect, and the foundation of a common religion, but there never could exist sufficient similarity of character or unity of sentiment to permit them to unite into a strong central nation. a variety of life is evinced everywhere. those who came in contact with the ocean differed from those who dwelt in the interior, shut in by the mountains. the contact with the sea gives breadth of thought, largeness of life, while those who are enclosed by mountains lead a narrow life, intense in thought and feeling. without the protection of nature, the grecian states probably would never have developed the high state of civilization which they reached. rome presents a similar example. it is true that the italian tribes that entered the peninsula had considerable force of character and thorough development as they were about to enter upon a period of civilization. like the greeks, the discipline of their early aryan ancestors had given them much of strength and character. yet the favorable location of italy, bounded on the north by a high mountain range and enclosed by the sea, gave abundant opportunity for the national germs to thrive and grow. left thus to themselves, dwelling under the protection of the snow-capped alps, and surrounded by the beneficent sea, national life expanded, government and law developed and thrived, and the arts of civilized life were practised. the national greatness of the romans may in part be attributed to the period of repose in which they pursued unmolested the arts of peace before their era of conquest began. among the mountains of switzerland are people who claim never to have been conquered. in the wild rush of the {144} barbarian hordes into the roman empire they were not overrun. they retain to this day their early sentiments of liberty; their greatness is in freedom and equality. the mountains alone protected them from the assaults of the enemy and the crush of moving tribes. other nations might be mentioned that owe much to geographical position. more than once in the early part of her history it protected spain from destruction. the united states, in a large measure, owes her independent existence to the fact that the ocean rolls between her and the mother country. on the other hand, ireland has been hampered in her struggle for independent government on account of her proximity to england. the natural defense against enemies, the protection of mountains and forests, the proximity to the ocean, all have had their influence in the origin and development of nations. yet races, tribes, and nations, once having opportunity to develop and become strong, may flourish without the protecting conditions of nature. they may defy the mountains, seas, and the streams, and the onslaughts of the wild tribes. _the nature of the soil an essential condition of progress_.--but geography alone, although a great factor in progress, is powerless without a fertile soil to yield a food supply for a large population. the first great impetus of all early civilizations occurred through agriculture. not until this had developed so as to give a steady food supply were people able to have sufficient leisure to develop the other arts of life. the abundant food supply furnished by the fertility of the nile valley was the key to the egyptian civilization. the valley was overflowed annually by the river, which left a fertilizing sediment upon the land already prepared for cultivation. thus annually without excessive labor the soil was watered, fertilized, and prepared for the seed. even when irrigation was introduced, in order to obtain a larger supply of food, the cultivation of the soil was a very easy matter. agriculture consisted primarily in sowing seed on ready prepared ground and {145} reaping the harvest. the certainty of the crop assured a living. the result of cheap food was to rapidly multiply the race, which existed on a low plane. it created a mass of inferior people ruled by a few despots. what is true of egypt is true of all of the early civilizations, as they each started where a fertile soil could easily be tilled. the inhabitants of ancient chaldea developed their civilization on a fertile soil. the great cities of nineveh and babylon were surrounded by rich valleys, and the yield of agricultural products made civilization possible. the earliest signs of progress in india were along the valleys of the ganges and the indus. likewise, in the new world, the tribes that approached the nearest to civilization were situated in fertile districts in peru, central america, mexico, and new mexico. _the use of land the foundation of social order_.--the manner in which tribes and nations have attached themselves to the soil has determined the type of social organization. before the land was treated as property of individuals or regarded as a permanent possession by tribes, the method in which the land was held and its use determined the quality of civilization, and the land factor became more important as a determiner of social order as civilization progressed. it was exceedingly important in determining the quality of the greek life, and the entire structure of roman civilization was based on the land question. master the land tenure of rome and you have laid the foundation of roman history. the desire for more land and for more room was the chief cause of the barbarian invasion of the empire. all feudal society, including lords and vassals, government and courts, was based upon the plan of feudal land-holding. in modern times in england the land question has been at times the burning political and economic question of the nation, and is a disturbing factor in recent times. in the united states, rapid progress is due more to the bounteous supply of free, fertile lands than to any other single cause. broad, fertile valleys are more pertinent as the foundation {146} of nation-building than men are accustomed to believe; and now that nearly all the public domain has been apportioned among the citizens, intense desire for land remains unabated, and its method of treatment through landlord and tenant is rapidly becoming a troublesome question. the relation of the soil to the population presents new problems, and the easy-going civilization will be put to a new test. _climate has much to do with the possibilities of progress_.--the early seats of civilization mentioned above were all located in warm climates. leisure is essential to all progress. where it takes man all of his time to earn a bare subsistence there is not much room for improvement. a warm climate is conducive to leisure, because its requirements of food and clothing are less imperative than in cold countries. the same quantity of food will support more people in warm than in cold climates. this, coupled with the fact that nature is more spontaneous in furnishing a bountiful supply in warm climates than in cold, renders the first steps in progress much more possible. the food in warm climates is of a light vegetable character, which is easily prepared for use; indeed, in many instances it is already prepared. in cold countries, where it is necessary to consume large amounts of fatty food to sustain life, the food supply is meagre, because this can only be obtained from wild animals. in this region it costs immense labor to obtain sufficient food for the support of life; likewise, in a cold climate it takes much time to tame animals for use and to build huts to protect from the storm and the cold. the result is that the propagation of the race is slow, and progress in social and individual life is retarded. we should expect, therefore, all of the earliest civilization to be in warm regions. in this we are not disappointed, in noting egypt, babylon, mexico, and peru. soil and climate co-operate in furnishing man a suitable place for his first permanent development. there is, however, in this connection, one danger to be pointed out, arising from the conditions of cheap food--namely, a rapid propagation of the race, which {147} entails misery through generations. in these early populous nations, great want and misery frequently prevailed among the masses of the people. thousands of laborers, competing for sustenance, reduce the earning capacity to a very small amount, and this reduces the standard of life. yet because food and shelter cost little, they are able to live at a low standard and to multiply rapidly. human life becomes cheap, is valued little by despotic rulers, who enslave their fellows. another danger in warm climates which counteracts the tendency of nations to progress, is the fact that warm climates enervate man and make him less active; hence it occurs that in colder climates with unfavorable surroundings great progress is made on account of the excessive energy and strong will-force of the inhabitants. in temperate climates man has reached the highest state of progress. in this zone the combination of a moderately cheap food supply and the necessity of excessive energy to supply food, clothing, and protection has been most conducive to the highest forms of progress. while, therefore, the civilization of warm climates has led to despotism, inertia, and the degradation of the masses, the civilization of temperate climates has led to freedom, elevation of humanity, and progress in the arts. this illustrates how essential is individual energy in taking advantage of what nature has provided. _the general aspects of nature determine the type of civilization_.--while the general characteristics of nature have much to do with the development of the races of the earth, it is only a single factor in the great complex of influences. people living in the mountain fastnesses, those living at the ocean side, and those living on great interior plains vary considerably as to mental characteristics and views of life in general. buckle has expanded this idea at some length in his comparison of india and greece. he has endeavored to show that "the history of the human mind can only be understood by connecting with it the history and aspects of the material universe." he holds that everything in india tended to depress the {148} dignity of man, while everything in greece tended to exalt it. after comparing these two countries of ancient civilization in respect to the development of the imagination, he says: "to sum up the whole, it may be said that the greeks had more respect for human powers; the hindus for superhuman. the first dealt with the known and available, the second with the unknown and mysterious." he attributes this difference largely to the fact that the imagination was excessively developed in india, while the reason predominated in greece. the cause attributed to the development of the imagination in india is the aspect of nature. everything in india is overshadowed with the immensity of nature. vast plains, lofty mountains, mighty, turbulent rivers, terrible storms, and demonstrations of natural forces abound to awe and terrify. the causes of all are so far beyond the conception of man that his imagination is brought into play to furnish images for his excited and terrified mind. hence religion is extravagant, abstract, terrible. literature is full of extravagant poetic images. the individual is lost in the system of religion, figures but little in literature, and is swallowed up in the immensity of the universe. while, on the other hand, the fact that greece had no lofty mountains, no great plains; had small rivulets in the place of rivers, and few destructive storms, was conducive to the development of calm reflection and reason. hence, in greece man predominated over nature; in india, nature overpowered man.[1] there is much of truth in this line of argument, but it must not be carried too far. for individual and racial characteristics have much to do with the development of imagination, reason, and religion. the difference, too, in the time of development, must also be considered, for greece was a later product, and had the advantage of much that had preceded in human progress. and so far as can be determined, the characteristics of the greek colonists were quite well established {149} before they left asia. the supposition, also, that man is subject entirely to the influence of physical nature for his entire progress, must be taken with modification. his mind-force, his individual will-force, must be accounted for, and these occupy a large place in the history of his progress. no doubt the thunders of niagara and the spectacle of the volume of water inspire poetic admiration in the minds of the thousands who have gazed on this striking physical phenomenon of nature. it is awe-inspiring; it arouses the emotions; it creates poetic imagination. but the final result of contact with the will of man is to turn part of that force from its channels, to move the bright machinery engaged in creating things useful and beautiful which contribute to the larger well-being of man. granting that climate, soil, geographical position, and the aspects of nature have a vast influence in limiting the possibilities of man's progress, and in directing his mental as well as physical characteristics, it must not be forgotten that in the contact with these it is his mastery over them which constitutes progress, and this involves the activity of his will-power. man is not a slave to his environment. he is not a passive creature acted upon by sun and storm and subjected to the powers of the elements. true, that there are set about him limitations within which he must ever act. yet from generation to generation he forces back these limits, enlarges the boundary of his activities, increases the scope of his knowledge, and brings a larger number of the forces of nature in subjection to his will. _physical nature influences social order_.--not only is civilization primarily based upon the physical powers and resources of nature, but the quality of social order is determined thereby. thus, people following the streams, plains, and forests would develop a different type of social order from those who would settle down to permanent seats of agriculture. the bedouin arabs of the desert, although among the oldest of organized groups, have changed very little through the passing centuries, because their mode of life permits only a {150} simple organization. likewise, it is greatly in contrast with the modern nations, built upon industrial and commercial life, with all of the machinery run by the powers of nature. when rome developed her aristocratic proprietors to whom the land was apportioned in great estates, the old free farming population disappeared and slavery became a useful adjunct in the methods adopted for cultivating the soil. on the other hand, the old village community where land was held in common developed a small co-operative group closely united on the basis of mutual aid. the great landed estates of england and germany must, so long as they continue, influence the type of social order and of government that will exist in those countries. as the individual is in a measure subservient to the external laws about him, so must the social group of which he forms a part be so controlled. the flexibility and variability of human nature, with its power of adaptation, make it possible to develop different forms of social order. the subjective side of social development, wherein the individual seeks to supply his own wants and follow the directions of his own will, must ever be a modifying power acting upon the social organization. thus society becomes a great complex of variabilities which cannot be reduced to exact laws similar to those found in physical nature. nevertheless, if society in its development is not dependent upon immutable laws similar to those discovered in the forces of nature, yet as part of the great scheme of nature it is directly dependent upon the physical forces that permit it to exist the same as the individual. this would give rise to laws of human association which are modified by the laws of external nature. thus, while society is psychical in its nature, it is ever dependent upon the material and the physical for its existence. however, through co-operation, man is able to more completely master his environment than by working individually. it is only by mutual aid and social organization that he is able to survive and conquer. {151} subjects for further study 1. give examples coming within your own observation of the influence of soil and climate on the character of society. 2. does the character of the people in central america depend more on climate than on race? 3. in what ways does the use of land determine the character of social order? 4. are the ideals and habits of thought of the people living along the atlantic coast different from those of the middle west? if so, in what respect? 5. is the attitude toward life of the people of the dakota wheat belt different from those of new york city? 6. compare a mining community with an agricultural community and record the differences in social order and attitude toward life. [1] henry thomas buckle, _history of civilization in england_. general introduction. {152} chapter ix civilization of the orient _the first nations with historical records in asia and africa_.--the seats of the most ancient civilizations are found in the fertile valleys of the euphrates and the nile. these centres of civilization were founded on the fertility of the river valleys and the fact of their easy cultivation. just when the people began to develop these civilizations and whence they came are not determined. it is out of the kaleidoscopic picture of wandering humanity seeking food and shelter, the stronger tribes pushing and crowding the weaker, that these permanent seats of culture became established. ceasing to wander after food, they settled down to make the soil yield its products for the sustenance of life. doubtless they found other tribes and races had been there before them, though not for permanent habitation. but the culture of any one group of people fades away toward its origins, mingling its customs and life with those who preceded them. sometimes, indeed, when a tribe settled down to permanent achievement, its whole civilization is swept away by more savage conquerors. sometimes, however, the blood of the invaders mingled with the conquered, and the elements of art, religion, and language of both groups have built up a new type of civilization. the geography of the section comprising the nations where the earliest achievements have left permanent records, indicates a land extending from a territory east of the tigris and euphrates westward to the eastern shore of the mediterranean and southward into egypt. doubtless, this region was one much traversed by tribes of various languages and cultures. emerging from the stone age, we find the civilization ranging from northern africa and skirting arabia through palestine {153} and assyria down into the valley of the tigris and the euphrates. doubtless, the civilization that existed in this region was more or less closely related in general type, but had derived its character from many primitive sources. as history dawns on the achievements of these early nations, it is interesting to note that there was a varied rainfall within this territory. some parts were well watered, others having long seasonal periods of drought followed by periodical rains. it would appear, too, the uncertainty of rainfall seemed to increase rather than diminish, for in the valley of the euphrates, as well as in the valley of the nile, the inhabitants were forced to resort to artificial irrigation for the cultivation of their crops. it is not known at what time the chaldeans began to build their artificial systems of irrigation, but it must have been brought about by the gain of the population on the food supply, or perhaps an increased uncertainty of rainfall. at any rate, the irrigation works became a systematic part of their industry, and were of great size and variety. it took a great deal of engineering skill to construct immense ditches necessary to control the violent floods of the euphrates and the tigris. so far as evidence goes, the irrigation was carried on by the gravity system, by which canals were built from intakes from the river and extended throughout the cultivated district. in egypt for a long time the periodical overflow of the nile brought in the silt for fertilizer and water for moisture. when the flood subsided, seed was planted and the crop raised and harvested. as the population spread, the use of water for irrigation became more general, and attempts were made to distribute its use not only over a wider range of territory but more regularly throughout the seasons, thus making it possible to harvest more than one crop a year, or to develop diversified agriculture. the egyptians used nearly all the modern methods of procuring, storing, and distributing water. hence, in these centres of warm climate, fertile land, and plenty of moisture, the earth was made to yield an immense harvest, which made it possible to support a large population. {154} the food supply having been established, the inhabitants could devote themselves to other things, and slowly developed the arts and industries. _civilization in mesopotamia_.--the tigris and euphrates, two great rivers having their sources in mountain regions, pouring their floods for centuries into the persian gulf, made a broad, fertile valley along their lower courses. the soil was of inexhaustible fertility and easy of cultivation. the climate was almost rainless, and agriculture was dependent upon artificial irrigation. the upper portion of this great river valley was formed of undulating plains stretching away to the north, where, almost treeless, they furnished great pasture ranges for flocks and herds, which also added to the permanency of the food supply and helped to develop the wealth and prosperity of the country. it was in this climate, so favorable for the development of early man, and with this fertile soil yielding such bountiful productions, that the ancient chaldean civilization started, which was followed by the babylonian and assyrian civilizations, each of which developed a great empire. these empires, ruling in turn, not only represented centres of civilization and wealth, but they acquired the overlordship of territories far and wide, their monarchs ruling eastward toward india and westward toward phoenicia. in early times ancient chaldea, located on the lower euphrates, was divided into two parts, the lower portion known as sumer, and the other, the upper, known as akkad. while in the full development of these civilizations the semitic race was dominant, there is every appearance that much of the culture of these primitive peoples came from farther east. _influences coming from the far east_.--the early inhabitants of this country have sometimes been called turanian to distinguish them from aryans, semites, and other races sometimes called hamitic. they seem to have been closely allied to the mongolian type of people who developed centres of culture in the far east and early learned the use of metals and developed a high degree of skill in handicraft. the akkadians, {155} or sumer-akkadians, appear to have come from the mountain districts north and east, and entered this fertile valley to begin the work of civilization at a very early period. their rude villages and primitive systems of life were to be superseded by civilizations of other races that, utilizing the arts and industries of the akkadians, carried their culture to a much higher standard. the akkadians are credited with bringing into this country the methods of making various articles from gold and iron which have been found in their oldest tombs. they are credited with having laid the foundation of the industrial arts which were manifested at an early time in ancient chaldea, egypt, and later in babylonia and phoenicia. whatever foundation there may be for this theory, the subsequent history of the civilizations which have developed from thibet as a centre would seem to attribute the early skill in handiwork in the metals and in porcelain and glass to these people. they also early learned to make inscriptions for permanent record in a crude way and to construct buildings made of brick. the akkadians brought with them a religious system which is shown in a collection of prayers and sacred texts found recorded in the ruins at the great library at nineveh. their religion seemed to be a complex of animism and nature-worship. to them the universe was peopled with spirits who occupied different spheres and performed different services. scores of evil spirits working in groups of seven controlled the earth and man. besides these there were numberless demons which assailed man in countless forms, which worked daily and hourly to do him harm, to control his spirit, to bring confusion to his work, to steal the child from the father's knee, to drive the son from the father's house, or to withhold from the wife the blessings of children. they brought evil days. they brought ill-luck and misfortune. nothing could prevent their destructiveness. these spirits, falling like rain from the skies to the earth, could leap from house to house, penetrating the doors like serpents. their dwelling-places were scattered in {156} the marshes by the sea, where sickly pestilence arose, and in the deserts, where the hot winds drifted the sands. sickness and disease were represented by the demons of pestilence and of fever, which bring destruction upon man. it was a religion of fatalism, which held that man was ever attacked by unseen enemies against whom there was no means of defense. there was little hope in life and none after death. there was no immortality and no eternal life. these spirits were supposed to be under the control of sorcerers and magicians or priests, resembling somewhat the medicine men of the wild tribes of north america, who had power to compel them, and to inflict death or disaster upon the objects of their censure and wrath. thus, these primitive peoples of early chaldea were terrorized by the spirits of the earth and by the wickedness of those who manipulated the spirits. the only bright side of this picture was the creation of other spirits conceived to be essentially good and beneficial, and to whom prayers were directed for protection and help. such beings were superior to all evil spirits, provided their support could be invoked. so the spirit of heaven and the spirit of earth both appealed to the imagination of these primitive people, who thought that these unseen creatures called gods possessed all knowledge and wisdom, which was used to befriend and protect. especially would they look to the spirit of earth as their particular protector, who had power to break the spell of the spirits, compel obedience, and bring terror into the hearts of the wicked ones. such, in brief, was the religious system which these people created for themselves. later, after the semitic invasion, a system of religion developed more colossal in its imagination and yet not less cruel in its final decrees regarding human life and destiny. it passed into the purely imaginative religion, and the worship of the sun and moon and the stars gave man's imagination a broader vision, even if it did not lift him to a higher standard of moral conduct. it is not known at what date these early civilizations began, {157} but there is some evidence that the akkadians appeared in the valley not less than four thousand years before christ, and that subsequently they were conquered by the elamites in the east, who obtained the supremacy for a season, and then were reinforced by the semitic peoples, who ranged northeast, and, from northern africa through arabia, eastward to the euphrates.[1] _egypt becomes a centre of civilization_.--the men of egypt are supposed to be related racially to the caucasian people who dwelt in the northern part of africa, from whom they separated at a very early period, and went into the nile valley to settle. their present racial connection makes them related to the well-known berber type, which has a wide range in northern africa. some time after the departure of the hamitic branch of the caucasian race into egypt, it is supposed that another people passed on beyond, entering arabia, later spreading over assyria, babylon, palestine, and phoenicia. these were called the semites. doubtless, this passage was long continued and irregular, and there are many intermixtures of the races now distinctly berber and arabic, so that in some parts of egypt, and north of egypt, we find an arab-berber mongrel type. doubtless, when the egyptian stock of the berber type came into egypt they found other races whose life dates back to the early paleolithic, as the stone implements found in the hills and caves and graves showed not only neolithic but paleolithic culture. also, the wavering line of sudan negro types extended across africa from east to west and came in contact with the caucasian stock of northern africa, and we find many negroid intermixtures. the egyptians, however, left to themselves for a number of centuries, began rapid ascendency. first, as before stated, their food supply was permanent and abundant. second, there were inducements also for the development of the art of measurement of land which later led to the development of general principles of measurement. there was observation of {158} the sun and moon and the stars, and a development of the art of building of stone and brick, out of which the vast pyramid tombs of kings were built. the artificers, too, had learned to work in precious stones and metals and weave garments, also to write inscriptions on tombs and also on the papyrus. it would seem as if the civilization once started through so many centuries had become sufficiently substantial to remain permanent or to become progressive, but egypt was subject to a great many drawbacks. the nation that has the food supply of the world is sooner or later bound to come into trouble. so it appears in the case of egypt, with her vast food resources and accumulation of wealth; she was eventually doomed to the attacks of jealous and envious nations. the history of egypt is represented by dynasties of kings and changes of government through a long period interrupted by the invasion of tribes from the west and the north, which interfered with the uniformity of development. it is divided into two great centres of development, lower egypt, or the delta, and upper egypt, frequently differing widely in the character of civilization. yet, in the latter part of her supremacy egypt went to war with the semitic peoples of babylon and assyria for a thousand years. it was the great granary of the world and a centre of wealth and culture. the kings of egypt were despots who were regarded by the people as gods. they were the head not only of the state but of the religious system, and consequently through this double headship were enabled to rule with absolute sway. the priesthood, together with a few nobles, represented the intellectual and social aristocracy of the country. next to them were the warriors, who were an exclusive class. below these came the shepherds and farmers, and finally the slaves. while the caste system did not prevail with as much rigidity here as in india, all groups of people were bound by the influence of class environment, from which they were unable to extricate themselves. poorer classes became so degraded that in times of famine they were obliged to sell their liberty, their lives, or {159} their labor to kings for food. they became merely toiling animals, forced for the want of bread to build the monuments of kings. the records of egyptian civilization through art, writing, painting, sculpture, architecture, and the great pyramids, obelisks, and sphinxes were but the records of the glory of kings, built upon the shame of humanity. true, indeed, there was some advance in the art of writing, in the science of astronomy and geometry, and the manufacture of glass, pottery, linens, and silk in the industrial arts. the revelations brought forth in recent years from the tombs of these kings, where were stored the art treasures representing the civilization of the time, exhibit something of the splendors of royalty and give some idea of the luxuries of the civilization of the higher classes. here were stored the finest products of the art of the times. the wonders of egypt were manifested in the structure of the pyramids, which were merely tombs of kings, which millions of laborers spent their lives in building. they represent the most stupendous structures of ancient civilization whose records remain. old as they appear, as we look backward to the beginning of history, they represent a culminating period of egyptian art. sixty-seven of these great structures extended for about sixty miles above the city of cairo, along the edge of the libyan desert. they are placed along the great egyptian natural burying place in the western side of the nile valley, as a sort of boulevard of the tombs of kings and nobles. most of them are constructed of stone, although several are of adobe or sun-dried brick. the latter have crumbled into great conical mountains, like those of the pyramid temples of babylon. the largest pyramid, cheops, rises to a height of 480 feet, having a base covering 13 acres. the historian herodotus relates that 120,000 men were employed for 20 years in the erection of this great structure. it has never been explained how these people, not yet well developed in practical mechanics, and not having discovered the use of steam and with no {160} use of iron, could have reared these vast structures. besides the pyramids, great palaces and temples of the kings of thebes in upper egypt rivalled in grandeur the lonely pyramids of memphis. age after age, century after century, witnessed the building of these temples, palaces, and tombs. it is said that the palace of karnak, the most wonderful structure of ancient or modern times, was more than five hundred years in the process of building, and it is unknown how many hundreds of thousands of men spent their lives for this purpose. so, too, the mighty sphinxes and colossal statues excite the wonder and admiration of the world. especially to be mentioned in this connection are the colossi of thebes, which are forty-seven feet high, each hewn from a single block of granite. upon the solitary plain these mute figures sat, serene and vigilant, keeping their untiring watch through the passage of the centuries. _the coming of the semites_.--while the ancient civilization at the mouth of the euphrates had its origin in primitive peoples from the mountains eastward beyond the euphrates, and the ancient egyptian civilization received its impetus from a caucasian tribe of northern africa, the great civilization from the mediterranean sea to the indus river was developed by the semites. westward from the euphrates, over arabia, and through syria to the mediterranean coast were wandering tribes of arabs. perhaps the most typical ancient type of the semitic race is found in arabia. in these desert lands swarms of people have passed from time to time over the known world. their early life was pastoral and nomadic; hence they necessarily occupied a large territory and were continually on the move. the country appears to have been, from the earliest historic records, gradually growing drier--having less regular rainfall. so these people were forced at times to the mountain valleys and the grasslands of the north, and as far as the agricultural lands in the river valleys, hovering around the settled districts for food supplies for themselves and their herds. after {161} the early settlement of sumer and akkad, these semitic tribes moved into the valley of the euphrates, and under sargon i conquered ancient babylonia at akkad and afterward extended the conquest south over sumer. they found two main cities to the west of the euphrates, ur and eridu. having invaded this territory, they adopted the arts and industries already established, but brought in the dominant power and language of the conquerors. four successive invasions of these people into this territory eventually changed the whole life into semitic civilization. later a branch moved north and settled higher up on the tigris, founding the city of nineveh. the elamites, another semitic tribe on the east of the euphrates, founded the great cities of susa and ecbatana. far to the northwest were the armenian group of semites, and directly east on the shores of the mediterranean were the phoenicians. this whole territory eventually became semitic in type of civilization. also, the hixos, or shepherd kings, invaded egypt and dominated that territory for two hundred years. later the phoenicians became the great sea-going people of the world and extended their colonies along the coasts through greece, italy, northern africa, and spain. so there was the semitic influence from the pillars of hercules far east to the river indus, in india. strange to say, the mighty empires of babylon and nineveh and phoenicia and elam failed, while a little territory including the valley of the jordan, called palestine, containing a small and insignificant branch of the semitic race, called hebrews, developed a literature, language, and religion which exercised a most powerful influence in all civilizations even to the present time. _the phoenicians became the great navigators_.--while the phoenicians are given credit for establishing the first great sea power, they were not the first navigators. long before they developed, boats plied up and down the euphrates river, and in the island of crete and elsewhere the ancient aegeans carried on their trade in ships with egypt and the eastern {162} mediterranean. the aegean civilization preceded the greeks and existed at a time when egypt and babylon were young. the principal city of cnossus exhibited also a high state of civilization, as shown in the ruins discovered by recent explorers in the island of crete. it is known that they had trade with early egypt, but whether their city was destroyed by an earthquake or by the savage greek pirates of a later day is undetermined. the phoenicians, however, developed a strip of territory along the east shore of the mediterranean, and built the great cities of tyre and sidon. from these parent cities they extended their trade down through the mediterranean and out through the pillars of hercules, and founded their colonies in africa, greece, italy, and spain. long after tyre and sidon, the parent states, had declined, carthage developed one of the most powerful cities and governments of ancient times. no doubt, the phoenicians deserve great credit for advancing shipbuilding, trade, and commerce, and in extending their explorations over a wide range of the known earth. to them, also, we give credit for the perfection of the alphabet and the manufacture of glass, precious stones, and dyes; but their prominence in history appears in the long struggle between the carthaginians and the romans. _a comparison of the egyptian and babylonian civilizations_.--taken as a whole, there is a similarity in some respects between the egyptian and the babylonian civilizations. coming from different racial groups, from different centres, there must necessarily be contrasts in many of the arts of life. egypt was an isolated country with a long river flowing through its entire length, which brought from the mountains the detritus which kept its valleys fertile. communication was established through the whole length by boats, which had a tendency to promote social intercourse and establish national life. with the mediterranean on the north, the red sea on the east, and the libyan desert to the west, it was tolerably well protected even though not shut in by high mountain ranges. yet it was open at all times for the hardy invaders who sought food for {163} flocks and herds and people. there was always "corn in egypt" to those people suffering from drought in the semi-arid districts of africa and arabia. nevertheless, while egypt suffered many invasions, she maintained with considerable constancy the ancient racial traits, and had a continuity of development through the passing centuries which retained many of the primitive characteristics. the valley of the euphrates was kept fertile by the flow of the great rivers, the tigris and euphrates, which, having a large watershed in the mountains, brought floods down through the valleys bearing the silt which made the land fertile. but in both countries at an early period the population encroached upon the natural supply of food, and methods of irrigation were introduced to increase the food supply. the attempts to build palaces, monuments, and tombs were characteristic of both peoples. on account of the dryness of the climate, these great monuments have been preserved with a freshness through thousands of years. in the valley of the euphrates many of the cities that were reduced to ruin were covered with the drifting sands and floods until they are buried beneath the surface. in sculpture, painting, and in art, as well as in permanency of her mighty pyramids, sphinxes, and tombs, egypt stands far ahead of babylonia. the difference is mainly expressed in action, for in egypt there is an expression of calm, solemnity, and peace in the largest portions of the architectural works, while in babylonia there is less skill and more action. the evidences of the type of civilization are similar in one respect, namely, that during the thousand years of development the great monuments were left to show the grandeur of kings, monarchs, and priests, built by thousands of slaves suffering from the neglect of their superiors through ages of toil. undoubtedly, this failure to recognize the rights of suffering humanity gradually brought destruction upon these great nations. if the strength of a great nation was spent in building up the mighty representations of the glory and power of kings {164} to the neglect of the improvement of the race as a whole, it could mean nothing else but final destruction. while we contemplate with wonder the greatness of the monuments of the pyramids and the sphinxes of egypt and the winged bulls of assyria, it is a sad reflection on the cost of material and life which it took to build them. no wonder, then, that to-day, where once people lived and thought and toiled, where nations grew and flourished, where fields were tilled and harvests were abundant, and where the whole earth was filled with national life, there is nothing remaining but a barren waste and drifting sands, all because men failed to fully estimate real human values and worth. marvellous as many of the products of these ancient civilizations appear, there is comparatively little to show when it is considered that four thousand years elapsed to bring them about. mighty as the accomplishments were, the slow process of development shows a lack of vital progress. we cannot escape the idea that the despotism existing in oriental nations must have crushed out the best life and vigor of a people. it is mournful to contemplate the destruction of these mighty civilizations, yet we may thoughtfully question what excuse could be advanced for their continuance. it is true that egypt had an influence on greece, which later became so powerful in her influences on western civilizations; and doubtless babylon contributed much to the hebrews, who in turn have left a lasting impression upon the world. the method of dispersion of cultures of a given centre shows that all races have been great borrowers, and usually when one art, industry, or custom has been thoroughly established, it may continue to influence other races after the race that gave the product has passed away, or other nations, while the original nation has perished. _the hebrews made a permanent contribution to world civilization_.--tradition, pretty well supported by history, shows that abraham came out of ur of chaldea about 1,900 years before christ, and with his family moved northward into {165} haran for larger pasture for his flocks on the grassy plains of mesopotamia. thence he proceeded westward to palestine, made a trip to egypt, and returned to the upper reaches of the jordan. here his tribe grew and flourished, and finally, after the manner of pastoral peoples, moved into egypt for corn in time of drought. there his people lived for several hundred years, attached to the egyptian nation, and adopting many phases of the egyptian civilization. when he turned his back upon his people in babylon, he left polytheism behind. he obtained conception of one supreme being, ruler and creator of the universe, who could not be shown in the form of an image made by man. this was not the first time in the history of the human race when nations had approximated the idea of one supreme god above all gods and men, but it was the first time the conception that he was the only god and pure monotheism obtained the supremacy. no doubt, in the history of the hebrew development this idea came as a gradual growth rather than as an instantaneous inspiration. in fact, all nations who have reached any advanced degree of religious development have approached the idea of monotheism, but it remained for the hebrews to put it in practice in their social life and civil polity. it became the great central controlling thought of national life. compared with the great empires of babylon and nineveh and egypt, the hebrew nation was small, crude, barbarous, insignificant, but the idea of one god controlling all, who passed in conception from a god of authority, imminence, and revenge, to a god of justice and righteousness, who controlled the affairs of men, developed the hebrew concept of human relations. it led them to develop a legal-ethical system which became the foundation of the hebrew commonwealth and established a code of laws for the government of the nation, which has been used by all subsequent nations as the foundation of the moral element in their civil code. moses was not the first lawgiver of the world of nations. indeed, before {166} abraham left his ancient home in chaldea there was ruling in babylon king hammurabi, who formulated a wise code of laws, said to be the first of which we have any record in the history of the human race. the hebrew nation was always subordinate to other nations, but after its tribes developed into a kingdom and their king, saul, was succeeded by david and solomon, it reached a high state of civilization in certain lines. yet, at its best, under the reign of david and solomon, it was upon the whole a barbarous nation. when the hebrews were finally conquered and led into captivity in babylon, they reflected upon their ancient life, their laws, their literature, and there was compiled a greater part of the bible. this instrument has been greater than the palaces of babylon or the pyramids of egypt, or great conquests of military hosts in the perpetuation of the life of a nation. its history, its religion, its literature in proverbs and songs, its laws, its moral code, all have been enduring monuments that have lasted and will last as long as the human race continues its attempt to establish justice among men. _the civilizations of india and china_.--before leaving the subject of the oriental civilizations, at least brief mention must be made of the development of the hindu philosophy and religion. in the valleys of the great rivers of india, in the shadow of the largest mountains rising to the skies, there developed a great people of great learning and wonderful philosophy. in their abstract conceptions they built up the most wonderful and complex theogony and theology ever invented by men. this system, represented by elements of law, theology, philosophy and language, literature and learning, is found in the vedas and the great literary remnants of the poets. they reveal to us the intensity of learning at the time of the highest development of the indian philosophy. however, its influence, wrapped up in the brahminical religion of fatalism, was largely non-progressive. later, about 500 years before christ, when gautama buddha developed his ethical philosophy of life, new hope came {167} into the world. but this did not stay for the regeneration of india, but, rather, declined and passed on into china and japan. the influence of indian civilization on western civilization has been very slight, owing to the great separation between the two, and largely because their objectives have been different. the former devoted itself to the reflection of life, the latter resolved itself into action. nevertheless, we shall find in the greek philosophy and greek religion shadows of the learning of the orient. but the hindu civilization, while developing much that is grand and noble, like many oriental civilizations, left the great masses of the people unaided and unhelped. when it is considered what might have been accomplished in india, it is well characterized as a "land of regrets." in the dispersion of the human race over the earth, one of the first great centres of culture was found in thibet, in asia. here is supposed to be the origin of the mongolian peoples, and the chinese represent one of the chief branches of the mongolian race. at a very early period they developed an advanced stage of civilization with many commendable features. their art, the form of pottery and porcelain, their traditional codes of law, were influential in the far east. their philosophy culminated in confucius, who lived about 500 years before christ, and their religion was founded by tao tse, who existed many centuries before. he was the founder of the taoan religion of china. but the civilization of china extended throughout the far east, spread into korea, and then into japan. it has had very little contact with the western civilization, and its history is still obscure, but there are many marvellous things done in china which are now in more recent years being faithfully studied and recorded. their art in porcelain and metals had its influence on other nations and has been of a lasting nature. _the coming of the aryans_.--the third great branch of the caucasian people, whose primitive home seems to have been in central asia, is the aryan. somewhere north of the great {168} territory of the semites, there came gradually down into nineveh and babylon and through armenia a people of different type from the semites and from the egyptians. they lived on the great grassy plains of central asia, wandering with their flocks and herds, and settling down long enough to raise a crop, and then move on. they lived a simple life, but were a vigorous, thrifty, and family-loving people; and while the great civilization of babylon, assyria, and egypt was developing, they were pushing down from the north. they finally developed in persia a great national life. subsequently, under darius i, a great aryan empire was established in the seats of the old civilization which he had conquered, whose extent was greater than the world had hitherto known. it extended over the old assyrian and babylonian empires, egypt, asia minor, and syria, in caucasian and caspian regions; covered media and persia, and extended into india as far as the indus. the old semitic civilizations were passing away, and the control of the aryan race was appearing. later these persians found themselves at war with the greeks, who were of the same racial stock. the persian empire was no great improvement over the later babylonian and assyrian empires. it had become more specifically a world empire, which set out to conquer and plunder other nations. it might have been enlightened to a certain extent, but it had received the idea of militarism and conquest. it was the first great empire of the orient to come in contact with a rising western civilization, then centering in greece. this aryan stock, when considered in europe or western civilization, is known as the nordic race. in the consideration of western civilization further discussion will be given of the origin and dispersion of this race. subjects for further study 1. study the economic foundation of egypt. babylon. arabia. 2. why did oriental nations go to war? show by example. 3. what did egypt and babylon contribute of lasting value to civilization? {169} 4. what was the hebrew contribution? 5. why did these ancient empires decline and disappear? 6. study the points of difference between the civilization of babylon and egypt and western civilization. 7. contrast the civilization of india and china with western civilization. [1] l. w. king, _history of sumer and akkad_. _history of babylon_. {170} chapter x the oriental type of civilization _the governments of the early oriental civilizations_.--in comparing the oriental civilizations which sprang up almost independently in different parts of asia and africa with european civilizations, we shall be impressed with the despotism of these ancient governments. it is not easy to determine why this feature should have been so universal, unless it could be attributed to human traits inherent in man at this particular stage of his development. perhaps, also, in emerging from a patriarchal state of society, where small, independent groups were closely united with the oldest male member as leader and governor of all, absolute authority under these conditions was necessary for the preservation of the tribe or group, and it became a fixed custom which no one questioned. subsequently, when the population increased around a common centre and various tribes and groups were subjected to a central organization, the custom of absolute rule was transferred from the small group to the king, who ruled over all. also, the nature of most of these governments may have been influenced by the type of religion which prevailed. it became systematized under the direction of priests, who stood between the people and the great unknown, holding absolute sway but working on the emotion of fear. perhaps, also, a large group of people with a limited food supply were easily reduced to a state of slavery and dwelt in a territory as a mass of unorganized humanity, subservient only to the superior directing power. it appears to be a lack of organized popular will. the religions, too, looked intensely to the authority of the past, developing fixity of customs, habits, laws, {171} and social usages. these conditions were conducive to the exercise of the despotism of those in power. _war existed for conquest and plunder_.--the kings of these oriental despotisms seemed to be possessed with inordinate vanity, and when once raised to power used not only all the resources of the nation and of the people for magnifying that power, but also used the masses of the people at home at labor, and abroad in war, for the glory of the rulers. hence, wars of conquest were frequent, always accompanied with the desire for plunder of territory, the wealth of temples, and the coffers of the rulers. many times wars were based upon whims of kings and rulers and trivial matters, which can only be explained through excessive egoism and vanity; yet in nearly every instance the idea of conquest was to increase the wealth of the nation and power of the king by going to war. there was, of course, jealousy of nations and rivalry for supremacy, as the thousand years of war between egypt and babylonia illustrates, or as the conquest of babylon by assyria, or, indeed, the later conquest of the whole east by the persian monarchs, testifies. these great wars were characterized by the crude struggle and slaughter of hordes of people. not until the horse and chariot came into use was there any great improvement in methods of warfare. bronze weapons and, later, iron were used in most of these wars. it was merely barbarism going to war with barbarism in order to increase barbaric splendor. _religious belief was an important factor in despotic government_.--in the beginning we shall find that animism, or the belief in spirits, was common to all nations and tribes. there was in the early religious life of people a wild, unorganized superstition, which brought them in subjection to the control of the spirits of the world. in the slow development of the masses, these ideas always remained prominent, and however highly developed religious life became, however pure the system of religious philosophy and religious worship, as represented by the most intelligent and farthest advanced of the {172} people, it yet remains true that the masses of the people were mastered and ruled by a gross superstition; and possibly this answers the question to a large extent as to why the religion of the orient could, on the one hand, reach such heights of purity of spirit and worship and, on the other, such a degradation in thought, conception, and practice. it could reach to the skies with one arm and into the grossest phases of nature-worship with the other. it appears the time came when, as a matter of self-defense, man must manipulate and control spirits to save himself from destruction, and there were persons particularly adapted to this process, who formed the germs of the great system of priesthood. they stood between the masses and the spirits, and as the system developed and the number of priests increased, they became the ones who ruled the masses in place of the spirits. the priesthood, then, wherever it has developed a great system, has exercised an almost superhuman power over the ignorant, the debased, and the superstitious. it was the policy of kings to cultivate and protect this priesthood, and it was largely this which enabled them to have power over the masses. having once obtained this power, and the military spirit having arisen in opposition to foreign tribes, the priests were at the head of the military, religious, and civil systems of the nation. indeed, the early king was the high priest of the tribe, and he inherited through long generations the particular function of leader of religious worship. it will be easy to conceive that where the art of embalming was carried on, people believed in the future life of the soul. the religious system of the egyptians was, indeed, of very remarkable character. the central idea in their doctrine was the unity of god, whom they recognized as the one supreme being, who was given the name of creator, eternal father, to indicate the various characters in which he appeared. this pure monotheism was seldom grasped by the great masses of the people; indeed, it is to be supposed that many of the priestly order scarcely rose to its pure conceptions. but there {173} were other groups or dynasties of gods which were worshipped throughout egypt. these were mostly mythical beings, who were supposed to perform especial functions in the creation and control of the universe. among these osiris and isis, his wife and sister, were important, and their worship common throughout all egypt. osiris came upon the earth in the interests of mankind, to manifest the true and the good in life. he was put to death by the machinations of the evil spirit, was buried and rose, and became afterward the judge of the dead. in this we find the greatest mystery in the egyptian religion. typhon was the god of the evil spirits, a wicked, rebellious devil, who held in his grasp all the terrors of disease and of the desert. sometimes he was in the form of a frightful serpent, again in the form of a crocodile or hippopotamus. seeking through the light of religious mystery to explain all the natural phenomena observed in physical nature, the egyptians fell into the habit of coarse animal worship. the cat, the snake, the crocodile, and the bull became sacred animals, to kill which was the vilest sacrilege. even if one was so unfortunate as to kill one of these sacred animals by accident, he was in danger of his life at the hands of the infuriated mob. it is related that a roman soldier, having killed a sacred cat, was saved from destruction by the multitude only by the intercession of the great ruler ptolemy. the taking of the life of one of these sacred creatures caused the deepest mourning, and frequently the wildest terror, while every member of the family shaved his head at the death of a dog. there was symbolism, too, in all this worship. thus the scarabeus, or beetle, which was held to be especially sacred, was considered as the emblem of the sun. thousands of these relics may be found in the different museums, having been preserved to the present time. the bull, apis, not only was a sacred creature, but was held to be a real god. it was thought that the soul of osiris pervaded the spirit of the bull, and at the bull's death it passed on into that of his successor. the worship of the lower forms of life led to a coarseness in religious {174} belief and practice. how it came about is difficult to ascertain. it is supposed by some scholars that the animal worship had its origin in the low form of worship belonging to the indigenous tribes of egypt, and that the higher order was introduced by the hamites, or perhaps by the semites who mingled with and overcame the original inhabitants of the nile valley. in all probability, the advanced ideas of religious belief and thought were the essential outcome of the learning and speculative philosophy of the egyptians, while the old animal worship became the most convenient for the great masses of low and degraded beings who spent their lives in building tombs for the great. the religious life of the egyptians was protected and guarded by an elaborate priesthood. it formed a perfect hierarchy of priest, high priest, scribes, keepers of the sacred robes and animals, sculptors, embalmers, besides all the attendants upon the services of worship and religion. not only was this class privileged among all the castes of egypt as representing the highest class of individuals, but it enjoyed immunity from taxation and had the privilege of administering the products of one-third of the land to carry on the expenses of the temple and religious worship. the ceremonial life of the priests was almost perfect. scrupulous in the care of their person, they bathed twice each day and frequently at night, and every third day shaved the entire body. their linen was painfully neat, and they lived on plain, simple food, as conducive to the service of religion. they exerted a great power not only over the religious life of the egyptians but, on account of the peculiar relation of religion to government, over the entire development of egypt. the religion of oriental nations was non-progressive in its nature. it had a tendency to repress freedom of thought and freedom of action. connected as it was with the binding influence of caste, man could not free himself from the dictates of religion. the awful sublimity of nature found its counterpart in the terrors of religion; and that religion attempted to {175} answer all the questions that might arise concerning external nature. it rested upon the basis of authority built through ages of tradition, and through a continuous domineering priest-craft. the human mind struggling within its own narrow bounds could not overcome the stultifying and sterilizing influence of such a religion. the lower forms of religion were "of the earth, earthy." the higher forms consisted of such abstract conceptions concerning the creation of the earth, and the manipulation of all the forces of nature and the control of all the powers of man, as to be entirely non-progressive. there could be no independent scientific investigation. there could be no rational development of the mind. the religion of the orient brought gloom to the masses and cut off hope forever. the people became subject to the grinding forces of fate. how, then, could there be intellectual development based upon freedom of action? how could there be any higher life of the soul, any moral culture, any great advancement in the arts and sciences, or any popular expression regarding war and government? _social organization was incomplete_.--all social organization tended toward the common centre, the king, and there was very little local organization except as it was necessary to bring the people under control of official rule. there were apparently very few voluntary associations. among the nobility, the priests, and ladies of rank, we find frequently elaborate costumes of dress, manifold ornaments, necklaces, rings, and earrings; but whatever went to the rich seemed to be a deprivation of the poor. indeed, when we consider that it cost only a few shillings at most to rear a child to the age of twenty-one years in egypt, we can imagine how meagre and stinted that life must have been. the poorer classes of people dressed in a very simple style, wearing a single linen shirt and over it a woollen mantle; while among the very poor much less was worn. however, it seems that there was time for some of the population to engage in sports such as laying snares for birds, {176} angling for fish, popular hunts, wrestling, playing checkers, chess, and ball, and it appears that many of these people were gifted in these sports. just what classes of people engaged in this leisure is difficult to determine. especially in the case of egypt, most of the people were condemned to hard and toilsome labor. probably the nobility and people of wealth were the only classes who had time for sports. the great temples and palaces were built with solid masonry of stone and brick, but the dwelling-houses were constructed in a light, graceful style, surrounded with long galleries and terraces common at this period of development in oriental civilization. the gardening was symmetrical and accurate, the walks led in well-defined lines and were carefully conventional. the rooms of the houses, too, were well arranged and tastefully decorated, and members of the household distributed in its generous apartments, each individual finding his special place for position and service. for the comparatively small number of prosperous and influential people, life was refined and luxurious so far as the inventions and conveniences for comfort would permit. they had well-constructed and well-appointed houses, and, judging from the relics discovered in tombs and from the records and inscriptions, people wore richly decorated clothing and lovely jewels. they had numerous feasts with music and dancing and servants to wait upon them in every phase of life. it is related, too, that excursions were common in summer on the great rivers. but even though there was a life of ease among the wealthy, they were without many comforts known to modern times. they had cotton and woollen fabrics for clothing, but no silk. they had dentists and doctors in those days, and teeth were filled with gold as in modern times. their articles of food consisted of meat and vegetables, but there were no hens and no eggs. they used the camel in mesopotamia and walked mostly in egypt, or went by boat on the river. however, when we consider the change of ancient babylon to nineveh, and the egyptian civilization of old thebes to that {177} which developed later, there is evidence of progress. the religious life lost a good many of its crudities, abolished human sacrifice, and developed a refined mysticism which was more elevating than the crude nature-worship. the rule of caste which settled down over the community in this early period relegated every individual to his particular place. from this place there could be no escape. the common laborers moving the great blocks of stone to build the mighty pyramids of the valley of the nile could be nothing but common laborers. and their sons and their daughters for generation after generation must keep the same sphere of life. and though the warriors fared much better, they, too, were confined to their own group. the shepherd class must remain a shepherd class forever; they could never rise superior to their own surroundings. so, too, in babylon and india. there was, indeed, a slight variation from the caste system in egypt and in babylon, but in india it settled down from the earliest times, and the people and their customs were crystallized; they were bound by the chain of fate in the caste system forever. we shall see, then, that the relation of the population to the soil and the binding influences of early custom tended to develop despotism in oriental civilization. the result of all this was that there was no freedom or liberty of the individual anywhere. with caste and despotism and degradation men moved forward in political and religious life as on a plane which inclined so slightly that, except as we look over its surface through the passing centuries, little change can be observed. the king was a god; the government possessed supernatural power; its authority was not to be questioned. the rule of the army was final. the cruelty of kings and the oppression of government were customary, and thus crushed and oppressed, the ordinary individual had no opportunity to arise and walk in the dignity of his manhood. the government, if traced to its source at all, was of divine origin, and though those who ruled might stop to consider for an instant their own despotic actions, and in special cases yield {178} in clemency to their subjects, from the subject's standpoint there could be nothing but to yield to the despotism of kings and the unrelenting rule of government. we shall find, then, that with all of the efforts put forth the greater part was wasted. millions of people were born, lived, and died, leaving scarcely a mark of their existence. no wonder that, as the great kings of egypt saw the wasting elements of time, the waste of labor in its dreary rounds, having employed the millions in building the mighty temples dedicated to the worship of the gods; or having built great canals and aqueducts to develop irrigation that greater food supply might be assured, thus observing the majesty of their condition in relation to other human beings, they should have employed these millions of serfs in building their own tombs and monuments to remain the only lasting vestige of the civilization long since passed away. everywhere in the oriental civilization, then, are lack of freedom and the appearance of despotism. everywhere is evidence of waste of individual life. no deep conception can be found in either the philosophy or the practice of the egyptians or the babylonians of the real object of human life. and yet the few meagre products of art and of learning handed down to european civilization from these oriental countries must have had a vast influence in laying the foundations of modern civilized life. _economic influences_.--in the first place, the warm climate of these countries required but little clothing; for a few cents a year a person could be clothed sufficiently to protect himself from the climate and to observe the rules of modesty so far as they existed in those times. in the second place, in hot climates less food is required than in cold. in cold countries people need a large quantity of heavy, oily foods, while in hot climates they need a lighter food and, indeed, less of it. thus we have in these fertile valleys of the orient the conditions which supply sustenance for millions at a very small amount of exertion or labor. now, it is a well-established fact that cheap food among classes of people who have not developed {179} a high state of civilization favors a rapid increase of population. the records show in babylon and egypt, as well as in palestine, that the population multiplied at a very rapid rate. and this principle is enhanced by the fact that in tropical climates, where less pressure of want and cold is brought to bear, the conditions for successful propagation of the human race are present. and this is one reason why the earliest civilizations have always been found in tropical climates, and it was not until man had more vigor of constitution and higher development of physical and mental powers that he could undertake the mastery of himself and nature under less favorable circumstances. the result was that human life became cheap. the great mass of men became so abundant as to press upon the food supply to its utmost limit. and they who had the control of this food supply controlled the bodies and souls of the great poverty-stricken mass who toiled for daily bread. here we find the picture of abject slavery of the masses. the rulers, through the government, strengthened by the priests, who held over the masses of the lower people in superstitious awe the tenets of their faith, forced them into subjection. there was no value placed upon a human life; why, then, should there be upon the masses of individuals? we shall find, too, as the result of all this, that the civilization became more or less stationary. true, there must have been a slow development of religious ideas, a slow development of art, a slow development of government, and yet when the type was once set there was but little change from century to century in the relation of human beings to one another, and their relation to the products of nature. when we consider the accomplishments of these people we must not forget the length of time it took to produce them. reckon back from the present time 6,000 years, and then consider what has been accomplished in america in the last century. think back 2,000 years, and see what had been accomplished in rome from the year of the founding of the imperial city until the caesars lived {180} in their mighty palaces, a period of seven and a half centuries. observe, too, what was accomplished in greece from the time of homer until the time of aristotle, a period of about six and a half centuries; then observe the length of time it took to develop the egyptian civilization, and we shall see its slow progress. it is also to be observed that the egyptian civilization had reached its culmination when greece began, and had begun its slow decline. after considering this we shall understand that the civilization of egypt finally became stationary, conventionalized, non-progressive; that it was only a question of time when other nations should rule the land of the pharaohs, and that sands should drift where once were populous cities, covering the relics of this ancient civilization far beneath the surface. the progress in industrial arts and the use of implements was, of necessity, very slow. where the laboring man was considered of little value, treated as a mere physical machine, to be fed and used for mechanical purposes alone, it mattered little with what tools he worked. in the building of the pyramids we find no mighty engines for the movement of the great stones, we find no evidence of mechanical genius to provide labor-saving machines. the inclined plane and rollers, the simplest of all contrivances, were about the only inventions. also, in the buildings of babylon, the tools with which men worked must of necessity have been very poor. it is remarkable to what extent modern invention depends upon the elevation of the standard of life of labor, and how man through intelligence continually makes certain contrivances for the perfection of human industry. however, if we consider the ornaments used to adorn the person, or for the service of the rich, or the elaborate clothing of the wealthy, we shall find quite a high state of development in these lines, showing the greatest contrast between the condition of the laboring multitudes on the one hand and the luxurious few on the other. along this line of the rapid development of ornaments we find evidence of luxury and ease, and, in the slow development of {181} industrial arts, the sacrifice of labor. and all of the advancement in the mighty works of art and industry was made at the sacrifice of human labor. to sum this up, we find, then, that the influence of despotic government, of the binding power of caste, of the prevalence of custom, of the influence of priestcraft, the retarding power of a non-progressive religion, concentration of intelligence in a privileged class that seeks its own ease, the slow development of industrial implements, and the rapid development of ornaments, brought decay. we see in all of this a retarding of improvement, a stagnation of organizing effort, and the crystallization of ancient civilization about old forms, to be handed down from generation to generation without progress. _records, writing, and paper_.--at an early period papyrus, a paper made of a reed that grows along the nile valley, was among the first inventions. it was the earliest artificial writing material discovered by any nation of which we have a record; and we are likely to remember it from its two names, _biblos_ and _papyrus_, for from these come two of our most common words, bible and paper. frequently, however, leather, pottery, tiles, and stone, and even wooden tablets, were used as substitutes for the papyrus. in the early period the egyptians used the hieroglyphic form of writing, which consisted of rude pictures of objects which had a peculiar significance. finally the hieratic simplified this form by symbolizing and conventionalizing to a large extent the hieroglyphic characters. later came the demotic, which was a further departure from the old concrete form of representation, and had the advantage of being more readily written than either of the others.[1] these characters were used to inscribe the deeds of kings on monuments and tablets, and when in 1798 the key to the egyptian writing was obtained through means of the rosetta stone, the opportunity for a large addition to the history of egypt was made. strange as it may seem, these ancient people had written romances and fairy tales; one especially to be mentioned {182} is the common _cinderella and the glass slipper_, written more than thirteen centuries b.c. but in addition to these were published documents, private letters, fables, epics, and autobiographies, and treatises on astronomy, medicine, history, and scientific subjects. the babylonians and assyrians developed the cuneiform method of writing. they had no paper, but made their inscriptions on clay tablets and cylinders. these were set away in rooms called libraries. the discovery of the great library of ashur-bani-pal, of nineveh, revealed the highest perfection of this ancient method of recording events. the art of egypt was manifested in the dressing of precious stones, the weaving of fine fabrics, and fine work in gold ornaments. sculpture and painting were practically unknown as arts, although the use of colors was practised to a considerable extent. artistic energy was worked out in the making of the tombs of kings, the obelisks, the monuments, the sphinxes, and the pyramids. it was a conception of the massive in artistic expression. in babylon and nineveh, especially the latter, the work of sculpture in carving the celebrated winged bulls gives evidence of the attempt to picture power and strength rather than beauty. doubtless the babylonians developed artistic taste in the manufacture of jewelry out of precious stones and gold. _the beginnings of science were strong in egypt, weak in babylon_.--the greatest expression of the egyptian learning was found in science. the work in astronomy began at a very early date from a practical standpoint. the rising of the nile occurred at a certain time annually, coinciding with the time of the rise of the dog-star, which led these people to imagine that they stood in the relation of effect and cause, and from these simple data began the study of astronomy. the egyptians, by the study of the movement of the stars, were enabled to determine the length of the sidereal year, which they divided into twelve months, of thirty days each, adding five days to complete the year. this is the calendar which was {183} introduced from egypt into the roman empire by julius caesar. it was revised by pope gregory xiii in 1582, and has since been the universal system for the western civilized world. having reached their limit of fact in regard to the movement of the heavenly bodies, their imagination related the stars to human conduct, and astrology became an essential outcome. it was easy to believe that the heavenly bodies, which, apparently, had such great influence in the rise of the river and in the movement of the tides, would have either a good influence or a baneful influence, not only over the vegetable world but upon human life and human destiny as well. hence, astrology, in egypt as in babylonia, became one of the important arts. from the measurement of the nile and the calculation of the lands, which must be redistributed after each annual overflow, came the system of concrete measurement which later developed into the science of geometry. proceeding from the simple measurement of land, step by step were developed the universal abstract problems of geometry, and the foundation for this great branch of mathematics was laid. the use of arithmetic in furnishing numerical expressions in the solution of geometrical and arithmetical problems became common. the egyptians had considerable knowledge of many drugs and medicines, and the physicians of egypt had a great reputation among the ancients; for every doctor was a specialist and pursued his subject and his practice to the utmost limit of fact and theory. but the physician must treat cases according to customs already established in the past. there was but little opportunity for the advancement of his art. yet it became very much systematized and conventionalized. the study of anatomy developed also the art of embalming, one of the most distinctive features of egyptian civilization. this art was carried on by the regular physicians, who made use of resins, oils, bitumens, and various gums. it was customary to embalm the bodies of wealthy persons by filling them with resinous substances and wrapping them closely in linen {184} bandages. the poorer classes were cured very much as beef is cured before drying, and then wrapped in coarse garments preparatory to burial. the number of individuals who were thus disposed of after death is estimated at not less than 420,000,000 between 2000 b.c. and 700 a.d. _the contribution to civilization_.--the building of the great empires on the tigris and euphrates had a tendency to collect the products of civilization so far as they existed, and to distribute them over a large area. thus, the industries that began in early sumer and akkad, coming from farther east, were passed on to egypt and phoenicia and were further distributed over the world. especially is this true in the work of metals, the manufacture of glass, and the development of the alphabet, which probably originated in babylon and was improved by the phoenicians, and, through them as traders, had a wide dispersion. perhaps one ought to consider that the study of the stars and the heavenly bodies, although it led no farther than astrology and the development of magic, was at least a beginning, although in a crude way, of an inquiry into nature. in egypt, however, we find that there was more or less scientific study and invention and development of reflective thinking. moreover, the advancement in the arts of life, especially industrial, had great influence over the greeks, whose early philosophers were students of the egyptian system. also, the contact of the hebrews and phoenicians with egypt gave a strong coloring to their civilization. especially is this true of the hebrews, who dwelt so long in the shadow of the egyptian civilization. the hebrews, after their captivity in babylon, contributed the bible, with its sacred literature, to the world, which with its influence through the legal-ethicalism, or moral code, its monotheistic doctrines, and its attempted development of a commonwealth based on justice, had a lasting influence on civilization. but in the life of the hebrew people in palestine its influence on surrounding nations was not so great as in the later times when the jews were scattered over the {185} world. the bible has been a tremendous civilizer of the world. hebrewism became a universal state of mind, which influenced all nations that came in contact with it. but what did this civilization leave to the world? the influence of egypt on greece and greek philosophy must indeed have been great, for the greatest of the greeks looked upon the egyptian philosophy as the expression of the highest wisdom. nor can we hesitate in claiming that the influence of the egyptians upon the hebrews was considerable. there is a similarity in many respects between the egyptian and the hebrew code of learning; but the art and the architecture, the learning and the philosophy, had their influence likewise on all surrounding nations as soon as egypt was opened up to communication with other parts of the world. a careful study of the greek philosophy brings clearly before us the influence of the egyptian learning. thus thales, the first of the philosophers to break away from the grecian religion and mythology to inquire into the natural cause of the universe, was a student of egyptian life and philosophy. subjects for further study 1. what are the evidences of civilization discovered in tut-ankh-amen's tomb? 2. give an outline of the chief characteristics of egyptian civilization? 3. what caused the decline of egyptian civilization? 4. what did oriental civilization contribute to the subsequent welfare of the world? 5. the influence of climate on industry in egypt and babylon. 6. why did the egyptian religion fail to improve the lot of the common man? 7. retarding influence of the caste system in india and egypt. [1] see chapter vii. {186} chapter xi beginnings of civilization in america _america was peopled from the old world_.--the origin of the people of america has been the subject of perennial controversy. gradually, however, as the studies of the human race and their migrations have increased, it is pretty well established that the one stream of migration came from asia across a land connection along the aleutian islands, which extended to alaska. at an early period, probably from 15,000 to 20,000 years age, people of the mongoloid type crossed into america and gradually passed southward, some along the coast line, others through the interior of alaska and thence south. this stream of migration continued down through mexico, central america, south america, and even to patagonia. it also had a reflex movement eastward toward the great plains and the mississippi valley. there is a reasonable conjecture, however, that another stream of migration passed from europe at a time when the british islands were joined to the mainland, and the great ice cap made a solid bridge to iceland, greenland, and possibly to labrador. it would have been possible for these people to have come during the third glacial period, at the close of the old stone age, or soon after in the neolithic period. the traditions of the people on the west coast all state their geographical origin in the northwest. the traditions of the indians of the atlantic coast trace their origins to the northeast. the people of the west coast are mostly of the round-headed type (brachycephalic), while those of the east coast have been of the long-headed type (dolichocephalic). the two types have mingled in their migration southward until we have the long heads and the round or broad heads extending the whole {187} length of the two continents. intermingled with these are those of the middle derivative type, or mesocephalic. from these sources there have developed on the soil of america, the so-called american indians of numerous tribes, each with its own language and with specialized physical and mental types. while the color of the skin has various shades, the coarse, straight black hair and brown eyes are almost general features of the whole indian race. at different centres in both north and south america, tribes have become more or less settled and developed permanent phases of early civilization, strongly marked by the later neolithic cultures. in some exceptional cases, the uses of copper, bronze, and gold are to be noted. perhaps the most important centres are those of the incas in peru, the mayas, aztecs, and terra-humares of mexico, the cliff-dwellers and pueblos of southwestern united states, the mound-builders of the mississippi valley, and the iroquois nation of northeastern united states and canada. at the time of the coming of the europeans to america, the indian population in general was nomadic, in the hunter-fisher stage of progress; but many of the tribes had tentatively engaged in agriculture, cultivating maize, squashes, and in some cases fruits. probably the larger supply of food was from animals, birds, fish, and shell-fish, edible roots and grains, such as the wild rice, and fruits from the native trees in the temperate and tropical countries. the social organization was based upon the family and the tribe, and, in a few instances, a federation of tribes like that of the iroquois nation. _the incas of peru_.--when the spaniards under pizarro undertook the conquest of the peruvians, they found the inca civilization at its highest state of development. however, subsequent investigations discovered other and older seats of civilization of a race in some ways more highly developed than those with whom they came in contact. among the evidences of this ancient civilization were great temples built of stone, used as public buildings for the administration of religious {188} rights [transcriber's note: rites?], private buildings of substantial order, and paved roads with numerous bridges. there were likewise ruins of edifices apparently unfinished, and traditions of an ascendent race which had passed away before the development of the incas of pizarro's time. in the massive architecture of their buildings there was an attempt to use sculpture on an elaborate scale. they showed some skill in the arts and industries, such as ornamental work in gold, copper, and tin, and the construction of pottery on a large scale. they had learned to weave and spin, and their clothing showed some advancement in artistic design. in agriculture they raised corn and other grains, and developed a state of pastoral life, although the llama was the only domesticated animal of service. great aqueducts were built and fertilizers were used to increase the productive value of the soil. the dry climate of this territory necessitated the use of water by irrigation, and the limited amount of tillable soil had forced them to use fertilizers to get the largest possible return per acre. the peruvians, or incas, were called the children of the sun. they had a sacred feeling for the heavenly bodies, and worshipped the sun as the creator and ruler of the universe. they had made some progress in astronomy, by a characterization of the sun and moon and chief planets, mostly for a religious purpose. however, they had used a calendar to represent the months, the year, and the changing seasons. here, as elsewhere in primitive civilization, religion becomes an important factor in social control. the priest comes in as the interpreter and controller of mysteries, and hence an important member of the community. religious sacrifices among the peruvians were commonly of an immaculate nature, being mostly of fruits and flowers. this relieved them of the terrors of human sacrifices so prevalent in early beginnings of civilization where religion became the dominant factor of life. hence their religious life was more moderate than that of many nations where religious control was more powerful. yet in governmental {189} affairs and in social life, here as in other places, religion was made the means of enslaving the masses of the people. the government of the incas was despotic. it was developed through the old family and tribal life to a status of hereditary aristocracy. individuals of the oldest families became permanent in government, and these were aided and supported by the priestly order. caste prevailed to a large extent, making a great difference between the situation of the nobility and the peasants and slaves. individuals born into a certain group must live and die within that group. hence the people were essentially peaceable, quiet, and not actively progressive. but we find that the social life, in spite of the prominence of the priest and the nobility, was not necessarily burdensome. docile and passive in nature, they were ready to accept what appeared to them a well-ordered fate. if food, clothing, and shelter be furnished, and other desires remain undeveloped, and life made easy, what occasion was there for them to be moved by nobler aspirations? without higher ideals, awakened ambition, and the multiplication of new desires, there was no hope of progress. the people seemed to possess considerable nobility of character, and were happy, peaceful, and well disposed toward one another, even though non-progressive conditions gave evidence that they had probably reached the terminal bud of progress of their branch of the human race. as to what would have been the outcome of this civilization had not the ruthless hand of the spaniard destroyed it, is a matter of conjecture. how interesting it would have been if these people could have remained unmolested for 400 years as an example of progress or retardation of a race. students then could, through observation, have learned a great lesson concerning the development of the human race. is it possible when a branch of the human race has only so much potential power based upon hereditary development, upon attitude toward life, and upon influence of environmental conditions, that after working out its normal existence it grows old and decays and dies, just as even the sturdy oak has its normal life {190} and decay? at any rate, it seems that the history of the human race repeats itself over and over again with thousands of examples of this kind. when races become highly specialized along certain lines and are unadaptable along other lines, changes in climate, soil, food supply, or conflict with other races cause them to perish. if we admit this to be the universal fate of tribes and races, there is one condition in which the normal life of the race can be prolonged, and that is by contact with other races which bring in new elements, and make new accommodations, not only through biological heredity, but through social heredity which causes a new lease of life to the tribe. of course the deteriorating effects of a race of less culture would have a tendency to shorten the spiritual if not the physical life of the race. whatever conjecture we may have as to the past and the probable future of such a race, it is evident that the peruvians had made a strong and vigorous attempt at civilization. their limited environment and simple life were not conducive to progressive ideas, and gave little inducement for inventive genius to lead the race forward. but even as we find them, the sum-total of their civilization compares very favorably with the sum-total of the civilization of the spaniards, who engaged to complete their destruction. different were these spaniards in culture and learning, it is true, but their great difference is in the fact that the spaniards had the tools and equipment for war and perhaps a higher state of military organization than the peace-loving peruvians. _aztec civilization in mexico_.--when cortez in 1525 began his conquest of mexico, he found a strong political organization under the emperor montezuma, who had through conquest, diplomacy, and assumption of power united all of the tribes in and around mexico city in a strong federation. these people were made up of many different tribes. at this period they did not show marked development in any particular line, except that of social organization. the people that occupied this great empire ruled by montezuma, with the seat of power {191} at mexico city, were called aztecs. the empire extended over all of lower mexico and yucatan. as rapidly as possible montezuma brought adjacent tribes into subjection, and at the time of the spanish conquest he exercised lordship over a wide country. so far as can be ascertained, arts and industries practised by most of these tribes were handed down from extinct races that had a greater inventive genius and a higher state of progress. the conquering tribes absorbed and used the arts of the conquered, as the greeks did those of the conquered aegeans. the practice of agriculture, of the industrial arts, such as clothing, pottery, and implements of use and ornaments for adornment, showed advancement in industrial life. they built large temples and erected great buildings for the worship of their gods. there was something in their worship bordering on sun-worship, although not as distinctive as the sun-worship of the peruvians. they were highly developed in the use of gold and copper, and produced a good quality of pottery. they had learned the art of decorating the pottery, and their temples also were done in colors and in bas-relief. they had developed a language of merit and had a hieroglyphic expression of the same. they had a distinct mythology, comprising myths of the sun and of the origin of various tribes, the origin of the earth and of man. they had developed the idea of charity, and had a system of caring for the poor, with hospitals for the sick. notwithstanding this altruistic expression, they offered human sacrifices of maidens to their most terrible god. as before stated, there were many tribes, consequently many languages, although some of them were near enough alike that members of different tribes could be readily understood. also the characteristic traits varied in different tribes. it is not known whence they came, although their tradition points to the origin of the northwest. undoubtedly, each tribe had a myth of its own origin, but, generally speaking, they all came from the northwest. without doubt, at the time of the coming of the spaniards, the tribes were non-progressive except in {192} government. the coming of the spaniards was a rude shock to their civilization, and with a disintegration of the empire, the spirit of thrift and endeavor was quenched. they became, as it were, slaves to a people with so-called higher civilization, who at least had the tools with which to conquer if they had not higher qualities of human character than those of the conquered. _the earliest centres of civilization in mexico_.--prior to the formation of the empire of the aztecs, conquered by the spaniards, there existed in mexico centres of development of much greater antiquity. the more important among these were yucatan and mitla. a large number of the ruins of these ancient villages have been discovered and recorded. the groups of people who developed these contemporary civilizations were generally known as toltecs. the maya race, the important branch of the toltecs, which had its highest development in yucatan, was supposed to have come from a territory northeast of mexico city, and traces of its migrations are discovered leading south and east into yucatan. it is not known at what period these developments began, but probably their beginnings might have been traced back to 15,000 years, although the oldest known tablet found gives a record of 202 years b.c. other information places their coming much later, at about 387 a.d. all through central america and southern mexico ruins of these ancient villages have been discovered. while the civilizations of all were contemporaneous, different centres show different lines of development. there is nothing certain concerning the origin of the toltecs, and they seemed to have practically disappeared so far as independent tribal life existed after their conquest by the aztecs, although the products of their civilization were used by many other tribes that were living under the aztec rule, and, indeed, traces of their civilization exist to-day in the living races of southern and central mexico. tradition states that the toltecs reached their highest state of power between the seventh and the twelfth {193} centuries, but progress in the interpretation of their hieroglyphics gives us but few permanent records. the development of their art was along the line of heavy buildings with bas-reliefs and walls covered with inscriptions recording history and religious symbols. one bas-relief represents the human head, with the facial angle shown at forty-five degrees. it was carved in stone of the hardest composition and was left unpainted. ethnologists have tried repeatedly and in vain to show there was a resemblance of this american life to the egyptian civilization. in art, architecture, and industry, in worship and the elements of knowledge, there may be some resemblance to egyptian models, but there is no direct evidence sufficient to connect these art products with those of egypt or to assume that they must have come from the same centre. the construction of pyramids and terraces on a large scale does remind us of the tendency of the oriental type of civilization. in all of their art, however, there was a symmetrical or conventional system which demonstrated that the indigenous development must have been from a common centre. out of the fifty-two cities that have been explored which exhibit the habitations of the toltec civilization, many exhibit ruins of art and architecture worthy of study. in the construction of articles for use and ornament, copper and gold constituted the chief materials, and there was also a great deal of pottery. the art of weaving was practised, and the soil cultivated to a considerable extent. the family life was well developed, though polygamy appears to have been practised as a universal custom. the form of government was the developed family of the patriarchal type, and, where union of tribes had taken place, an absolute monarchy prevailed. war and conquest here, as in all other places where contact of tribes appeared, led to slavery. the higher classes had a large number of slaves, probably taken as prisoners of war. this indicates a degree of social progress in which enemies were preserved for slavery rather than exterminated in war. their laws and regulations indicate a high sense of {194} justice in establishing the relationship of individuals within the tribe or nation. these people were still in the later neolithic age, but with signs of departure from this degree of civilization in the larger use of the metals. there were some indications that bronze might have been used in making ornaments. perhaps they should be classified in the later neolithic age of the upper status of barbarism. recent excavations in central america, yucatan, and more recently in the valley near mexico city, have brought to light many new discoveries. representations of early and later cultures show a gradual progress in the use of the arts, some of the oldest of which show a great resemblance to the early mongolian culture of asia. _the pueblo indians of the southwest_.--in northern mexico and arizona there are remains of ancient buildings which seem to indicate that at one time a civilization existed here that has long since become extinct. long before the arrival of the spaniards, irrigation was practised in this dry territory. indeed, in the salt river valley of arizona, old irrigation ditches were discovered on the lines of which now flow the waters that irrigate the modern orchards and vineyards. the discoveries in recent years in the southwest territory indicate that this ancient civilization had been destroyed by the warlike tribes that were ever ready to take possession of centres of culture and possess or destroy the accumulation of wealth of the people who toiled. if one could fill in the missing links of history with his imagination, it would be easy to conjecture that the descendants of these people fled to the mountains, and became the cliff-dwellers of the southwest. these people built their homes high on the cliffs, in caves or on projecting prominences. here they constructed great communal dwellings, where they could defend themselves against all enemies. they were obliged to procure their food and water from the valley, and to range over the surrounding _mesas_ in the hunt. gradually they stole down out of the cliffs to live in the valleys and built large communal houses, many of which now are in existence in this territory. {195} these people have several centres of civilization which are similar in general, but differ in many particulars. they are classed as pueblo indians. among these centres are the hopi indians, the zuã±ian, taoan, shoshonean, and many others.[1] the pre-history of these widely extended groups of indians is not known, but in all probability they have been crowded into this southwest arid region by warlike tribes, and for the shelter and protection of the whole tribe have built large houses of stone or adobe. the idea of protection seems to have been the dominant one in building the cliff houses and the adobe houses of the plain. the latter were entered by means of ladders placed upon the wall, so that they could ascend from one story to another. the first story had no doors or windows, but could be entered by means of a trap-door. the pueblos were, as a rule, people of low stature, but of an intelligent and pleasing appearance. they dressed in cotton goods or garments woven from the fibre of the yucca plant, or from coarse bark, and later, under spanish rule, from specially prepared wool. their feet were protected by sandals made from the yucca, or moccasins from deer or rabbit skins. leggings coming above the knee were formed by wrapping long strips of buckskin around the leg. the women and men dressed very much alike. the women banged their hair to the eyebrows, allowing it to hang loosely behind, although in some instances maidens dressed their hair with two large whirls above the ears. the zuã±i indians practised this custom after the coming of the spaniards. the pueblos were well organized into clans, and descent in the female line was recognized. the clans were divided usually into the north, south, east, and west clans by way of designation, showing that the communal idea had been established with recognition of government by locality. here, as elsewhere among the american aborigines, the clans were named after the animals chosen as their totem, but there were in addition {196} to these ordinary clans, the sun clan, the live oak, the turquoise, or others named from objects of nature. each group of clans was governed by a priest chief, who had authority in all religious matters and, consequently, through religious influences, had large control in affairs pertaining to household government, and to social and political life in general. the duties and powers of these chiefs were carefully defined. the communal houses in which the people lived were divided into apartments for different clans and families. in some instances there was a common dining-hall for the members of the tribe. the men usually resided outside of the communal house, but came to the common dining-hall for their meals. there were many secret societies among these people which seemed to mingle religious and political sentiments. the members of these societies dwelt to a large extent in the estufa, or kiva, a large half-subterranean club-house where they could meet in secret. in every large tribe there were four to seven of these secret orders, and they were recognized as representing the various organizations. these "cult societies," so called by mr. powell, had charge of the mythical rites, the spirit lore, the mysteries, and the medicines of the part of the tribe which they represented. they conducted the ceremonies at all festivals and celebrations. it is difficult to determine the exact nature of their religion. it was a worship full of superstition, recognizing totemism and direct connection with the spirits of nature. their religion was of a joyous nature, and always was associated with their games and feasts. the games were usually given in the celebration of some great event, or for some economic purpose, and were accompanied with dancing, music, pantomime, and symbolism. perhaps of all of the north american indians, the pueblos showed the greatest fondness for music and had made some advancement in the arts of poetry and song. the noted snake dance, the green-corn dance, and the cachina all had at foundation an economic purpose. they were done ostensibly to gain the favor of the gods of nature. {197} when discovered by the spaniards, the pueblos had made good beginnings in agriculture and the industrial arts, were living in a state of peace and apparently contented, there seeming to be little war between the tribes. their political organization in connection with the secret societies and their shamanistic religion gave them a good development of social order. after nearly 400 years of spanish and american rule, they appear to have retained many of their original traits and characteristics, and cherish their ancient customs. apparently the spanish and the american civilization is merely a gloss over their ancient life which they seek every opportunity to express. they are to-day practically non-assimilative and live to a large extent their own life in their own way, although they have adopted a few of the american customs. while quite a large number of these villages are now to be seen very much in their primitive style of architecture and life, more than 3,000 architectural ruins in the southwest, chiefly in arizona and new mexico, have been discovered. many of them are partially obscured in the drifting sands, but they show attempts at different periods by different people to build homes. the devastation of flood and famine and the destruction of warlike tribes retarded their progress and caused their extinction. the pueblo indians were in the middle status of barbarism when the spaniards arrived, and there they would have remained forever or become extinct had not the spanish and american civilizations overtaken them. even now self-determined progress seems not to possess them. however, through education the younger generations are being slowly assimilated into american life. but it appears that many generations will pass before their tribal life is entirely absorbed into a common democracy. _the mound-builders of the mississippi valley_.--at the coming of the europeans this ancient people had nearly all disappeared. only a few descendants in the southern part of the great valley of the mississippi represented living traces of the mound-builders. they had left in their burial mounds {198} and monuments many relics of a high type of the neolithic civilization which they possessed. as to their origin, history has no direct evidence. however, they undoubtedly were part of that great stream of early european migration to america which gradually spread down the ohio valley and the upper mississippi. at what time they flourished is not known, although their civilization was prehistoric when compared with that of the algonquins, athabascans, and iroquois tribes that were in existence at the time of the coming of the europeans. although the tradition of these indians traces them to the southwest, and that they became extinct by being driven out by more savage and more warlike people, whence they came and whither they went are both alike open to conjecture. their civilization was not very different from that of many other tribes of north american indians. their chief characteristic consisted in the building of extensive earth mounds as symbolical of their religious and tribal life. they also built immense enclosures for the purpose of fortification. undoubtedly on the large mounds were originally built public houses or dwellings or temples for worship or burial. those in the form of a truncated pyramid were used for the purposes of building sites for temples and dwellings, and those having circular bases and a conical shape were used as burial places. besides these two kinds was another, called effigy mounds, which represented the form of some animal or bird, which undoubtedly was the totem of the tribe. these latter mounds were seldom more than three or four feet high, but were of great extent. they indicated the unity of the gens, either by representing it through the totem or a mythical ancestry. other mounds of less importance were used in religious worship, namely, for the location of the altar to be used for sacrificial purposes. all were used to some extent as burial mounds. large numbers of their implements made of quartz, chert, bone, and slate for the household and for the hunt have been found. they used copper to some extent, which was obtained in a free or native state and hammered into implements and ornaments. {199} undoubtedly, the centre of the distribution of copper was the lake superior region, which showed that there was a diffusion of cultures from this centre at this early period. they made some progress in agriculture, cultivating maize and tobacco. apparently their commerce with surrounding tribes was great, which no doubt gave them a variety of means of life. the pottery, judging from specimens that have been preserved, was inferior to that of the mexicans or the arizona indians, but, nevertheless, in the lower mississippi fine collections of pottery showing beautiful lines and a large number of designs were found. it fills one with wonder that a tribe of such power should have begun the arts of civilization and developed a powerful organization, and then have been so suddenly destroyed--why or how is not known. in all probability it is the old story of a sedentary group being destroyed by the more hardy, savage, and warlike conquerors. _other types of indian life_.--while the great centres of culture were found in peru, central america, mexico, southwest united states, and the mississippi valley, there were other cultures of a less pronounced nature worthy of mention. on the pacific coast, in the region around santa barbara, are the relics of a very ancient tribe of indians who had developed some skill in the making of pottery and exhibit other forms of industrial life. recently an ancient skeleton has been discovered which seems to indicate a life of great antiquity. nevertheless, it is a lower state of civilization than those of the larger centres already mentioned. yet it is worthy of note that there was here started a people who had adopted village habits and attained a considerable degree of progress. probably they were contemporary with other people of the most ancient civilizations of america. so far as the advancement of government is concerned, the iroquois indians of canada and new york showed considerable advancement. as represented by mr. lewis h. morgan, who made a careful study of the iroquois, their tribal divisions and their federation of tribes show an advancement along {200} governmental lines extending beyond the mere family or tribal life. their social order showed civil progress, and their industrial arts, in agriculture especially, were notable. _why did the civilization of america fail?_--there is a popular theory that the normal advancement of the indian races of america was arrested or destroyed by the coming of the europeans. undoubtedly the contact of the higher civilization with the latter had much to do with the hastening of the decay of the former. the civilizations were so widely apart that it was not easy for the primitive or retarded race to adopt the civilization of the more advanced. but when it is assumed that if the europeans had never come to the american continent, native tribes and races would eventually, of their own initiative, develop a high state of civilization, such an assumption is not well founded, because at the time of the coming of the europeans there was no great show of progress. it seems as if no branch of the race could go forward very far without being destroyed by more warlike tribes. or, if let alone, they seemed to develop a stationary civilization, reaching their limit, beyond which they could not go. as the races of europe by specialization along certain lines became inadaptable to new conditions and passed away to give place to others, so it appears that this was characteristic of the civilization of america. evidently the prehistoric peruvians, mexicans, pueblos, and mound-builders had elements of civilization greater than the living warring indian tribes which came in contact with the early european settlers in america. it may not be wise to enter a plea that all tribes and races have their infancy, youth, age, and decay, with extinction as their final lot, but it has been repeated so often in the history of the human race that one may assume it to be almost, if not quite, universal. the momentum of racial power gained by biological heredity and social achievement, reaches its limit when it can no longer adapt itself to new conditions, with the final end and inevitable result of extinction. the nordic race, with all of its vigor and persistency, has {201} had a long and continuous life on account of its roving disposition and its perpetual contact with new conditions of its own choice. it has always had power to overcome, and its vigor has kept it exploiting and inventing and borrowing of others the elements of civilization, which have continually forced it forward. when it, too, reaches a state when it cannot adapt itself to new conditions, perhaps it will give way to some other branch of the human race, which, gathering new strength or new vigor from sources not available to the nordic, will be able to overpower it; but the development of science and art with the power over nature, is greater in this race than in any other, and the maladies which destroy racial life are less marked than in other races. it would seem, then, that it still has great power of continuance and through science can adapt itself to nature and live on. but what would the american indian have contributed to civilization? would modern civilization have been as far advanced as now, had the europeans found no human life at all on the american continent? true, the europeans learned many things of the indians regarding cultivation of maize and tobacco, and thus increased their food supply, but would they not have learned this by their own investigations, had there been no indians to teach? the arts of pottery have been more highly developed by the etruscans, the aegeans, and the greeks than by the american indians. the europeans had long since passed the stone age and entered the iron age, which they brought to the american indians. but the studies of ethnology have been greatly enlarged by the fact of these peculiar and wonderful people, who exhibited so many traits of nobility of character in life. perhaps it would not be liberal to say the world would have been just as well off had they never existed. at any rate, we are glad of the opportunity to study what their life was and what it was worth to them, and also its influence on the life and character of the europeans. the most marked phases of this civilization are found in the development of basketry and pottery, and the exquisite work {202} in stone implements. every conceivable shape of the arrow-head, the spear, the stone axe and hammer, the grinding board for grains, the bow-and-arrow, is evidence of the skill in handiwork of these primitive peoples. also, the skill in curing and tanning hides for clothing, and the methods of hunting and trapping game are evidences of great skill. perhaps, also, there is something in the primitive music of these people which not only is worthy of study but has added something to the music culture of more advanced peoples. at least, if pressed to learn the real character of man, we must go to primitive peoples and primitive life and customs. subjects for further study 1. what contributions did the american indians make to european civilization? 2. what are the chief physical and mental traits of the indian? 3. what is the result of education of the indian? 4. how many indians are there in the united states? (_a_) where are they located? (_b_) how many children in school? where? 5. if the europeans made a better use of the territory than did the indians, had the europeans the right to dispossess them? did they use the right means to gain possession? 6. study an indian tribe of your own selection regarding customs, habits, government, religion, art, etc. [1] recent discoveries in nevada and utah indicate a wide territorial extension of the pueblo type. {205} _part iv_ western civilization chapter xii the old greek life _the old greek life was the starting point of western civilization_.--civilization is a continuous movement--hence there is a gradual transition from the oriental civilization to the western. the former finally merges into the latter. although the line of demarcation is not clearly drawn, some striking differences are apparent when the two are placed in juxtaposition. perhaps the most evident contrast is observed in the gradual freedom of the mind from the influences of tradition and religious superstition. connected with this, also, is the struggle for freedom from despotism in government. it has been observed how the ancient civilizations were characterized by the despotism of priests and kings. it was the early privilege of european life to gradually break away from this form of human degradation and establish individual rights and individual development. kings and princes, indeed, ruled in the western world, but they learned to do so with a fuller recognition of the rights of the governed. there came to be recognized, also, free discussion as the right of people in the processes of government. it is admitted that the despotic governments of the old world existed for the few and neglected the many. while despotism was not wanting in european civilization, the struggle to be free from it was the ruling spirit of the age. the history of europe centres around this struggle to be free from despotism and traditional learning, and to develop freedom of thought and action. among oriental people the idea of progress was wanting in their philosophy. true, they had some notion of changes that take place in the conditions of political and social life, and in individual accomplishments, yet there was nothing hopeful in their presentation of the theory of life or in their practices {206} of religion; and the few philosophers who recognized changes that were taking place saw not in them a persistent progress and growth. their eyes were turned toward the past. their thoughts centred on traditions and things that were fixed. life was reduced to a dull, monotonous round by the great masses of the people. if at any time a ray of light penetrated the gloom, it was turned to illuminate the accumulated philosophies of the past. on the other hand, in european civilization we find the idea of progress becoming more and more predominant. the early greeks and romans were bound to a certain extent by the authority of tradition on one side and the fixity of purpose on the other. at times there was little that was hopeful in their philosophy, for they, too, recognized the decline in the affairs of men. but through trial and error, new discoveries of truth were made which persisted until the revival of learning in the middle ages, at the time of the formation of new nations, when the ideas of progress became fully recognized in the minds of the thoughtful, and subsequently in the full triumph of western civilization came the recognition of the possibility of continuous progress. another great distinction in the development of european civilization was the recognition of humanity. in ancient times humanitarian spirit appeared not in the heart of man nor in the philosophy of government. even the old tribal government was for the few. the national government was for selected citizens only. specific gods, a special religion, the privilege of rights and duties were available to a few, while all others were deprived of them. this invoked a selfishness in practical life and developed a selfish system even among the leaders of ancient culture. the broad principle of the rights of an individual because he was human was not taken into serious consideration even among the more thoughtful. if he was friendly to the recognized god he was permitted to exist. if he was an enemy, he was to be crushed. on the other hand, the triumph of western civilization is the recognition of the value of a human being and his right to engage in all human associations {207} for which he is fitted. while the greeks came into contact with the older civilizations of egypt and asia, and were influenced by their thought and custom, they brought a vigorous new life which gradually dominated and mastered the oriental influences. they had sufficient vigor and independence to break with tradition, wherever it seemed necessary to accomplish their purpose of life. _the aegean culture preceded the coming of the greeks_.--spreading over the islands of the aegean sea was a pre-greek civilization known as minoan. its highest centre of development was in the island of crete, whose principal city was cnossos. whence these people came and what their ethnological classification are still unsettled.[1] they had a number of centres of development, which varied somewhat in type of culture. they were a dark-haired people, who probably came from africa or asia minor, settling in crete about 5,000 years b.c. it is thought by some that the etruscans of italy were of aegean origin. prior to the minoans there existed a neolithic culture throughout the islands of greece. in the great city of cnossos, which was sacked and burned about the fourteenth century b.c., were found ruins which show a culture of relatively high degree. by the excavations in crete at this point a stratum of earth twenty feet thick was discovered, in which were found evidences of all grades of civilization, from the neolithic implements to the highest minoan culture. palaces with frescoes and carvings, ornaments formed of metal and skilfully wrought vases with significant colorings, all evinced a civilization worthy of intensive study. these people had developed commerce and trade with egypt, and their boats passed along the shores of the mediterranean, carrying their civilization to italy, northern africa, and everywhere among the islands of greece, as well as on the mainland. the cause of the decline of their civilization is {208} not known, unless it could be attributed to the greek pirates who invaded their territory, and possibly, like all nations that decline, they were beset by internal maladies which marked their future destiny. possibly, high specialization along certain lines of life rendered them unadaptable to new conditions, and they passed away because of this lack. _the greeks were of aryan stock_.--many thousand years ago there appeared along the shores of the baltic, at the beginning of the neolithic period of culture, a group of people who seem to have come from central asia. it is thought by some that these were at least the forerunners of the great nordic race. whatever conjectures there may be as to their origin, it is known that about 2,000 years before christ, wandering tribes extended from the baltic region far eastward to the caspian sea, to the north of persia, down to the borderland of india. these people were of caucasian features, with fair hair and blue eyes--a type of the nordic race. they were known as the aryan branch of the caucasian race. whether this was their primitive abode, or whether their ancestors had come at a much earlier time from a central home in northern africa, which is considered by ethnologists as the centre from which developed the caucasian race, is not known. they were not a highly cultured people, but were living a nomadic life, engaged in hunting, fishing, piratical exploits, and carrying on agriculture intermittently. they had also become acquainted with the use of metals, having passed during this period from the neolithic into the bronze age. about the year 1500 b.c. they had become acquainted with iron, and about the same time had come into possession of the horse, probably through their contact with central asia. the social life of these people was very simple. while they undoubtedly met and mingled with many tribes, they had a language sufficiently common for ordinary intercourse. they had no writing or means of records at all, but depended upon the recital of deeds of warriors and nations and tribes. wherever the aryan people have been found, whether in greece, {209} italy, germany, along the danube, central asia, or india, they have been noted for their epics, sagas, and vedas, which told the tales of historic deeds and exploits of the tribal or national life. it is thought that this was the reason they developed such a strong and beautiful language. they came in contact with semitic civilization in northern persia, with the primitive tribes in italy, with the dravidian peoples of india, and represented the vigorous fighting power of the scythians, medes, and persians. they or their kindred later moved up the danube into spain and france, with branches into germany and russia, and others finally into the british islands. it was a branch of these people that came into the grecian peninsula and overthrew and supplanted the aegean civilization--where they were known as the greeks. _the coming of the greeks_.--it is not known when they came down through asia minor. not earlier than 2000 b.c. nor later than 1500 b.c. the invasion began. in successive waves came the phrygians, aeolians, the ionians, and the dorians--different divisions of the same race. soon they spread over the mainland of greece and all the surrounding islands, and established their trading cities along the borders of the mediterranean sea. these people, though uncultured, seemed to absorb culture wherever they went. they learned the methods of the civilization that had been established in the orient wherever they came in contact with other peoples, and also in the aegean country. in fact, though they conquered and occupied the aegean country, they took on the best of the minoan civilization.[2] as marauders, pirates, and conquerors, they were masterful, but they came in conflict with the ideas developed among the semitic people of asia and the hamitic of egypt. undoubtedly, this conquest of the minoan civilization furnished the origin of many of the tales or folklore that afterward were woven into the _iliad_ and the _odyssey_ by {210} homer. it is not known how early in greek life these songs originated, but it is a known fact that in the eighth century the greeks were in possession of their epics, and at this period not only had conquered the minoan civilization but had absorbed it so far as they had use for it. they came into this territory in the form of the old tribal government, with their primitive social customs, and as they settled in different parts of the territory in tribes, they developed independent communities of a primitive sort. they had what was known in modern historical literature as the village community, which was always found in the primitive life of the aryans. their mode of life tended to develop individualism, and when the group life was established, it became independent and was lacking in co-operation--that is, it became a self-sufficient social order. later in the development of the greek life the individual, so far as political organization goes, was absorbed in the larger state, after it had developed from the old greek family life. these primitive greeks soon had a well-developed language. they began systematic agriculture, became skilled in the industrial arts, domesticated animals, and had a pure home life with religious sentiments of a high order. wherever they went they carried with them the characteristics of nation-building and progressive life. they mastered the earth and its contents by living it down with force and vigor. the greek peninsula was favorably situated for development. protected on the north by a mountain range from the rigors of a northern climate and from the predatory tribes, with a range of mountains through the centre, with its short spurs cutting the entire country into valleys, in which were developed independent community states, circumstances were favorable to local self-government of the several tribes. this independent social life was of great importance in the development of greek thought. in the north the grains and cereals were grown, and in the south the citrus and the orange. this wide range from a temperate to a semi-tropical climate {211} furnished a variety of fruits and diversity of life which gave great opportunity for development. the variety of scenery caused by mountain and valley and proximity to the sea, the thousand islands washed by the aegean sea, brought a new life which tended to impress the sensitive mind of the greek and to develop his imagination and to advance culture in art. _character of the primitive greeks_.--the magnificent development of the greeks in art, literature, philosophy, and learning, together with the fortunate circumstance of having powerful writers, gives us rather an exaggerated notion of the greeks, if we attempt to apply a lofty manner and a magnificent culture to the homeric period. they had a good deal of piratical boldness, and, after the formation of their small states, gave examples of spurts of courage such as that at marathon and thermopylae. yet these evidences were rare exceptions rather than the rule, for even the spartan, trained on a military basis, seldom evinced any great degree of bravery. perhaps the gloomy forebodings of the future, characteristic of the greeks, made them fear death, and consequently caused them to lack in courage. however, this is a disputed point. pages of the earlier records are full of the sanction of deception of enemies, friends, and strangers. evidently, there was a low moral sense regarding truth. while the greek might be loyal to his family and possibly to his tribe, there are many examples of disloyalty to one another, and, in the later development, a disloyalty of one state toward another. excessive egoism seems to have prevailed, and this principle was extended to the family and local government group. each group appeared to look out for its own interests, irrespective of the welfare of others. how much a united greece might have done to have continued the splendors and the service of a magnificent civilization is open to conjecture. the greeks were not sympathetic with children nor with the aged. far from being anxious to preserve the life of the aged, their greatest trouble was in disposing of them. the honor and rights of women were not observed. in war women {212} were the property of their captors. yet the home life of the greeks seems to have been in its purity and loyalty an advance on the oriental home life. in their treatment of servants and slaves, in the care of the aged and helpless, the greeks were cold and without compassion. while the poets, historians, and philosophers have been portraying with such efficiency the character of the higher classes; while they have presented such a beautiful exterior of the old greek life; the greeks, in common with other primitive peoples, were not lacking in coarseness, injustice, and cruelty in their internal life. here, as elsewhere in the beginnings of civilization, only the best of the real and the ideal of life was represented, while the lower classes were suffering a degraded life. the family was closely organized in greece. monogamic marriage and the exclusive home life prevailed at an early time. the patriarchal family, in which the oldest male member was chief and ruler, was the unit of society. within this group were the house families, formed whenever a separate marriage took place and a separate altar was erected. the house religion was one of the characteristic features of greek life. each family had its own household gods, its own worship, its private shrine. this tended to unify the family and promote a sacred family life. a special form of ancestral worship, from the early aryan house-spirit worship, prevailed to a certain extent. the worship of the family expanded with the expansion of social life. thus the gens, and the tribe, and the city when founded, had each its separate worship. religion formed a strong cement to bind the different social units of a tribe together. the worship of the greeks was associated with the common meal and the pouring of libations to the gods. as religion became more general, it united to make a more common social practice, and in the later period of greek life was made the basis of the games and general social gatherings. religion brought the greeks together in a social way, and finally led to the mutual advantage of members of society. {213} later, mutual advantage superseded religion in its practice. the greeks, at an early period, attempted to explain the origin of the earth and unknown phenomena by referring it to the supernatural powers. every island had its myth, every phenomenon its god, and every mountain was the residence of some deity. they sought to find out the causes of the creation of the universe, and developed a theogony. there was the origin of the greeks to be accounted for, and then the origin of the earth, and the relation of man to the deities. everything must be explained, but as the imagination was especially strong, it was easier to create a god as a first cause than to ascertain the development of the earth by scientific study. _influence of old greek life_.--in all of the traditions and writings descriptive of the old greek social life, with the exception of the _works and days_ of hesiod, the aristocratic class appears uppermost. hesiod "pictures a hopeless and miserable existence, in which care and the despair of better things tended to make men hard and selfish and to blot out those fairer features which cannot be denied to the courts and palaces of the _iliad_ and _odyssey_." it appears that the foundation of aristocracy--living in comparative luxury, in devotion to art and the culture of life--was early laid by the side of the foundation of poverty and wretchedness of the great mass of the people. while, then, the greeks derived from their ancestry the beautiful pictures of heroic greece, they inherited the evils of imperfect social conditions. as we pass to the historical period of greece, these different phases of life appear and reappear in changeable forms. if to the nobleman life was full of inspiration; if poetry, religion, art, and politics gave him lofty thoughts and noble aspirations; to the peasant and the slave, life was full of misery and degradation. if one picture is to be drawn in glowing colors, let not the other be omitted. the freedom from great centralized government, the development of the individual life, the influences of the early ideas of art and life, and the religious conceptions, were of great importance in shaping the greek philosophy and the greek {214} national character. they had a tendency to develop men who could think and act. it is not surprising, therefore, that the first real historical period was characterized by struggles of citizens within the town for supremacy. fierce quarrels between the upper and the lower classes prevailed everywhere, and resulted in developing an intense hatred of the former for the latter. this hatred and selfishness became the uppermost causes of action in the development of greek social polity. strife led to compromise, and this in turn to the recognition of the rights and privileges of different classes. subjects for further study 1. the aegean culture. 2. the relation of greek to egyptian culture. 3. what were the great greek masterpieces of (_a_) literature, (_b_) sculpture, (_c_) architecture, (_d_) art, (_e_) philosophy? 4. compare greek democracy with american democracy. 5. what historical significance have thermopylae, marathon, alexandria, crete, and delphi? [1] sergi, in his _mediterranean race_, says that they came from n. e. africa. beginning about 5000 years b.c., they gradually infiltrated the whole mediterranean region. this is becoming the general belief among ethnologists, archaeologists, and historians. [2] recent studies indicate that some of the cretan inscriptions are prototypes of the greece-phoenician alphabet. the phoenicians evidently derived the original characters of their alphabet from a number of sources. the greeks adopted the phoenician alphabet about 800-1000 b.c. {215} chapter xiii greek philosophy _the transition from theology to inquiry_.--the greek theology prepared the way for the ionian philosophy. the religious opinions led directly up to the philosophy of the early inquirers. the greeks passed slowly from accepting everything with a blind faith to the rational inquiry into the development of nature. the beginnings of knowing the scientific causes were very small, and sometimes ridiculous, yet they were of immense importance. to take a single step from the "age of credulity" toward the "age of reason" was of great importance to greek progress. to cease to accept on faith the statements that the world was created by the gods, and ordered by the gods, and that all mysteries were in their hands, and to endeavor to find out by observation of natural phenomena something of the elements of nature, was to gradually break from the mythology of the past as explanatory of the creation. the first feeble attempt at this was to seek in a crude way the material structure and source of the universe. _explanation of the universe by observation and inquiry_.--the greek mind had settled down to the fact that there was absolute knowledge of truth, and that cosmogony had established the method of creation; that theogony had accounted for the creation of gods, heroes, and men, and that theology had foretold their relations. a blind faith had accepted what the imagination had pictured. but as geographical study began to increase, doubts arose as to the preconceived constitution of the earth. as travel increased and it was found that none of the terrible creatures that tradition had created inhabited the islands of the sea or coasts of the mainland, earth lost its terrors and disbelief in the system of established {216} knowledge prevailed. free inquiry was slowly substituted for blind credulity. this freedom of inquiry had great influence on the intellectual development of man. it was the discovery of truth through the relation of cause and effect, which he might observe by opening his eyes and using his reason. the development of theories of the universe through tradition and the imagination gave exercise to the emotions and beliefs; but change from faith in the fixity of the past to the future by observation led to intellectual development. the exercise of faith and the imagination even in unproductive ways prepared the way for broader service of investigation. but these standing alone could permit nothing more than a childish conception of the universe. they could not discover the reign of law. they could not advance the observing and reflecting powers of man; they could not develop the stronger qualities of his intellect. individual action would be continually stultified by the process of accepting through credulity the trite sayings of the ancients. the attempt to find out how things were made was an acknowledgment of the powers of the individual mind. it was a recognition that man has a mind to use, and that there is truth around him to be discovered. this was no small beginning in intellectual development. _the ionian philosophy turned the mind toward nature_.--greek philosophy began in the seventh century before christ. the first philosopher of note was thales, born at miletus, in asia minor, about 640 b.c. thales sought to establish the idea that water is the first principle and cause of the universe. he held that water is filled with life and soul, the essential element in the foundation of all nature. thales had great learning for his time, being well versed in geometry, arithmetic, and astronomy. he travelled in egypt and the orient, and became acquainted with ancient lore. it is said that being impressed with the importance of water in egypt, where the nile is the source of all life, he was led to assert the importance of water in animate nature. in his attempts to break away from the {217} old cosmogony, he still exhibits traces of the old superstitions, for he regarded the sun and stars as living beings, who received their warmth and life from the ocean, in which they bathed at the time of setting. he held that the whole world was full of soul, manifested in individual daemons, or spirits. puerile as his philosophy appears in comparison with the later development of greek philosophy, it created violent antagonism with mythical theology and led the way to further investigation and speculation. anaximander, born at miletus 611 b.c., an astronomer and geographer, following thales chronologically, wrote a book on "nature," the first written on the subject in the philosophy of greece. he held that all things arose from the "infinite," a primordial chaos in which was an internal energy. from a universal mixture things arose by separation, the parts once formed remaining unchanged. the earth was cylindrical in shape, suspended in the air in the centre of the universe, and the stars and planets revolved around it, each fastened in a crystalline ring; the moon and sun revolved in the same manner, only at a farther distance. the generation of the universe was by the action of contraries, by heat and cold, the moist and the dry. from the moisture all things were originally generated by heat. animals and men came from fishes by a process of evolution. there is evidence in his philosophy of a belief in the development of the universe by the action of heat and cold on matter. it is also evident that the principles of biology and the theory of evolution are hinted at by this philosopher. also, he was the first to observe the obliquity of the ecliptic; he taught that the moon received its light from the sun and that the earth is round. anaximenes, born at miletus 588 b.c., asserted that air was the first principle of the universe; indeed, he held that on it "the very earth floats like a broad leaf." he held that air was infinite in extent; that it touched all things, and was the source of life of all. the human soul was nothing but air, since life consists in inhaling and exhaling, and when this is no longer {218} continued death ensues. warmth and cold arose from rarefaction and condensation, and probably the origin of the sun and planets was caused by the rarefaction of air; but when air underwent great condensation, snow, water, and hail appeared, and, indeed, with sufficient condensation, the earth itself was formed. it was only a step further to suppose that the infinite air was the source of life, the god of the universe. somewhat later diogenes of apollonia asserted that all things originated from one essence, and that air was the soul of the world, eternal and endowed with consciousness. this was an attempt to explain the development of the universe by a conscious power. it led to the suggestion of psychology, as the mind of man was conscious air. "but that which has knowledge is what men call air; it is it that regulates all and governs all, and hence it is the use of air to pervade all, and to dispose all, and to be in all, for there is nothing that has not part in it." other philosophers of this school reasoned or speculated upon the probable first causes in the creation. in a similar manner heraclitus asserted that fire was the first principle, and states as the fundamental maxim of his philosophy that "all is convertible into fire, and fire into all." there was so much confusion in his doctrines as to give him the name of "the obscure." "the moral system of heraclitus was based on the physical. he held that heat developed morality, moisture immorality. he accounted for the wickedness of the drunkard by his having a moist soul, and inferred that a warm, dry soul was noblest and best." anaxagoras taught the mechanical processes of the universe, and advanced many theories of the origin of animal life and of material objects. anaxagoras was a man of wealth, who devoted all of his time and means to philosophy. he recognized two principles, one material and the other spiritual, but failed to connect the two, and in determining causes he came into open conflict with the religion of the times, and asserted that the "divine miracles" were nothing more than natural {219} causes. he was condemned for his atheism and thrown into prison, but, escaping, he was obliged to end his days in exile. another notable example of the early greek philosophy is found in pythagoras, who asserted that number was the first principle. he and his followers found that the "whole heaven was a harmony of number." the pythagoreans taught that all comes from one, but that the odd number is finite, the even infinite; that ten was a perfect number. they sought for a criterion of truth in the relation of numbers. nothing could exist or be formed without harmony, and this harmony depended upon number, that is, upon the union of contrary elements. the musical octave was their best example to illustrate their meaning. the union of the atoms in modern chemistry illustrates in full the principle of number after which they were striving. it emphasized the importance of measurements in investigation. much more might be said about the elaborate system of the pythagoreans; but the main principle herein stated must suffice. _the weakness of ionian philosophy_.--viewed from the modern standpoint of scientific research, the early philosophers of greece appear puerile and insignificant. they directed their thoughts largely toward nature, but instead of systematic observation and comparison they used the speculative and hypothetical methods to ascertain truth. they had turned from the credulity of ancient tradition to simple faith in the mind to determine the nature and cause of the universe. but this was followed by a scepticism as to the sense perception, a scepticism which could only be overcome by a larger observation of facts. simple as it appears, this process was an essential transition from the theology of the greeks to the perfected philosophy built upon reason. the attitude of the mind was of great value, and the attention directed to external nature was sure to turn again to man, and the supernatural. while there is a mixture of the physical, metaphysical, and mystical, the final lesson to be learned is the recognition of reality of nature as external to mind. {220} _the eleatic philosophers_.--about 500 b.c., and nearly contemporary with the pythagoreans, flourished the eleatic philosophers, among whom xenophanes, parmenides, zeno, and melissus were the principal leaders. they speculated about the nature of the mind, or soul, and departed from the speculations respecting the origin of the earth. the nature of the infinite and the philosophy of being suggested by the ionian philosophers were themes that occupied the attention of this new school. parmenides believed in the knowledge of an absolute being, and affirmed the unity of thought and being. he won the distinction of being the first logical philosopher among the greeks, and was called the father of idealism. zeno is said to have been the most remarkable of this school. he held that if there was a distinction between _being_ and _not being_, only _being_ existed. this led him to the final assumption that the laws of nature are unchangeable and god remains permanent. his method of reasoning was to reduce the opposite to absurdity. upon the whole, the eleatic philosophy is one relating to knowledge and being, which considered thought primarily as dependent upon being. it holds closely to monism, that is, that nature and mind are of the same substance; yet there is a slight distinction, for there is really a dualism expressed in knowledge and being. many other philosophers followed, who discoursed upon nature, mind, and being, but they arrived at no definite conclusions. the central idea in the early philosophy up to this time was to account for the existence and substance of nature. it gave little consideration to man in himself, and said little of the supernatural. everything was speculative in nature, hypothetical in proposition, and deductive in argument. the greek mind, departing from its dependence upon mythology, began boldly to assert its ability to find out nature, but ended in a scepticism as to its power to ascertain certainty. there was a final determination as to the distinction of reality as external to mind, and this represents the best product of the early philosophers. {221} _the sophists_.--following the eleatics was a group of philosophers whose principle characteristic was scepticism. man, not nature, was the central idea in their philosophy, and they changed the point of view from objective to subjective contemplation. they accomplished very little in their speculation except to shift the entire attitude of philosophy from external nature to man. they were interested in the culture of the individual, yet, in their psychological treatment of man, they relied entirely upon sense perception. in the consideration of man's ethical nature they were individualistic, considering private right and private judgment the standards of truth. they led the way to greater speculation in this subject and to a higher philosophy. _socrates the first moral philosopher (b. 469 b.c.)_.--following the sophists in the progressive development of philosophy, socrates turned his attention almost exclusively to human nature. he questioned all things, political, ethical, and theological, and insisted upon the moral worth of the individual man. while he cast aside the nature studies of the early philosophy and repudiated the pseudo-wisdom of the sophists, he was not without his own interpretation of nature. he was interested in questions pertaining to the order of nature and the wise adaptation of means to an end. nature is animated by a soul, yet it is considered as a wise contrivance for man's benefit rather than a living, self-determining organism. in the subordination of all nature to the good, socrates lays the foundation of natural theology. but the ethical philosophy of socrates is more prominent and positive. he asserted that scientific knowledge is the sole condition to virtue; that vice is ignorance. hence virtue will always follow knowledge because they are a unity. his ethical principles are founded on utility, the good of which he speaks is useful, and is the end of individual acts and aims. wisdom is the foundation of all virtues; indeed, every virtue is wisdom. socrates made much of friendship and love, and thought temperance to be the fundamental virtue. without {222} temperance, men were not useful to themselves or to others, and temperance meant the complete mastery of self. friendship and love were cardinal points in the doctrine of ethical life. the proper conduct of life, justice in the treatment of man by his fellow-man, and the observance of the duties of citizenship, were part of the ethical philosophy of socrates. beauty is only another name for goodness, but it is only a harmony or adaptation of means to an end. the socratic method of ascertaining truth by the art of suggestive questioning was a logical mode of procedure. the meeting of individuals in conversation was a method of arriving at the truth of ethical conduct and ethical relations. it was made up of induction and definition. no doubt the spirit of his teaching was sceptical in the extreme. while having a deeper sense of the reality of life than others, he realized that he did not know much. he criticized freely the prevailing beliefs, customs, and religious practice. for this he was accused of impiety, and forced to drink the hemlock. with an irony in manner and thought, socrates introduced the problem of self-knowledge; he hastened the study of man and reason; he instituted the doctrine of true manhood as an essential part in the philosophy of life. conscience was enthroned, and the moral life of man began with socrates. _platonic philosophy develops the ideal_.--plato was the pupil of socrates and the teacher of aristotle. these three represent the culmination of greek philosophy. in its fundamental principles the platonic philosophy represents the highest flight of the mind in its conception of being and of the nature of mind and matter, entertained by the philosophers. the doctrine of plato consisted of three primary principles: matter, ideas, and god. while matter is co-eternal with god, he created all animate and inanimate things from matter. plato maintained that there was a unity in design. and as god was an independent and individual creator of the world, who fashioned the universe, and is father to all creatures, there was unity in god. plato advanced the doctrine of reminiscences, {223} in which he accounted for what had otherwise been termed innate ideas. plato also taught, to a certain extent, the transmigration of souls. he was evidently influenced in many ways by the indian philosophy; but the special doctrine of plato made ideas the most permanent of all things. visible things are only fleeting shadows, which soon pass away; only ideas remain. the universal concept, or notion, is the only real thing. thus the perfect globe is the concept held in the mind; the marble, ball, or sphere of material is only an imperfect representation of the same. the horse is a type to which all individual horses tend to conform; they pass away, but the type remains. his work was purely deductive. his major premise was accepted on faith rather than determined by his reason. yet in philosophical speculations the immortality of the soul, future rewards and punishments, the unity of the creation and the unity of the creator, and an all-wise ruler of the universe, were among the most important points of doctrine. _aristotle the master mind of the greeks_.--while aristotle and plato sought to prove the same things, and agreed with each other on many principles of philosophy, the method employed by the former was exactly the reverse of that of the latter. plato founded his doctrine on the unity of all being, and observed the particular only through the universal. for proof he relied on the intuitive and the synthetic. aristotle, on the contrary, found it necessary to consider the particular in order that the universal might be established. he therefore gathered facts, analyzed material, and discoursed upon the results. he was patient and persistent in his investigations, and not only gave the world a great lesson by his example, but he obtained better results than any other philosopher of antiquity. it is generally conceded that he showed the greatest strength of intellect, the deepest insight, the greatest breadth of speculative thought, and the clearest judgment of all philosophers, either ancient or modern. perhaps his doctrine of the necessity of a final cause, or sufficient reason, which gives a rational explanation of individual {224} things, is aristotle's greatest contribution to pure philosophy. the doctrine of empiricism has been ascribed to aristotle, but he fully recognized the universal, and thought it connected with the individual, and not separated from it, as represented by plato. the universal is self-determining in its individualization, and is, therefore, a process of identification rather than of differentiation. the attention which aristotle gave to fact as opposed to theory, to investigation as opposed to speculation, and to final cause, led men from a condition of necessity to that of freedom, and taught philosophers to substantiate their theories by reason and by fact. there is no better illustration of his painstaking investigation than his writing 250 constitutional histories as the foundation of his work on "politics." in this masterly work will be found an exposition of political theories and practice worthy the attention of all modern political philosophers. the service given by aristotle to the learning of the middle ages, and, in fact, to modern philosophy, was very great. aristotle was of a more practical turn of mind than plato. while he introduced the formal syllogism in logic, he also introduced the inductive method. perhaps aristotle represented the wisest and most learned of the greeks, because he advanced beyond the speculative philosophy to a point where he attempted to substantiate theory by facts, and thus laid the foundation for comparative study. _other schools_.--the epicureans taught a philosophy based upon pleasure-seeking--or, as it may be stated, making happiness the highest aim of life. they said that to seek happiness was to seek the highest good. this philosophy in its pure state had no evil ethical tendency, but under the bad influences of remote followers of epicurus it led to the degeneration of ethical practice. "beware of excesses," says epicurus, "for they will lead to unhappiness." beware of folly and sin, for they lead to wretchedness. nothing could have been better than this, until people began to follow sensuality as the immediate return of efforts to secure happiness. then it led to {225} corruption, and was one of the causes of the downfall of greek as well as the roman civilization. the stoics were a group of philosophers who placed great emphasis upon ethics in comparison with logic and physics. they looked on the world from the pessimistic side and made themselves happy by becoming martyrs. they taught that suffering, the endurance of pain without complaint, was the highest virtue. to them logic was the science of thought and of expression, physics was the science of nature, and ethics the science of the good. all ideas originated from sensation, and perception was the only criterion of truth. "we know only what we perceive (by sense); only those ideas contain certain knowledge for us which are ideas of real objects." the soul of man was corporeal and material, hence physics and metaphysics were almost identical. there is much incoherency in their philosophy; it abounds in paradoxes. for instance, it recognizes sense as the criterion and source of knowledge, and asserts that reason is universal and knowable. yet it asserts that there is no rational element in sense that is universal. it confuses individual human nature and universal nature, though its final result was to unite both in one concept. the result of their entire philosophy was to create confusion, although they had much influence on the practical life. the sceptics doubted all knowledge obtained by the senses. there was no criterion of truth in the intellect, consequently no knowledge. if truth existed it was in conduct, and thus the judgment must be suspended. they held that there was nothing that could be determined of specific nature, nothing that could be of certainty. eventually the whole greek philosophy went out in scepticism. the three schools, the sceptic, the epicurean, and the stoic, though widely differing in many ways, agreed upon one thing, in basing their philosophy on subjectivity, on mind rather than on objective nature. _results obtained in greek philosophy_.--the philosophical conclusions aimed at by the greeks related to the origin and destiny of the world. the world is an emanation from god, {226} and in due time it will return to him. it may be considered as a part of the substance of god, or it may be considered as something objective proceeding from him. the visible world around us becomes thus but an expression of the god mind. but as it came forth a thing of beauty, so it will return again to him after its mission is fulfilled. on the existence and attributes of god the greeks dwelt with great force. there is established first a unity of god, and this unity is the first cause in the creation. to what extent this unity is independent and separate in existence from nature, is left in great doubt. it was held that god is present everywhere in nature, though his being is not limited by time or space. much of the philosophy bordered upon, if it did not openly avow, a belief in pantheism. the highest conception recognizes design in creation, which would give an individual existence to the creator. yet the most acute mind did not depart from the assumption of the idea of an all-pervading being of god extending throughout the universe, mingling with nature and to a certain extent inseparable from it. in their highest conception the most favored of the greeks were not free from pantheistic notions. the nature of the soul occupied much of the attention of the greeks. they began by giving material characteristics to the mind. they soon separated it in concept from material nature and placed it as a part of god himself, who existed apart from material form. the soul has a past life, a present, and a future, as a final outcome of philosophical speculations. the attributes of the soul were confused with the attributes of the supreme being. these conceptions of the divine being and of the soul border on the hindu philosophy. perhaps the subject which caused the most discussion was the attempt to determine a criterion of truth. soon after the time when they broke away from the ancient religious faith, the thinkers of greece began to doubt the ability of the mind to ascertain absolute truth. this arose out of the imperfections of knowledge obtained through the senses. sense perception {227} was held in much doubt. the world is full of delusions. man thinks he sees when he does not. the rainbow is but an illusion when we attempt to analyze it. the eye deceives, the ear hears what does not exist; even touch and taste frequently deceive us. what, then, can be relied upon as accurate in determining knowledge? to this the greek mind answers, "nothing"; it reaches no definite conclusion, and this is the cardinal weakness of the philosophy. indeed, the great weakness of the entire age of philosophy was want of data. it was a time of intense activity of the mind, but the lack of data led to much worthless speculation. the systematic method of scientific observation had not yet been discovered. but how could this philosophical speculation affect civilization? it determined the views of life entertained by the greeks, and human progress depended upon this. the progress of the world depends upon the attitude of the human mind toward nature, toward man and his life. the study of philosophy developed the mental capacity of man, gave him power to cope with nature, and enhanced his possibility of right living. more than this, it taught man to rely upon himself in explaining the origin and growth of the universe and the development of human life. though these points were gained only by the few and soon lost sight of by all, yet they were revived in after years, and placed man upon the right basis for improvement. the quickening impulse of philosophy had its influence on art and language. the language of the greeks stands as their most powerful creation. the development of philosophy enlarged the scope of language and increased its already rich vocabulary. art was a representation of nature. the predominance given to man in life, the study of heroes and gods, gave ideal creations and led to the expression of beauty. philosophy, literature, language, and art, including architecture, represent the products of greek civilization, and as such have been the lasting heritage of the nations that have followed. the philosophy and practice of social life and government {228} received a high development in greece. they will be treated in a separate chapter. subjects for further study 1. what was the importance of socrates' teaching? why was he put to death? 2. what has been the influence of plato's teaching on modern life? 3. why is aristotle considered the greatest of the greeks? 4. what was the influence of the library at alexandria? 5. what caused the decline in greek philosophy? 6. what was the influence on civilization of the greek attitudes of mind toward nature? 7. compare the use of greek philosophy with modern science as to their value in education. {229} chapter xiv the greek social polity _the struggle for greek equality and liberty_.--the greater part of the activity of western nations has been a struggle for social equality and for political and religious liberty. these phases of european social life are clearly discerned in the development of the greek states. the greeks were recognized as having the highest intellectual culture and the largest mental endowments of all the ancients, characteristics which gave them great prestige in the development of political life and social philosophy. the problem of how communities of people should live together, their relations to one another, and their rights, privileges, and duties, early concerned the philosophers of greece; but more potent than all the philosophies that have been uttered, than all of the theories concerning man's social relation, is the vivid portrayal of the actual struggle of men to live together in community life, pictured in the course of grecian history. in the presentation of this life, writers have differed much in many ways. some have eulogized the greeks as a liberty-loving people, who sought to grant rights and duties to every one on an altruistic basis; others have pictured them as entirely egoistic, with a morality of a narrow nature, and with no sublime conception of the relation of the rights of humanity as such. without entering into a discussion of the various views entertained by philosophers concerning the characteristics of the greeks, it may be said that, with all their noble characteristics, the ideal pictures which are presented to us by the poet, the philosopher, and the historian are too frequently of the few, while the great mass of the people remained in a state of ignorance, superstition, and slavery. with a due recognition of the existence of the germs of democracy, {230} we find that greece, after all, was in spirit an aristocracy. there was an aristocracy of birth, of wealth, of learning, and of hereditary power. while we must recognize the greatness of the greek life in comparison with that of oriental nations, it must still be evident to us that the best phases of this life and the magnificent features of greek learning have been emphasized much by writers, while the wretched and debasing conditions of the people of greece have seldom been recounted. _the greek government an expanded family_.--the original family was ruled by the father, who acted as king, priest, and lawgiver. as long as life lasted he had supreme control over all members of his family, whether they were so by birth or adoption. all that they owned, all of the products of their hands, all the wealth of the family, belonged to him; even their lives were at his disposal. as the family becomes stronger and is known as a gens, it represents a close, compact organization, looking after its own interests, and with definite customs concerning its own government. as the gentes are multiplied they form tribes, and the oldest male member of the tribal group acts as its leader and king, while the heads of the various gentes thus united become his counsellors and advisers in later development, and the senate after democratic government organization takes place. as time passes the head of this family is called a king or chief, and rules on the ground that he has descended from the gods, is under the divine protection, and represents the oldest aristocratic family in the tribe. in the beginning this tribal chief holds unlimited sway over all of his subjects. but to maintain his power well he must be a soldier who is able to command the forces in war; he must be able to lead in the councils with the chiefs and, when occasion requires, discuss matters with the people. gradually passing from the ancient hereditary power, he reaches a stage when it becomes a custom to consult with all the chiefs of the tribe in the management of the affairs. the earliest picture of greek government represents a king who is equal in birth with {231} other heads of the gentes, presiding over a group of elders deliberating upon the affairs of the state. the influence of the nobles over whom he presided must have been great. it appears that the king or chief must convince his associates in council before any decision could be considered a success. the second phase of greek government represents this same king as appearing in the assembly of all the people and presenting for their consideration the affairs of the state. it is evident from this that, although he was a hereditary monarch, deriving his power from aristocratic lineage traced even to the gods themselves, he was responsible to the people for his government, and this principle extends all the way through the development of greek social and political life. the right to free discussion of affairs in open council, the right to object to methods of procedure, were cardinal principles in greek politics; but while the great mass of people were not taken into account in the affairs of the government, there was an equality among all those called citizens which had much to do with the establishment of the civil polity of all nations. the whole greek political life, then, represents the slow evolution from aristocratic government of hereditary chiefs toward a complete democracy, which unfortunately it failed to reach before the decline of the greek state. as before related, the greeks had established a large number of independent communities which developed into small states. these small states were mostly isolated from one another, hence they developed an independent social and political existence. this was of great consequence in the establishing of the character of the greek government. in the first place, the kings, chiefs, and rulers were brought closely in contact with the people. everybody knew them, understood the character of the men, realizing that they had passions and prejudices similar to other men, and that, notwithstanding they were elevated to positions of power, they nevertheless were human beings like the people themselves. this led to a democratic feeling. {232} again, the development of these separate small states led to great diversity of government. all kinds of government were exercised in greece, from the democracy to the hereditary monarchy. many of these governments passed in their history through all stages of government to be conceived of--the monarchy, absolute and constitutional, the aristocracy, the oligarchy, the tyranny, the democracy, and the polity. all phases of politics had their representation in the development of the greek life. in a far larger way the development of these isolated communities made local self-government the primary basis of the state. when the greek had developed his own small state he had done his duty so far as government was concerned. he might be on friendly terms with the neighboring states, especially as they might use the same language as his own and belonged to the same race, but he could in no way be responsible for the success or the failure of men outside of his community. this was many times a detriment to the development of the greek race, as the time arrived when it should stand as a unit against the encroachments of foreign nations. no unity of national life found expression in the repulsion of the persians, no unity in the peloponnesian war, no unity in the defense against the romans; indeed, the macedonians found a divided people, which made conquering easy. there was another phase of this greek life worthy of notice: the fact that it developed extreme selfishness and egoism respecting government. we shall find in this development, in spite of the pretensions for the interests of the many, that government existed for the few; notwithstanding the professions of an enlarged social life, we shall find a narrowness almost beyond belief in the treatment of greeks by one another in the social life. it is true that the recognition of citizenship was much wider than in the orient, and that the individual life of man received more marked attention than in any ancient despotism; yet, after all, when we recognize the multitudes of slaves, who were considered not worthy to take part in {233} government affairs, the numbers of the freedmen and non-citizens, and realize that the few who had power or privilege of government looked with disdain upon all others, it gives us no great enthusiasm for greek democracy when compared with the modern conception of that term. as mr. freeman says in his _federal government_, the citizen "looked down upon the vulgar herd of slaves, the freedmen and unqualified residents, as his own plebeian fathers had been looked down upon by the old eupatrides in the days of cleisthenes and solon." whatever phase of this greek society we discuss, we must not forget that there was a large class excluded from rights of government, and that the few sought always to maintain their own rights and privileges supported by the many, and the pretensions of an enlarged privilege of citizenship had little effect in changing the actual conditions of the aristocratic government. _the athenian government a type of grecian democracy_.--indeed, it was the only completed government in greece. the civilization of athens shows the character of the greek race in its richest and most beautiful development. here art, learning, culture, and government reached their highest development. it was a small territory that surrounded the city of athens, containing a little over 850 english square miles, possibly less, as some authorities say. the soil was poor, but the climate was superb. it was impossible for the athenian to support a high civilization from the soil of attica, hence trade sprang up and athens grew wealthy on account of its great maritime commerce. the population of all attica in the most flourishing times was about 500,000 people, 150,000 of whom were slaves, 45,000 settlers, or unqualified people, while the free citizens did not exceed 90,000--so that the equality so much spoken of in grecian democracies belonged to only 90,000 out of 500,000, leaving 410,000 disfranchised. the district was thickly populous for greece, and the stock of the athenian had little mixture of foreign blood in it. the city itself was formed of {234} villages or cantons, united into one central government. these appear to be survivals of the old village communities united under the title of city-state. it was the perfection of this city-state that occupied the chief thought of the athenian political philosophers. the ancient kingship of athens passed, on deposition of the last of the medoutidae, about 712 b.c., into the hands of the nobles. this was the first step in the passage from monarchy toward democracy; it was the beginning of the foundation of the republican constitution. in 682 b.c. the government passed into the hands of nine archons, chosen from all the rest of the nobles. it was a movement on the part of the nobles to obtain a partition of the government, while the common people were not improved at all by the process. the kings, indeed, in the ancient time made a better government for the people than did the nobles. the people at this period were in great trouble. the nobles had loaned money to their wretched neighbors and, as the law was very strict, the creditor might take possession of the property and even of the person of the debtor, making of him a slave. in this way the small proprietors had become serfs, and the masters took from them five-sixths of the products of the soil, and would, no doubt, have taken their lands had these not been inalienable. sometimes the debtors were sold into foreign countries as slaves, and at other times their children were taken as slaves according to the law. on account of the oppression of the poor by the nobility, there sprang up a hatred between these two classes. a few changes were made by the laws of draco and others, but nothing gave decided relief to the people. the nine archons, representing the power of the state, managed nearly all of its affairs, and retained likewise their seats in the council of nobles. the old national council formed by the aristocratic members of the community still retained its hold, and the council of archons, though it divided the country into administrative districts and sought to secure more specific {235} management of the several districts, failed to keep down internal disorders or to satisfy the people. the people were formed into three classes: the wealthy nobility, or land-owners of the plain, the peasants of the mountains districts, and the people of the coast country, the so-called middle classes. the hatred of the nobility by the peasants of the mountains was intense. the nobles demanded their complete suppression and subordination to the rule of their own class. the people of the coast would have been contented with moderate concessions from the nobility, which would give them a part in the government and leave them unmolested. _constitution of solon seeks a remedy_.--such was the condition of affairs when solon proposed his reforms. he sought to remove the burdens of the people, first, by remitting all fines which had been imposed; second, by preventing the people from offering their persons as security against debt; and third, by depreciating the coin so as to make payment of debt easy. he replaced the pheidonian talent by that of the euboic coinage, thus increasing the debt-paying capacity of money twenty-seven per cent, or, in other words, reduced the debt about that amount. it was further provided that all debts could be paid in three annual instalments, thus allowing poor farmers with mortgages upon their farms an opportunity to pay their debts. there was also granted an amnesty to all persons who had been condemned to payment of money penalties. by further measures the exclusive privileges of the old nobility were broken down, and a new government established on the basis of wealth. people were divided into classes according to their property, and their privileges in government, as well as their taxes, were based upon these classes. revising the old council of 401, solon established a council (boule) of 400, 100 from each district. these were probably elected at first, but later were chosen by lot. the duties of this council were to prepare all business for passage in the popular assembly. no business could come before the assembly of the people except by decree of the council, and in nearly {236} every case the council could decide what measures should be brought before the assembly. while in some instances the law made it obligatory for certain cases to be brought before the assembly, there were some measures which could be disposed of by the council without reference to the assembly. the administration of justice was distributed among the nine archons, each one of whom administered some particular department. the archon as judge could dispose of matters or refer them to an arbitrator for decision. in every case the dissatisfied party had a right to appeal to the court made up of a collective body of 6,000 citizens, called the heliaea. this body was annually chosen from the whole body of citizens, and acted as jurors and judges. in civil matters the services of the heliaea were slight. they consisted in holding open court on certain matters appealed to them from the archons. in criminal matters the heliaea frequently acted immediately as a sole tribunal, whose decision was final. it is one of the remarkable things in the greek polity that the supreme court or court of appeals should be elected from the common people, while in other courts judges should hold their offices on account of position. solon also recognized what is known as the council of the areopagus. the functions of this body had formerly belonged to the old council included in the draconian code. the council of the areopagus was formed from the ex-archons who had held the office without blame. it became a sort of supreme advisory council, watching over the whole collective administration. it took account of the behavior of the magistrates in office and of the proceedings of the public assembly, and could interpose in other cases when, in its judgment, it thought it necessary. it could advise as to the proper conducting of affairs and criticise the process of administration. it could also administer private discipline and call citizens to account for their individual acts. in this respect it somewhat resembled the ephors of sparta. {237} the popular assembly would meet and consider the questions put before it by the council, voting yes or no, but the subject was not open for discussion. however, it was possible for the assembly to bring other subjects up for discussion and, through motion, refer them to the consideration of the council. it was also possible to attach to the proposition of the council a motion, called in modern terms "a rider," and thus enlarge upon the work of the council; but it was so arranged that the preponderance of all the offices went to the nobility and that the council be made up of this class, and hence there was no danger that the government would fall into the hands of the people. solon claimed to have put into the hands of the people all the power that they deserved, and to have established numerous checks on government which made it possible for each group of people to be well represented. thus the council limited the power of the assembly, the areopagus supervised the council, while the courts of the people had the final decision in cases of appeal. as is well known, solon could not carry out his own reforms, but was forced to leave the country. had he been of a different nature and at once seized the government, or appealed to the people, as did his successor, pisistratus, he might have made his measures of reform more effective. as it was, he was obliged to leave their execution to others. _cleisthenes continues the reforms of solon_.--some years later (509 b.c.) cleisthenes instituted other reforms, increasing the council to 500, the members of which might be drawn from the first three classes rather than the first, limiting the archonship to the first class, and breaking up the four ancient tribes formed from the nobility. he formed ten new tribes of religious and political unions, thus intending to break down the influence of the nobility. although the popular assembly was composed of all citizens of the four classes, the functions of this body in the early period were very meagre. it gave them the privilege of voting on the principal affairs of the nation when the council desired them to assume the responsibility. the {238} time for holding it was in the beginning indefinite, it being only occasionally convened, but in later times there were ten[1] assemblies in each year, when business was regularly placed before it. meetings were held in the market-place at first; later a special building was erected for this purpose. sometimes, however, special assemblies were held elsewhere. the assembly was convoked by the prytanes, while the right of convoking extraordinary assemblies fell to the lot of the strategi. there were various means for the compulsion of the attendance of the crowd. there was a fine for non-attendance, and police kept out people who ought not to appear. each assembly opened with religious service. usually sucking pigs were sacrificed, which were carried around to purify the place, and their blood was sprinkled over the floor. this ceremony was followed by the offering of incense. this having been done, the president stated the question to be considered and summoned the people to vote. as the assembly developed in the advanced stage of athenian life, every member in good standing had a right to speak. the old men were called upon first and then the younger men. this discussion was generally upon open questions, and not upon resolutions prepared by the council, though amendments to these resolutions were sometimes allowed. no speaker could be interrupted except by the presiding officer, and no member could speak more than once. as each speaker arose, he mounted the rostrum and placed a wreath of myrtle upon his head, which signified that he was performing a duty to the state. the greeks appear to have developed considerable parliamentary usage and to have practised a system of voting similar to our ballot reform. each individual entered an enclosure and voted by means of pebbles. subsequently the functions of the assembly grew quite large. the demagogues found it to their interests to extend its powers. they tried to establish the principle in athens that the people were the rulers of everything by right. {239} the powers of the assembly were generally divided into four groups, the first including the confirmation of appointments, the accusation of offenders against the state, the confiscation of goods, and claims to succession of property. the second group considered petitions of the people, the third acted upon motions for the remission of sentences, and the fourth had charge of dealings with foreign states and religious matters in general. it is observed that the athenians represented the highest class of the greeks and that government received its highest development among them. but the only real political liberty in greece may be summed up in the principle of hearing both sides of a question and of obtaining a decision on the merits of the case presented. far different is this from the old methods of despotic rule, under which kings were looked upon as authority in themselves, whose will must be carried out without question. the democracy of athens, too, was the first instance of the substitution of law for force. it is true that in the beginning all of the greek communities rested upon a military basis. their foundations were laid in military exploits, and they maintained their position by the force of arms for a long period. but this is true of nearly all states and nations when they make their first attempt at permanent civilization. but after they were once established they sought to rule their subjects by the introduction of well-regulated laws and not by the force of arms. the military discipline, no doubt, was the best foundation for a state of primitive people, but as this passed away the newer life was regulated best by law and civil power. under this the military became subordinate. to greece must be given the credit of founding the city, and, indeed, this is one of the chief characteristics of the greek people. they established the city-state, or polis. it represented a full and complete sovereignty in itself. when they had accomplished this idea of sovereignty the political organization had reached its highest aim. {240} _athenian democracy failed in obtaining its best and highest development_.--it is a disappointment to the reader that athens, when in the height of power, when the possibilities for extending and promoting the best interests of humanity in social capacity were greatest, should end in decline and failure. in the first place, extreme democracy in that early period was more open than now to excessive dangers. it was in danger of control by mobs, who were ignorant of their own real interests and the interests of popular government; it was in danger of falling into the hands of tyrants, who would rule for their own private interests; it was in danger of falling into the hands of a few, which frequently happened. and this democracy in the ancient time was a rule of class--class subordination was the essence of its constitution. there was no universal rule by the majority. the franchise was an exclusive privilege extended to a minority, hence it differed little from aristocracy, being a government of class with a rather wider extension. the ancient democracies were pure in form, in which the people governed immediately. for every citizen had a right to appear in the assembly and vote, and he could sit in the assembly, which acted as an open court. indeed, the elective officers of the democracy were not considered as representatives of the people. they were the state and not subject to impeachment, though they should break over all law. after they returned among the citizens and were no longer the state they could be tried for their misdemeanors in office. now, a state of this nature and form must of necessity be small, and as government expanded and its functions increased, the representative principle should have been introduced as a mainstay to the public system. the individual in the ancient democracy lived for the state, being subordinate to its existence as the highest form of life. we find this entirely different from the modern democracy, in which slavery and class subordination are both excluded, as opposed to its theory and antagonistic to its very being. its citizenship is wide, extending to its native population, and its suffrage is universal to all who qualify as citizens. the citizens, too, in {241} modern democracies, live for themselves, and believe that the state is made by them for themselves. the decline of the athenian democracy was hastened, also, by the peloponnesian war, caused first by the domineering attitude of athens, which posed as an empire, and the jealousy of sparta. this struggle between athens and sparta amounted almost to civil war. and although it brought sparta to the front as the most powerful state in all greece, she was unable to advance the higher civilization, but really exercised a depressing influence upon it. it might be mentioned briefly, too, that the overthrow of athens somewhat later, and the establishment of the 400 as rulers, soon led to political disintegration. it was the beginning of the founding of athenian clubs, or political factions, which attempted to control the elections by fear or force. these, by their power, forced the decrees of the assembly to suit themselves, and thus gave the death-blow to liberty. there was the reaction from this to the establishment of 5,000 citizens as a controlling body, and restricting the constitution, which attempted to unite all classes into one body and approximated the modern democracy, or that which is represented in the "polity" of aristotle. after the domination of sparta, lysander and the thirty tyrants rose to oppress the citizens, and deposed a previous council of ten made for the ruling of the city. but once more after this domination democracy was restored, and under the theban and macedonian supremacies the old spirit of "equality of equals" was once more established. but athens could no longer maintain her ancient position; her warlike ambitions had passed away, her national intelligence had declined; the dangers of the populace, too, threatened her at every turn, and the selfishness of the nobility in respect to the other classes, as well as the selfishness of the spartan state outside, soon led to her downfall. at first, too, all the officers were not paid, it being considered a misdemeanor to take pay for office; but finally regular salaries were paid, and this forced the leaders to establish free theatres for the people. and finally, it may be said, that the power for good or evil {242} in the democracy lacking in permanent foundations is so great that it can never lead on to perfect success. it will prosper to-day and decline to-morrow. so the attempt of the athenians to found a democracy led not to permanent success; nevertheless, it gave to the world for the first time the principles of government founded upon equality and justice, and these principles have remained unchanged in the practice of the more perfect republics of modern times. _the spartan state differs from all others_.--if we turn our attention to sparta we shall find an entirely different state--a state which may be represented by calling it an aristocratic republic. not only was it founded on a military basis, but its very existence was perpetuated by military form. the dorian conquest brought these people in from the north to settle in the peloponnesus, and by degrees they obtained a foothold and conquered their surrounding neighbors. having established themselves on a small portion of the land, the dorians, or spartans, possessed themselves of superior military skill in order to obtain the overlordship of the surrounding territory. soon they had control of nearly all of the peloponnesus. although argos was at first the ruling city of the conquerors, sparta soon obtained the supremacy, and the spartan state became noted as the great military state of the greeks. the population of sparta was composed of the dorians, or citizens, who were the conquerors, and the independent subjects, who had been conquered but who had no part in the government, and the serfs or helots, who were the lower class of the conquered ones. the total population is estimated at about 380,000 to 400,000, while the serfs numbered at least 175,000 to 224,000. these serfs were always a cause of fear and anxiety to the conquerors, and they were watched over by night and day by spies who kept them from rising. the helots were employed in peace as well as in war, and in all occupations where excessive toil was needed. the middle class (perioeci) were subjects dependent upon the citizens. they had no share in the spartan state except to obey its {243} administration. they were obliged to accept the obligations of military service, to pay taxes and dues when required. their occupations were largely the promotion of agriculture and the various trades and industries. their proportion to the citizens was about thirty to nine, or, as is commonly given, there was one citizen to four of the middle class and twelve of the helots, making the ratio of citizens to the entire population about one-seventeenth, or every seventeenth man was a citizen. attempts were made to divide the lands of the rich among the poor, and this redistribution of lands occurred from time to time. there were other semblances of pure democracy of communistic nature. it was a pure military state, and all were treated as soldiers. there was a common table, or "mess," for a group, called the social union. there all the men were obliged to assemble at meal-time, the women remaining at home. the male children were taken at the age of seven years and trained as soldiers. these were then in charge of the state, and the home was relieved of its responsibility concerning them. the state also adopted many sumptuary laws regulating what should be eaten and what should be used, and what not. all male persons were subjected to severe physical training, for sparta, in her education, always dwelt upon physical development and military training. the development of language and literature, art and sculpture, was not observed here as it was in athens. the ideal of aristocracy was the rule of the nobler elements of the nation and the subordination of the mass. this was supposed to be the best that could be done for the state and hence the best for the people. there was no opportunity for subjects to rise to citizenship--nor, indeed, was this true in athens, except by the gradual widening force of legal privilege. individual life in sparta was completely subordinate to the state life, and here the citizen existed more fully for the state than in athens in her worst days. finally abuses grew. it was the old story of the few rich {244} dominating and oppressing the many poor. the minority had grown insolent and overbearing, and attempted to rule a hopeless and discontented majority. the reforms of lycurgus led to some improvements, by the institution of new divisions of citizens and territory and the division of the land, not only among citizens but the half-citizens and dependents. nevertheless, it appears that in spite of these attempted reforms, in spite of the establishment of the council, the public assembly, and the judicial process, sparta still remained an arbitrary military power. yet the government continued to expand in form and function until it had obtained a complex existence. but there was a non-progressive element in it all. the denial of rights of marriage between citizens and other groups limited the increase of the number of citizens, and while powers were gradually extended to those outside of the pale of citizenship, they were given so niggardly, and in such a manner, as to fail to establish the great principle of civil government on the basis of a free democracy. the military rã©gime was non-progressive in its nature. it could lead to conquest of enemies, but could not lead to the perpetuation of the rights and privileges of citizens; it could lead to domination of others, but could not bring about the subordination of universal citizenship to law and order, nor permit the expansion and growth of individual life under benevolent institutions of government. so the greek government, the democracy with all of its great promises and glorious prospects, declined certainly from the height which was great in contrast to the oriental despotisms. it declined at a time when, as we look back from the present, it ought apparently to have gone on to the completion of the modern representative government. probably, had the greeks adopted the representative principle and enlarged their citizenship, their government would have been more lasting. it is quite evident, also, that had they adopted the principle of federation and, instead of allowing the operation of government to cease when one small state had been perfected, united {245} these small states into a great nation throbbing with patriotism for the entire country, greece might have withstood the warlike shocks of foreign nations. but, thus unprepared alike to resist internal dissension and foreign oppression, the greek states, notwithstanding all of their valuable contributions to government and society, were forced to yield their position of establishing a permanent government for the people. some attempts were made to unify and organize greek national life, not entirely without good results. the first instance of this arose out of temple worship, where members of different states met about a common shrine erected to a special deity. this led to temporary organization and mutual aid. important among these centres was the shrine of apollo at delphi. this assemblage was governed by a council of general representation. important customs were established, such as the keeping of roads in repair which led to the shrine, and providing that pilgrims should have safe conduct and be free from tolls and taxes on their way to and from the shrine. the members of the league were sworn not to destroy a city member or to cut off running water from the city. this latter rule was the foundation of the law of riparian rights--one of the oldest and most continuous in western civilization. the inspiration for the great national olympic games came from these early assemblages about shrines.[2] also the aetolian and achaean leagues, which occurred in the later development of greece, after the macedonian conquest, were serious attempts for federal unity. although they were meritorious and partially successful, they came too late to make a unified nation of greece. in form and purpose these federal leagues are suggestive of the early federation of the colonies of america. _greek colonization spreads knowledge_.--the colonies of greece, established on the different islands and along the shores of the mediterranean, were among the important {246} civilizers of this early period. its colonies were established for the purpose of relieving the population of congested districts, on the one hand, and for the purpose of increasing trade, on the other. they were always independent in government of the mother country, but were in sympathy with her in language, in customs, and in laws and religion. as the ships plied their trade between the central government and these distant colonies, they carried with them the fundamentals of civilization--the language, the laws, the customs, the art, the architecture, the philosophy and thought of the greeks. there was a tendency, then, to spread abroad over a large territory the grecian philosophy and life. more potent, indeed, than war is the civilizing influence of maritime trade. it brings with it exchange of ideas, inspiration, and new life; it enables the planting of new countries with the best products. no better evidence of this can be seen than in the planting of modern english colonies, which has spread the civilization of england around the world. this was begun by the greeks in that early period, and in the dissemination of knowledge it represents a wide influence. _the conquests of alexander_.--another means of the dissemination of greek thought, philosophy, and learning was the alexandrian conquest and domination. the ambitious alexander, extending the plan of philip of macedon, who attempted to conquer the greeks and the surrounding countries, desired to master the whole known world. and so into egypt and asia minor, into central asia, and even to the banks of the ganges, he carried his conquests, and with them the products of greek learning and literature. and most potent of all these influences was the founding of alexandria in egypt, which he hoped to make the central city of the world. into this place flowed the products of learning, not only of greece but of the orient, and developed a mighty city with its schools and libraries, with its philosophy and doctrines and strange religious influences. and for many years the learning of the world centred about alexandria, forming a great rival to athens, which, {247} though never losing its prominence in certain lines of culture, was dominated by the greater alexandria. _the age of pericles_.--in considering all phases of life the splendors of greece culminated in a period of 50 years immediately following the close of the persian wars. this period is known as the age of pericles. although the rule of pericles was about thirty years (466-429), his influence extended long after. the important part athens performed in the persian wars gave her the political ascendancy in greece and enabled her to assume the beginning of the states; in fact, enabled her to establish an empire. pericles rebuilt athens after the destructive work of the persians. the public buildings, the parthenon and the acropolis, were among the noted structures of the world. a symmetrical city was planned on a magnificent scale hitherto unknown. pericles gathered about him architects, sculptors, poets, dramatists, teachers, and philosophers. the age represents a galaxy of great men: aeschylus, sophocles, euripides, herodotus, socrates, thucydides, phidias, ictinus, and others. greek government reached its culmination and society had its fullest life in this age. the glory of the period extended on through the peloponnesian war, and after the macedonian conquest it gradually waned and the splendor gradually passed from athens to alexandria. _contributions of greece to civilization_.--it is difficult to enumerate all of the influences of greece on modern civilization. first of all, we might mention the language of greece, which became so powerful in the development of the roman literature and roman civilization and, in the later renaissance, a powerful engine of progress. associated with the language is the literature of the greeks. the epic poems of homer, the later lyrics, the drama, the history, and the polemic, all had their highest types presented in the greek literature. latin and modern german, english and french owe to these great originators a debt of gratitude for every form of modern literature. the architecture of greece was broad enough to lay the foundation of the future, and so we find, even in our {248} modern life, the grecian elements combined in all of our great buildings. painting and frescoing were well established in principle, though not carried to a high state until the mediaeval period; but in sculpture nothing yet has exceeded the perfection of the greek art. it stands a monument of the love of the beauty of the human form and the power to represent it in marble. the greek philosophy finds its best results not only in developing the human mind to a high state but in giving to us the freedom of thought which belongs by right to every individual. an attempt to find out things as they are, to rest all philosophy upon observation, and to determine by the human reason the real essence of truth, is of such stupendous magnitude in the development of the human mind that it has entered into the philosophy of every educational system presented since by any people or any individual. the philosophers of modern times, while they may not adopt the principles of the ancient philosophy, still recognize their power, their forms of thought, and their activities, and their great influence on the intellectual development of the world. last, but not least, are the great lessons recounted of the foundations of civil liberty. incomplete as the ancient democracies were, they pointed to the world the great lessons of the duties of man to man and the relations of mankind in social life. when we consider the greatness of the social function and the prominence of social organization in modern life, we shall see how essential it is that, though the development of the individual may be the highest aim of civilization, the social organization must be established upon a right basis to promote individual interests. freedom, liberty, righteousness, justice, free discussion, all these were given to us by the greeks, and more--the forms of government, the assembly, the senate, the judiciary, the constitutional government, although in their imperfect forms, are represented in the greek government. these represent the chief contributions of the greeks to civilization. {249} subjects for further study 1. what were the achievements of the age of pericles? 2. which are more important to civilization, greek ideals or greek practice? 3. the ownership of land in greece. 4. the characteristics of the city-state of athens. 5. alexandria as an educational centre. 6. why did the greeks fail to make a strong central nation? 7. the causes of the decline of greek civilization. 8. give a summary of the most important contributions of greece to modern civilization. [1] some authorities state forty assemblies were held each year. [2] the confederation of delos, the athenian empire, and the peloponnesian league were attempts to federalize greece. they were successful only in part. {250} chapter xv roman civilization _the romans differed in nature from the greeks_.--instead of being of a philosophic, speculative nature, the romans were a practical, even a stoical, people of great achievement. they turned their ideas always toward the concrete, and when they desired to use the abstract they borrowed the principles and theories established by other nations. they were poor theorizers, both in philosophy and in religion, but were intensely interested in that which they could turn to immediate and practical benefit. they were great borrowers of the products of other people's imagination. in the very early period they borrowed the gods of the greeks and somewhat of their forms of religion! later they borrowed forms of art from other nations and developed them to suit their own, and, still later, they used the literary language of the greeks to enrich their own. this method of borrowing the best products of others and putting them to practical service led to immense consequences in the development of civilization. the romans lacked not in originality, for practical application leads to original creation, but their best efforts in civilization were wrought out from this practical standpoint. thus, in the improvement of agriculture, in the perfection of the art of war, in the development of law and of government, their work was masterly in the extreme; and to this extent it was worked out rather than thought out. indeed, their whole civilization was evolved from the practical standpoint. _the social structure of early rome and that of early greece_.--rome started, like greece, with the early patriarchal kings, who ruled over the expanded family, but with this difference, that these kings, from the earliest historical records, were {251} elected by the people. nevertheless there is no evidence that the democratic spirit was greater in early rome than in early greece, except in form. in the early period all italy was filled with tribes, mostly of aryan descent, and in the regal period the small territory of latium was filled with independent city communities; but all these cities were federated on a religious basis and met at alba longa as a centre, where they conducted their worship and duly instituted certain regulations concerning the government of all. later, after the decline of alba longa, the seat of this federal government was removed to rome, which was another of the federated cities. subsequently this territory was invaded by the sabines, who settled at rome, and, as an independent community, allied themselves with the romans. and, finally, the invasion of the etruscans gave the last of three separate communities, which were federated into one state and laid the foundation of the imperial city. but if some leader founded rome in the early period, it is quite natural that he should be called romulus, after the name of rome. considering the nature of the romans and the tendency to the old ancestral worship among them, it does not seem strange that they should deify this founder and worship him. subsequently, we find that this priestly monarchy was changed to a military monarchy, in which everything was based upon property and military service. whatever may be the stories of early rome, so much may be mentioned as historical fact. the foundation was laid in three great tribes, composed of the ancient families, or patricians, who formed the body of the league. those who settled at rome at an early period became the aristocracy; they were members of the tribes of immemorial foundation. at first the old tribal exclusiveness prevailed, and people who came later into rome were treated as unequal to those who long had a right to the soil. this led to a division among the people based on hereditary right, which lasted in its effect as long as rome endured. it became the {252} custom to call those persons belonging to the first families patricians, and all who were not patricians plebeians, representing that class who did not belong to the first families. the plebeians were composed of foreigners, who had only commercial rights, of the clients who attached themselves to these ancient families, but who gradually passed into the plebeian rank, and of land-holders, craftsmen, and laborers. the plebeians were free inhabitants, without political rights. as there was no great opportunity for the patricians to increase in number, the plebeians, in the regal period, soon grew to outnumber them. they were increased by those conquered ones who were permitted to come to rome and dwell. also the tradesmen and immigrants who dwelt at rome increased rapidly, for they could have the protection of the roman state without having the responsibility of roman soldiers. it was of great significance in the development of the roman government that these two great classes existed. _civil organization of rome_.--the organization of the government of early rome rested in a peculiar sense upon the family group. the first tribes that settled in the territory were governed upon a family basis, and their land was held by family holdings. no other nation appears to have perpetuated such a power of the family in the affairs of the state. the father, as the head of the family, had absolute power over all; the son never became of age so far as the rights of property are considered as long as the father lived. the father was priest, king, and legislator for all in the family group. parental authority was arbitrary, and when the head of the family passed away the oldest male member of the family took his place, and ruled as his father had ruled. a group of these families constituted a clan, and a group of clans made a tribe, and three tribes, according to the formula for the formation of rome, made a state. whether this formal process was carried out exactly remains to be proved, but the families related to one another by ties of blood were united in distinct groups, which were again reorganized into larger {253} groups, and the formula at the time of the organization of the state was that there were 30 cantons formed by 300 clans, and these clans averaged about 10 families each. this is based upon the number of representatives which afterward formed the senate, and upon the number of soldiers furnished by the various families. the state became then an enlarged family, with a king at the head, whose prerogatives were somewhat limited by his position. there were also a popular assembly, consisting of all the freeholders of the state, and the senate, formed by the heads of all the most influential families, for the government of rome. these ancient hereditary forms of government extended with various changes in the progress of rome. _the struggle for liberty_.--the members of the roman senate were chosen from the noble families of rome, and were elected for life, which made the senate of rome a perpetual body. having no legal declaration of legislative, judicial, executive, or administrative authority, it was, nevertheless, the most powerful body of its kind ever in existence. representing the power of intellect, and having within its ranks men of the foremost character and ability of the city, this aristocracy overpowered and ruled the affairs of rome until the close of the republic, and afterward became a service to the imperial government of the caesars. from a very early period in the history of the roman nation the people struggled for their rights and privileges against this aristocracy of wealth and hereditary power. at the expulsion of the kings, in 500 b.c., the senate lived on, as did the old popular assembly of the people, the former gaining strength, the latter becoming weakened. realizing what they had lost in political power, having lost their farms by borrowing money of the rich patricians, and suffered imprisonment and distress on that account, the plebeians, resolved to endure no longer, marched out upon the hill, mons sacer, and demanded redress by way of tribunes and other officers. this was the beginning of an earnest struggle for 50 years {254} for mere protection, to be followed by a struggle of 150 years for equality of power and rights. the result of this was that a compromise was made with the senate, which allowed the people to have tribunes chosen from the plebeians, and a law was passed giving them the right of protection against the oppression of any official, and subsequently the right of intercession against any administrative or judicial act, except in the case when a dictator was appointed. this gave the plebeians some representation in the government of rome. they worked at first for protection, and also for the privilege of intermarriage among the patricians. after this they began to struggle for equal rights and privileges. a few years after the revolt in 486 b.c. spurius cassius brought forward the first agrarian law. the lands of the original roman territory belonged at first to the great families, and were divided and subdivided among the various family groups. but a large part of the land obtained by conquest of the italians became the public domain, the property of the entire people of rome. it became necessary for these lands to be leased by the roman patricians, and as these same roman patricians were members of the senate, they became careless about collecting rent of themselves, and so the lands were occupied year after year, and, indeed, century after century, by the roman families, who were led to claim them as their own without rental. cassius proposed to divide a part of these lands among the needy plebeians and the latins as well, and to lease the rest for the profit of the public treasury. the patricians fought against cassius because he was to take away their lands, and the plebeians were discontented with him because he had favored the latins. the result was that at the close of his office he was sentenced and executed for the mere attempt to do justice to humanity. the tribunes of the people finally gained more power, and a resolution was introduced in the senate providing that a body of ten men should be selected to reduce the laws of the state to a written code. in 451 b.c. the ten men were chosen {255} from the patricians, who formed ten tables of laws, had them engraved on copper plates, and placed them where everybody could read them. the following year ten men were again appointed, three of whom were plebeians, who added two more tables; the whole body became known as the laws of the twelve tables. it was a great step in advance when the laws of a community could be thus published. soon after this the laws of valerius and horatius made the acts of the assembly of the tribunes of equal force with those of the assembly of the centuries, and established that every magistrate, including the dictator, was obliged in the future to allow appeals from his decision. they also recognized the inviolability of the tribunes of the people and of the aediles who represented them. but in order to circumvent the plebeians, two quaestors were appointed in charge of the military treasury. indeed, at every step forward which the people made for equality and justice, the senate, representing the aristocracy, passed laws to circumvent the plebeians. in 445 b.c. the tribune canuleius introduced a law legalizing marriage between the patricians and plebeians. the children were to inherit the rank of their father. this tribune further attempted to pass a law allowing consuls to be chosen from the plebeians. to this a fierce opposition sprang up, and a compromise measure was adopted which allowed military tribunes to be elected from the plebeians, who had consular power. but again the senate sought to circumvent the plebeians, and created the new patrician office of censor, to take the census, make lists of citizens and taxes, appoint senators, prepare the publication of the budget, manage the state property, farm out the taxes, and superintend public buildings; also he might supervise the public morality. with the year 587 b.c. came the invasion of the gauls from the north and the famous battle of the allia, in which the romans suffered defeat and were forced to the right bank of the tiber, leaving the city of rome defenseless. abandoned by the citizens, the city was taken, plundered, and burned by {256} the gauls. senators were slaughtered, though the capitol was not taken. finally, surprised and overcome by a contingent of the roman army, the enemy was forced to retire and the inhabitants again returned. but no sooner had they returned than the peaceful struggle of the plebeians against the patricians began again. first, there were the poor, indebted plebeians, who sought the reform of the laws relating to debtor and creditor and desired a share in the public lands. second, the whole body of the plebeians were engaged in an attempt to open the consulate to their ranks. in 367 b.c. the licinian laws were passed, which gave relief to the debtors by deducting the interest already accrued from the principal, and allowing the rest to be paid in three annual instalments; and a second law forbade that any one should possess more than 500 jugera of the public lands. this was to prevent the wealthy patricians from holding lands in large tracts and keeping them from the plebeians. this law also abolished the military tribuneship and insisted that one at least of the two consuls should be chosen from the plebeians--giving a possibility of two. the patricians, in order to counteract undue influence in this respect, established the praetorship, the praetor having jurisdiction and vicegerence of the consuls during their absence. there also sprang up about this time the new nobility (_optimates_), composed of the plebeians and patricians who had held office for a long time, and representing the aristocracy of the community. from this time on all the roman citizens tended to go into two classes, the _optimates_ and, exclusive of these, the great roman populace. in the former all the wealth and power were combined; in the latter the poverty, wretchedness, and dependence. various other changes in the constitution succeeded, until the great wars of the samnites and those of the carthaginians directed the attention of the people to foreign conquest. after the close of these great wars and the firm establishment of the universal power of rome abroad, there sprang up a great civil war, induced largely by the disturbance {257} of the gracchi, who sought to carry out the will of the people in regard to popular democracy and the division of the public lands. thus, step by step, the plebeians, by a peaceful civil struggle, had obtained the consulship, and, indeed, the right to all other civil offices. they had obtained a right to sit in the senate, had obtained the declaration of social equality, had settled the great land question; and yet the will of the people never prevailed. the great roman senate, made up of the aristocracy of rome, an aristocracy of both plebeians and patricians, ruled with unyielding sway, and the common people never obtained full possession of their rights and privileges. civil strife continued; the gulf between the rich and the poor, the nobility and the proletariat representing a few rich political manipulators, on the one side, and the half-fed, half-mad populace, on the other, grew wider and wider, finally ending in civil war. in the midst of the strife the republic passed away, and only the coming of the imperial power of the caesars perpetuated roman institutions. _rome becomes a dominant city_.--in all of this struggle at home and abroad, foreign conquest led to the establishment of rome as the central city. the constitution of rome was the typical constitution for all provincial cities, and from this one centre all provinces were ruled. no example heretofore had existed of the centralization of government similar to this. the overlordship of the persians was only for the purpose of collecting tribute; there was little attempt to carry abroad the persian institutions or to amalgamate the conquered provinces in one great homogeneous nation. the empire of athens was but a temporary hegemony over tributary states. but the roman government conquered and absorbed. wherever went the roman arms, there the roman laws and the roman government followed; there followed the roman language, architecture, art, institutions, and civilization. great highways passed from the eternal city to all parts of the territory, binding together the separate elements of {258} national life, and levelling down the barriers between all nations. every colony planted by rome in the new provinces was a type of the old roman life, and the provincial government everywhere became the type of this central city. here was reached a state in the development of government which no nation had hitherto attained--the dominant city and the rule of a mighty empire from central authority. _the development of government_.--the remarkable development of rome in government from the old hereditary nobility, in which priest-kings ruled the people, to a military king who was leader, subsequently into a republic which stood the test for several centuries of a fierce struggle for the rights of the people, finally into an imperial government to last for 450 years, represents the growth of one of the most remarkable governments in the world's history. the fundamental idea in government was the ruling of an entire state from the central city, and out of this idea grew imperialism as a later development, vesting all authority in a single monarch. the governments of conquered provinces were gradually made over into the roman system. the roman municipal government was found in all the cities of the provinces, and the provincial government became an integral part of the roman system. the provinces were under the supervision of imperial officers appointed by the emperor. thus the tendency was to bind the whole government into one unified system, with its power and authority at rome. so long as this central authority remained and had its full sway there was little danger of the decline of roman power, but when disintegration began in the central government the whole structure was doomed. one of the remarkable characteristics of the roman government was a system of checks of one part by every other part. thus, in the republic, the consuls were checked by the senate, the senate by the consular power, the various assemblies, such as the curiata, tributa, and centuriata, each having its own particular powers, were checks upon each other and upon other departments of the government. the whole system of {259} magistrates was subject to the same checks or limits in authority. and while impeachment was not introduced, each officer, at the close of his term, was accountable for his actions while in office. but under imperialism the tendency was to break down the power of each separate form of government and to absorb it in the imperial power. thus augustus soon attributed to himself the power of the chief magistrates and obtained a dominating power in the senate until the functions of government were all centralized in the emperor. while this made a strong government, in many phases it was open to great dangers, and in due time it failed, as a result of the corruption that clustered around the despotism of a single ruler unchecked by constitutional power. _the development of law is the most remarkable phase of the roman civilization_.--perhaps the most lasting effect of the roman civilization is observed in the contribution of law to the nations which arose at the time of the decline of the imperial sway. from the time of the posting of the twelve tables in a public place, where they could be read by all the citizens of rome, there was a steady growth of the roman law. the decrees of the senate, as well as the influence of judicial decisions, gradually developed a system of jurisprudence. there sprang up, also, interpreters of the law, who had much influence in shaping its course. also, in the early period of the republic, the acts of the popular assemblies became laws. this was before the senate became the supreme lawmaking body of the state. during the imperial period the emperor acted somewhat through the senate, but the latter body was more or less under his control, for he frequently dictated its actions. having assumed the powers of a magistrate, he could issue an edict; as a judge he could give decrees and issue commands to his own officials, all of which tended to increase the body of roman law. in the selection of jurists for the interpretation of the law the emperor also had great control over its character. the great accomplishment of the lawmaking methods of {260} the romans was, in the first place, to allow laws to be made by popular assemblies and the senate, according to the needs of a developing social organization. this having once been established, the foundation of lawmaking was laid for all nations to follow. the roman law soon passed into a complex system of jurisprudence which has formed a large element in the structure, principles, and practice of all modern legal systems. the character of the law in itself was superior and masterly, and its universality was accomplished through the universal rule of the empire. the later emperors performed a great service to the world by collecting and codifying roman laws. the theodosian code (theodosius ii, 408-450 a.d.) was a very important one on account of the influence it exercised over the various teutonic systems of law practised by the different barbarian tribes that came within the borders of the roman empire. the jurists who gave the law a great development had by the close of the fourth century placed on record all the principal legal acts of the empire. they had collected and edited all the sources of law and made extensive commentaries of great importance upon them, but it remained for theodosius to arrange the digests of these jurists and to codify the later imperial decrees. but the theodosian code went but a little way in the process of digesting the laws. the justinian code, however, gave a complete codification of the law in four distinct parts, known as (1) "the pandects, or digest of the scientific law literature; (2) the codex, or summary of imperial legislation; (3) the institutes, a general review or text-book, founded upon the digest and code, an introductory restatement of the law; and (4) the novels, or new imperial legislation issued after the codification, to fill the gaps and cure the inconsistencies discovered in the course of the work of codification and manifest in its published results."[1] thus the whole body of the civil law was incorporated. here, then, is seen the progress of the roman law from the {261} semireligious rules governing the patricians in the early patriarchal period, whose practice was generally a form of arbitration, to the formal writing of the twelve tables, the development of the great body of the law through interpretation, the decrees of magistrates, acts of legislative assemblies, and finally the codification of the laws under the later emperors. this accumulation of legal enactments and precedents formed the basis of legislation under the declining empire and in the new nationalities. it also occupied an important place in the curriculum of the university. _influence of the greek life on rome_.--the principal influence of the greeks on roman civilization was found first in the early religion and its development in the latin race at rome. the religion of the romans was polytheistic, but far different from that of the greeks. the deification of nature was not so analytic, and their deities were not so human as those of the greek religion. there was no poetry in the roman religion; it all had a practical tendency. their gods were for use, and, while they were honored and worshipped, they were clothed with few fancies. the romans seldom speculated on the origin of the gods and very little as to their personal character, and failed to develop an independent theogony. they were behind the greeks in their mental effort in this respect, and hence we find all the early religion was influenced by the ideas of the latins, the etruscans, and the greeks, the last largely through the colonies which were established in italy. archaeology points conclusively to the fact of early greek influence. in later development the conquest of the greeks brought to rome the religion, art, paintings, and philosophy of the conquered. the romans were shrewd and acute in the appreciation of all which they had found that was good in the greeks. from the time of this contact there was a constant and continued adoption of grecian models in rome. the first roman writers, fabius pictor and quintus ennius, both wrote in greek. all the early roman writers considered greek the {262} finished style. the influence of the greek language was felt at rome on the first acquaintance of the italians with it, through trade and commerce and through the introduction of greek forms of religion. the early influence of language was less than the influence of art. while the phoenicians and etruscans furnished some of the models, they were usually unproductive and barren types, and not to be compared with those furnished by greece. the young romans who devoted themselves to the state and its service were from the fifth century b.c. well versed in the greek language. no education was considered complete in the latter days of the republic, and under the imperial power, until it had been finished at athens or alexandria. the effect on literature, particularly poetry and the drama, was great in the first period of roman literature, and even horace, the most original of all latin poets, began his career by writing greek verse, and no doubt his beautiful style was acquired by his ardent study of the greek language. the plays of plautus and terence deal also with the products of athens, and, indeed, every roman comedy was to a certain extent a copy, either in form or spirit, of the greek. in tragedy, the spirit of euripides, the master, came into rome. the influence of the greek philosophy was more marked than that of language. its first contact with rome was antagonistic. the philosophers and rhetoricians, because of the disturbance they created, were expelled from rome in the second century. as early as 161 a.d. those who pursued the study of philosophy always read and disputed in greek. many greek schools of philosophy of an elementary nature were established temporarily at rome, while the large number of students of philosophy went to athens, and those of rhetoric to rhodes, for the completion of their education. the philosophy of greece that came into rome was something of a degenerate epicureanism, fragments of a broken-down system, which created an unwholesome atmosphere. the only science which rome developed was that of {263} jurisprudence, and the scientific writings of the greeks had comparatively little influence upon roman culture. mr. duruy, in speaking of the influence of the greeks on rome, particularly in the days of its decline, says: "in conclusion, we find in certain sciences, for which rome cared nothing, great splendor, but in art and poetry no mighty inspiration; in eloquence, vain chatter of words and images (the rhetoricians), habits but no faith; in philosophy, the materialism which came from the school of aristotle, the doubt born of plato, the atheism of theodorus, the sensualism of epicurus vainly combated by the moral protests of zeno; and lastly, in the public life, the enfeeblement or the total loss of all of those virtues which make the man and the citizen; such were the greeks at the time. and now we say, with cato, polybius, livy, pliny, justinian, and plutarch, that all this passed into the eternal city. the conquest of greece by rome was followed by the conquest of rome by greece. _graecia capta ferum victorem cepit_." _latin literature and language_.--the importance of the latin language and literature in the later history of the romans and throughout the middle ages is a matter of common knowledge. the language of the latin tribes congregating at rome finally predominated over all italy and followed the roman arms through all the provinces. it became to a great extent the language of the common people and subsequently the literary language of the empire. it became finally the great vehicle of thought in all civil and ecclesiastical proceedings in the middle ages and at the beginning of the modern era. as such it has performed a great service to the world. cato wrote in latin, and so did the annalists of the early period of latin literature. livy became a master of his own language, and cicero presents the improved and elevated speech. the study of these masterpieces, full of thought and beauty of expression, has had a mighty influence in the education of the youth of modern times. it must be conceded, however, that in rome the productions of the great masters were not as universally {264} known or as widely celebrated as one would suppose. but, like all great works of art, they have lived on to bear their influence through succeeding ages. _development of roman art_.--the elements of art and architecture were largely borrowed from the greeks. we find, however, a distinctive style of architecture called roman, which varies from that of the greek, although the influence of greek form is seen not only in the decorations but in the massive structure of the buildings. without doubt, in architecture the romans perfected the arch as their chief characteristic and contribution to art progress. but this in itself was a great step in advance and laid the foundation of a new style. as might be expected from the romans, it became a great economic advantage in building. in artistic decoration they made but little advancement until the time of the greek influence. _decline of the roman empire_.--the evolution of the roman nation from a few federated tribes with archaic forms of government to a fully developed republic with a complex system of government, and the passage of the republic into an imperialism, magnificent and powerful in its sway, are subjects worthy of our most profound contemplation; and the gradual decline and decay of this great superstructure is a subject of great interest and wonder. in the contemplation of the progress of human civilization, it is indeed a mournful subject. it seems to be the common lot of man to build and destroy in order to build again. but the roman government declined on account of causes which were apparent to every one. it was an impossibility to build up such a great system without its accompanying evils, and it was impossible for such a system to remain when such glaring evils were allowed to continue. if it should be asked what caused the decline of this great civilization, it may be said that the causes were many. in the first place, the laws of labor were despised and capital was consumed without any adequate return. there was consequently nothing left of an economic nature to withstand the rude {265} shocks of pestilence and war. the few home industries, when rome ceased to obtain support from the plunder of war, were not sufficient to supply the needs of a great nation. the industrial condition of rome had become deplorable. in all the large cities there were a few wealthy and luxurious families, a small number of foreigners and freedmen who were superintending a large number of slaves, and a large number of free citizens who were too proud to work and yet willing to be fed by the government. the industrial conditions of the rural districts and small cities were no better. there were a few non-residents who cultivated the soil by means of slaves, or by _coloni_, or serfs who were bound to the soil. these classes were recruited from the conquered provinces. farming had fallen into disrepute. the small farmers, through the introduction of slavery, were crowded from their holdings and were compelled to join the great unfed populace of the city. taxation fell heavily and unjustly upon the people. the method of raising taxes by farming them out was a pernicious system that led to gross abuse. all enterprise and all investments were discouraged. there was no inducement for men to enter business, as labor had been dishonored and industry crippled. the great body of roman people were divided into two classes, those who formed the lower classes of laborers and those who had concentrated the wealth of the country in their own hands and held the power of the nation in their own control. the mainstay of the nation had fallen with the disappearance of the sterling middle class. the lower classes were reduced to a mob by the unjust and unsympathetic treatment received at the hands of the governing class. in the civil administration there was a division of citizens into two classes: those who had influence in the local affairs of their towns or neighborhood, and those who were simply interested in the central organization. during the days of the republic these people were closely related, because all citizens were forced to come to rome in order to have a voice in the political interests of the government. but during the empire {266} there came about a change, and the citizens of a distant province were interested only in the management of their own local affairs and lost their interest in the general government, so that when the central government weakened there was a tendency for the local interests to destroy the central. after the close of constantine's reign very great evils threatened the roman administration. first of these was the barbarians; second, the populace; and third, the soldiers. the barbarians continually made inroads upon the territory, broke down the governmental system, and established their own, not so much for the sake of destruction and plunder, as is usually supposed, but to seek the betterment of their condition as immigrants into a new territory. that they were in some instances detrimental to the roman institutions is true, but in others they gave new life to the declining empire. the populace was a rude, clamorous mass of people, seeking to satisfy their hunger in the easiest possible way. these were fed by the politicians for the sake of their influence. the soldiery of rome had changed. formerly made up of patriots who marched out to defend their own country or to conquer surrounding provinces in the name of the eternal city, the ranks were filled with mercenary soldiers taken from the barbarians, who had little interest in the perpetuation of the roman institutions. they had finally obtained so much power that they set up an emperor, or dethroned him, at their will. and finally it may be said that of all these internal maladies and external dangers, the decline in moral worth of the roman nation is the most appalling. influenced by a broken-down philosophy, degenerated in morals, corrupt in family and social life, the whole system decayed, and could not withstand the shock of external influence. _summary of roman civilization_.--the roman contribution, then, to civilization is largely embraced in the development of a system of government with forms and functions which have been perpetuated to this day; the development of a system of law which has found its place in all modern legal {267} codes; a beautiful and rich language and literature; a few elements of art and architecture; the development of agriculture on a systematic basis; the tendency to unify separate races in one national life; the practice of the art of war on a humane basis, and the development of the municipal system of government which has had its influence on every town of modern life. these are among the chief contributions of the roman system to the progress of humanity. while it is common to talk of the fall of the roman empire, rome is greater to-day in the perpetuity of her institutions than during the glorious days of the republic or of the magnificent rule of the caesars. rome also left a questionable inheritance to the posterity of nations. the idea of imperialism revived in the empire of charlemagne, and later in the holy roman empire, and, cropping out again and again in the monarchies of new nations, has not become extinct to this day. the recent world war gave a great shock to the idea of czarism. the imperial crowns of the hohenzollerns, the hapsburgs, the romanoffs, and the royal crowns of minor nations fell from the heads of great rulers, because the emperor of germany overworked the idea of czarism after the type of imperial rome. but the idea is not dead. in shattered europe, the authority and infallibility of the state divorced from the participation of the people, though put in question, is yet a smouldering power to be reckoned with. it is difficult to erase rome's impress upon the world. subjects for further study 1. how were the greeks and romans related racially? 2. difference between the greek and the roman attitude toward life. 3. what were the land reforms of the gracchi? 4. what advancement did the romans make in architecture? 5. what were the internal causes of the decline of rome? 6. why did the celts and the germans invade rome? 7. enumerate the permanent contributions of rome to subsequent civilization. [1] hadley, _introduction to roman law_. {268} chapter xvi the christian religion _important factors in the foundation of western civilization_.--when the european world entered the period of the middle ages, there were a few factors more important than others that influenced civilization.[1] (1) the oriental cultures, not inspiring as a whole, left by-products from mesopotamia, palestine, and egypt. these were widely spread through the influence of world wars and world empires. (2) the greek cultures in the form of art, architecture, philosophy, and literature, and newer forms of political and social organization were widely diffused. (3) the romans had established agriculture, universal centralized government and citizenship, and developed a magnificent body of law; moreover, they had formed a standing army which was used in the support of monarchy, added some new features to architecture and industrial structures, and developed the latin language, which was to be the carrier of thought for many centuries. (4) the christian religion with a new philosophy of life was to penetrate and modify all society, all thought, government, law, art, and, in fact, all phases of human conduct. (5) the barbarian invasion carried with it the teutonic idea of individual liberty and established a new practice of human relationships. it was vigor of life against tradition and convention. with these contributions, the european world was to start out with the venture of mediaeval civilization, after the decline of the roman empire. _the social contacts of the christian religion_.--of the factors enumerated above, none was more powerful than the teaching of the christians. for it came in direct contrast and opposition to established opinions and old systems. it was also constructive, for it furnished a definite plan of social order different from all existing ones, which it opposed. the {269} religions of the orient centred society around the temple. among all the semitic races, babylonian, assyrian, and hebrew, temple worship was an expression of religious and national unity. national gods, national worship, and a priesthood were the rule. egypt was similar in many respects, and the greeks used the temple worship in a limited degree, though no less real in its influences. the romans, though they had national gods, yet during the empire had liberalized the right of nations to worship whom they pleased, provided nothing was done to militate against the roman government, which was committed to the worship of certain gods, in which the worship of the emperor became a more or less distinctive feature. the christian teaching recognized no national gods, no national religion, but a world god who was a father of all men. furthermore, it recognized that all men, of whatsoever race and country, were brethren. so this doctrine of love crossed boundaries of all nations and races, penetrated systems of religion and philosophy, and established the idea of international and universal brotherhood. _social conditions at the beginning of the christian era_.--the philosophy of the greeks and romans had reached a state of degeneracy at the time of the coming of christ. thought had become weak and illogical. trusting to the influence of the senses, which were at first believed to be infallible, scepticism of the worst nature influenced all classes of the people. epicureanism, not very bad in the beginning, had come to a stage of decrepitude. to seek immediate pleasure regardless of consequences was far different from avoiding extravagance and intemperance, in order to make a higher happiness. licentiousness, debauchery, the demoralized condition of the home and family ties, made all society corrupt. stoicism had been taken up by the romans; it agreed with their nature, and, coupled with epicureanism, led to the extinction of faith. there was no clear vision of life; no hope, no high and worthy aspirations, no inspiration for a noble life. {270} the character of worship of the romans of their various gods led to a non-religious attitude of mind. religion, like everything else, had become a commercial matter, to be used temporarily for the benefit of all parties who indulged. while each separate nationality had its own shrine in the temple, and while the emperor was deified, all worship was carried on in a selfish manner. there was no reverence, no devout attitude of worship, and consequently no real benefit derived from the religious life. the roman merchant went to the temple to offer petitions for the safety of his ship on the seas, laden with merchandise. after its safe entrance, the affair troubled him no more; his religious emotion was satisfied. moral degeneration could be the only outcome of following a broken-down philosophy and an empty religion. men had no faith in one another, and consequently felt no obligation to moral actions. dishonesty in all business transactions was the rule. injustice in the administration of the law was worked by the influence of factions and cliques. the roman world was politically corrupt. men were struggling for office regardless of the effect of their methods on the social welfare. the marriage relation became indefinite and unholy. the home life lost its hallowed influence as a support to general, social, and political life. the result of a superficial religion, an empty philosophy, and a low grade of morality, was to drive men to scepticism, to a doubt in all things, or to a stoic indifference to all things, or perhaps in a minority of cases to a search for light. to nearly all there was nothing in the world to give permanent satisfaction to the sensual nature, or nothing to call out the higher qualities of the soul. men turned with loathing from their own revels and immoral practices and recognized nothing worthy of their thoughts in life. those who held to a moral plane at all found no inspiration in living, had no enthusiasm for anything or any person. it were as well that man did not exist; that there was no earth, no starry firmament, no heaven, no hell, no present, no future. the few who sought for the {271} light did so from their inner consciousness or through reflection. desiring a better life, they advocated higher aspirations of the soul and an elevated, moral life, and sought consolation in the wisdom of the sages. their life bordered on the monastic. _the contact of christianity with social life_.--the most striking contrast to be observed in comparing the state of the world with christianity is the novelty of its teachings. no doctrine like the fatherhood of god had hitherto been taught in the european world. plato reached, in his philosophy, a conception of a universal creator and father of all, but his doctrine was influenced by dualism. there was no conception of the fatherly care which christians supposed god to exercise over all of his creatures. it also taught the brotherhood of man, that all people of every nation are brethren, with a common father, a doctrine that had never been forcibly advanced before. the jehovah of the jews watched over their especial affairs and was considered in no sense the god of the gentiles. for how could jehovah favor jews and also their enemies at the same time? so, too, for the greek and the barbarian, the roman and the teuton, the jurisdiction of deities was limited by national boundaries, or, in case of family worship, by the tribe, for the household god belonged only to a limited number of worshippers. a common brotherhood of all men on a basis of religious equality of right and privilege was decidedly new. christianity taught of the nature and punishment of sin. this, too, was unknown to the degenerate days of the roman life. to sin against the creator and father was new in their conception, and to consider such as worthy of punishment was also beyond their philosophy. christianity clearly pointed out what sin is, and asserted boldly that there is a just retribution to all lawbreakers. it taught of righteousness and justice, and that acts were to be performed because they were right. individuals were to be treated justly by their fellows, regardless of birth or position. and finally, making marriage a {272} divine institution, christianity introduced a pure moral code in the home. while a few philosophers, following after plato, conjectured respecting the immortality of the soul, christianity was the first religious system to teach eternal life as a fundamental doctrine. coupled with this was the doctrine of the future judgment, at which man should give an account of his actions on this side of the grave. this was a new doctrine to the people of the world. the christians introduced a new phase of social life by making their practice agree with their profession. it had been the fault of the moral sentiments of the ancient sages that they were never carried out in practice. many fine precepts respecting right conduct had been uttered, but these were not realized by the great mass of humanity, and were put in practice by very few people. they had seldom been vitalized by humanizing use. hence christianity appeared in strong relief in the presence of the artificial system with which it came in contact. it had a faith and genuineness which were vigorous and refreshing. the christians practised true benevolence, which was a great point in these latter days of selfishness and indifference. they systematically looked after their own poor and cared for the stranger at the gates. later the church built hospitals and refuges and prepared for the care of all the oppressed. thousands who were careworn, oppressed, or disgusted with the ways of the world turned instinctively to christianity for relief, and were not disappointed. the greeks and the romans had never practised systematic charity until taught by the christians. the romans gave away large sums for political reasons, to appease the populace, but with no spirit of charity. but one of the most important of the teachings of the early church was to dignify labor. there was a new dignity lent to service. prior to the dominion of the church, labor had become degrading, for slavery had supplanted free labor to such an extent that all labor appeared dishonorable. another {273} potent cause of the demoralization of labor was the entrance of a large amount of products from the conquered nations. the introduction of these supplies, won by conquest, paralyzed home industries and developed a spirit of pauperism. the actions of the nobility intensified the evils. they spent their time in politics, and purchased the favor of the populace for the right of manipulating the wealth and power of the community. the christians taught that labor was honorable, and they labored with their own hands, built monasteries, developed agriculture, and in many other ways taught that it is noble to labor. _christianity influenced the legislation of the times_.--at first christians were a weak and despised group of individuals. later they obtained sufficient force to become partners with the empire and in a measure dictate some of the laws of the community. the most significant of these were to abolish the inhuman treatment of criminals, who were considered not so well as the beasts of the field. organized christianity secured human treatment of prisoners while they were in confinement, and the abolition of punishment by crucifixion. gladiatorial shows were suppressed, and laws permitting the freer manumission of slaves were passed. the exposure of children, common to both greeks and romans, was finally forbidden by law. the laws of marriage were modified so that the sanctity of the home was secured; and, finally, a law was passed securing sunday as a day of rest to be observed by the whole nation. this all came about gradually as the church came into power. this early influence of the christian religion on the legislation of the roman government presaged a time when, in the decline of the empire, the church would exercise the greatest power of any organization, political or religious, in western europe. _christians come into conflict with civil authority_.--it was impossible that a movement so antagonistic to the usual condition of affairs as christianity should not come into conflict with the civil authority. its insignificant beginning, although {274} it excited the hatred and the contempt of the jealous and the discontented, gave no promise of a formidable power sufficient to contend with the imperial authority. but as it gained power it excited the alarm of rulers, as they beheld it opposing cherished institutions. nearly all of the persecutions came about through the attitude of the church toward the temporal rulers. the roman religion was a part of the civil system, and he who would not subscribe to it was in opposition to the state. the christians would not worship the emperor, nor indeed would they, in common with other nations, set up an image or shrine in the temple at rome and worship according to the privilege granted. they recognized one higher in power than the emperor. the romans in their practical view of life could not discriminate between spiritual and temporal affairs, and a recognition of a higher spiritual being as giving authority was in their sight the acknowledgment of allegiance to a foreign power. the fact that the christians met in secret excited the suspicions of many, and it became customary to accuse them on account of any mishap or evil that came upon the people. thus it happened at the burning of rome that the christians were accused of setting it on fire, and many suffered persecution on account of these suspicions. christians also despised civic virtues, or made light of their importance. in this they were greatly mistaken in their practical service, for they could have wielded more power had they given more attention to civic life. like many good people of modern times, they observed the corruption of government, and held themselves aloof from it rather than to enter in and attempt to make it better. the result of this indifference of the christians was to make the romans believe that they were antagonistic to the best interests of the community. the persecution of the christians continued at intervals with greater or less intensity for more than two centuries; the christians were early persecuted by the jews, later by the romans. in the first century they were persecuted under nero and domitian, through personal spite or selfish interests. after {275} this their persecution was political; there was a desire to suppress a religion that was held to be contrary to law. the persecution under hadrian arose on account of the supposition that the christians were the cause of plagues and troubles on account of their impiety. among later emperors it became customary to attribute to them any unusual occurrence or strange phenomenon which was destructive of life or property. organized christianity grew so strong that it came in direct contact with the empire, and the latter had need of real apprehension, for the conflict brought about by the divergence of belief suddenly precipitated a great struggle within the empire. the strong and growing power of the christians was observed everywhere. it was no insignificant opponent, and it attacked the imperial system at all points. finally constantine, who was a wise ruler as well as an astute politician, saw that it would be good policy to recognize the church as an important body in the empire and to turn this growing social force to his own account. from this time on the church may be said to have become a part of the imperial system, which greatly influenced its subsequent history. while in a measure it brought an element of strength into the social and political world, it rapidly undermined the system of government, and was a potent force in the decline of the empire by rendering obsolete many phases of the roman government. _the wealth of the church accumulates_.--as rome declined and new governments arose, the church grew rapidly in the accumulation of wealth, particularly in church edifices and lands. it is always a sign of growing power when large ownership of property is obtained. the favors of constantine, the gifts of pepin and charlemagne, and the large number of private gifts of property brought the church into the middle ages with large feudal possessions. this gave it prestige and power, which it could not otherwise have held, and hastened the development of a system of government which was powerful in many ways. {276} _development of the hierarchy_.--the clergy finally assumed powers of control of the church separate from the laity. consequently there was a gradual decline in the power of lay members to have a voice in the affairs of the church. while the early church appeared as a simple democratic association, the organization had developed into a formal system or hierarchy, which extended from pope to simple lay members. the power of control falling into the hands of high officials, there soon became a distinction between the ordinary membership and the machinery of government. moreover, the clergy were exempt from taxation and any control or discipline similar to that imposed on ordinary lay members. these conditions soon led to the exercise of undue authority of the hierarchy over the lay membership. this dominating principle became dogmatic, until the members of the church became slaves to an arbitrary government. the only saving quality in this was the fact that the members of the clergy were chosen from the laity, which kept up the connection between the higher and lower members of the church. the separation of the governors from the governed proceeded slowly but surely until the higher officers were appointed from the central authority of the church, and all, even to the clergy, were directly under the imperial control of the papacy. moreover, the clergy assumed legal powers and attempted to regulate the conduct of the laymen. there finally grew up a great body of canon law, according to which the clergy ruled the entire church and, to a certain extent, civil life. but the church, under the canon law, must add a penalty to its enforcement and must assume the punishment of offenders within its own jurisdiction. this led to the assumption that all crime is sin, and as its particular function was to punish sin, the church claimed jurisdiction over all sinners and the right to apprehend and sentence criminals; but the actual punishment of the more grievous offenses was usually given over to the civil authority. {277} _attempt to dominate the temporal powers_.--having developed a strong hierarchy which completely dominated the laity, from which it had separated, having amassed wealth and gained power, and having invaded the temporal power in the apprehension and punishment of crime, the church was prepared to go a step farther and set its authority above kings and princes in the management of all temporal affairs. in this it almost succeeded, for its power of excommunication was so great as to make the civil authorities tremble and bow down before it. the struggle of church and empire in the middle ages, and, indeed, into the so-called modern era, represents one of the important phases of history. the idea of a world empire had long dominated the minds of the people, who looked to the roman imperialism as the final solution of all government. but as this gradually declined and was replaced by the christian church, the idea of a world religion finally became prevalent. hence the ideas of a world religion and a world empire were joined in the holy roman empire, begun by charlemagne and established by otto the great. in this combination the church assumed first place as representing the eternal god, as the head of all things temporal and spiritual. in this respect the church easily overreached itself in the employment of force to carry out its plans. assuming to control by love, it had entered the lists to contend with force and intrigue, and it became subject to all forms of degradation arising from political corruption. in this respect its high object became degraded to the mere attempt to dominate. the greed for power and force was very great, and this again and again led the church into error and lessened its influence in the actual regeneration of man and society. _dogmatism_.--the progress of the imperial power of the church finally settled into the condition of absolute authority over the thoughts and minds of the people. the church assumed to be absolutely correct in its theory of authority, and assumed to be infallible in regard to matters of right and wrong. it went farther, and prescribed what men should {278} believe, and insisted that they should accept that dictum without question, on the authority of the church. this monopoly of religious belief assumed by the church had a tendency to stifle free inquiry and to retard progress. it more than once led to irregularities of practice on the part of the church in order to maintain its position, and on the part of the members to avoid the harsh treatment of the church. religious progress, except in government-building, was not rapid, spirituality declined, and the fervent zeal for the right and for justice passed into fanaticism for purity. this caused the church to fail to utilize the means of progress. it might have advanced its own interest more rapidly by encouraging free inquiry and developing a struggle for the truth. by exercising liberality it could have ingratiated itself into the government of all nations as a helpful adviser, and thus have conserved morality and justice; but by its illiberality it retarded the progress of the mind and the development of spirituality. while it lowered the conception of religion, on the one hand, it lowered the estimate of knowledge, on the other, and in all suppressed truth through dogmatic belief. this course not only affected the character and quality of the clergy, and created discontent in the laymen, but finally lessened respect for the church, and consequently for the gospel, in the minds of men. _the church becomes the conservator of knowledge_.--very early in the days of the decline of the roman empire, when the inroads of the barbarian had destroyed reverence for knowledge, and, indeed, when within the tottering empire all philosophy and learning had fallen into contempt, the church possessed the learning of the times. through its monasteries and its schools all the learning of the period was found. it sought in a measure to preserve, by copying, the manuscripts of many of the ancient and those of later times. thus the church preserved the knowledge which otherwise must have passed away through roman degeneration and barbarian influences. {279} _service of christianity_.[2]--the service of christianity to european civilization consists chiefly in: (1) the respect paid to woman; (2) the establishment of the home and the enthronement of the home relation; (3) the advancement of the idea of humanity; (4) the development of morality; (5) the conservation of spiritual power; (6) the conservation of knowledge during the dark ages; (7) the development of faith; (8) the introduction of a new social order founded on brotherhood, which manifested itself in many ways in the development of community life. if the church fell into evil habits it was on account of the conditions under which it existed. its struggle with oriental despotism, as well as with oriental mysticism, a degenerate philosophy, corrupt social and political conditions, could not leave it unscathed. if evil at times, it was better than the temporal government. if its rulers were dogmatic, arbitrary, and inconsistent, they were better, nevertheless, than the ruling temporal princes. the church represented the only light there was in the dark ages. it was far superior in morality and justice to all other institutions. if it assumed too much power it must be remembered that it came naturally to this assumption by attending specifically to its apparent duty in exercising the power that the civil authority failed to exercise. the development of faith in itself is a great factor in civilization. it must not be ignored, although it is in great danger of passing into dogmatism. a world burdened with dogmatism is a dead world; a world without faith is a corrupt world leading on to death. the christian religion taught the value of the individual, but also taught of the kingdom of god, which involved a community spirit--the universal citizenship of the romans prepared the way, and the individual liberty of the germans strengthened it. whenever the church adhered to the teachings of the four gospels, it made for liberty of thought, freedom of life, progress in knowledge and in the arts of right living. {280} whenever it ceased to follow these and put institutionalism first, it retarded progress, in learning, science, and philosophy, and likewise in justice and righteousness. to the church organization as an institution are due the preservation, perpetuation, and propagation of the teachings of jesus, which otherwise might have been lost or passed into legend. all the way through the development of the christian doctrine in europe, under the direction of the church there are two conflicting forces--the rule by dogma and the freedom of individual belief. the former comes from the greeks and latins, the latter from the nordic idea of personal liberty. both have been essential to the development of the christian religion and the political life alike. the dominant force in the religious dogma of the church was necessary to a people untutored in spiritual development. its error was to insist that the individual had no right to personal belief. yet the former established rules of faith and prevented the dissipation of the treasured teachings of jesus. subjects for further study 1. in what ways was the christian religion antagonistic to other religions? 2. what new elements did it add to human progress? 3. how did the fall of rome contribute to the power of the church? 4. what particular service did the church contribute to social order during the decline of the roman empire? 5. how did the church conserve learning and at the same time suppress freedom of thought? 6. how do you discriminate between christianity as a religious culture and the church as an institution? [1] adams, _civilization during the middle ages_. [2] adams, _civilization during the middle ages_, chap. i. {281} chapter xvii teutonic influence on civilization _the coming of the barbarians_.--the picture usually presented by the historical story-tellers of the barbarian hordes that invaded the roman empire is that of bold pirates, plunderers of civilization, and destroyers of property. no doubt, as compared with the roman system of warfare and plunder, their conduct was somewhat irregular. they were wandering groups or tribes, who lived rudely, seeking new territory for exploitation after the manner of their lives. they were largely a pastoral people with cattle as the chief source of industry with intermittent agriculture. doubtless, they were attracted by the splendor of rome, its wealth and its luxury, but primarily they were seeking a chance to live. it was the old luring food quest, which is the foundation of most migrations, that was the impelling force of their invasion. in accordance with their methods of life, the northern territory was over-crowded, and tribe pressed upon tribe in the struggle for existence. moreover, the pressure of the asiatic populations drove one tribe upon another and forced those of northern europe south and east. all of the invaders, except the huns who settled in pannonia, were of the aryan branch of the caucasian race. they were nearly all of the nordic branch of the aryan stock and were similar in racial characteristics and social life to the greeks, who conquered the ancient aegean races of greece, and to those others who conquered the primitive inhabitants of italy prior to the founding of the roman nation. the celts were of aryan stock but not of nordic race. they appeared at an early time along the danube, moved westward into france, spain, and britain, and took side excursions into italy, the most notable of which was the invasion of rome {282} 390 b.c. wherever the nordic people have gone, they have brought vigor of life and achieved much after they had acquired the tools of civilization. if they were pirates of property, they also were appropriators of the civilization of other nations, into which they projected the vigor of their own life. _importance of teutonic influence_.--various estimates have been made as to the actual influence of the teutonic races in shaping the civilization of western europe. mr. guizot insists that this influence is entirely overestimated, and also, to a certain extent, misrepresented: that much has been done in their name which does not rightfully belong to them. he freely admits that the idea of law came from the romans, morality from the christian church, and the principle of liberty from the germans. yet he fails to emphasize the result of the union of liberty with the law, with morality, and with the church. it is just this leaven of liberty introduced into the various elements of civilization that gave it a new life and brought about progress, the primary element of civilization. france, in the early period of european history, had an immense prestige in the advancement of civilization. there was a large population in a compact territory, with a closely organized government, both civil and ecclesiastical, and a large use of the roman products of language, government, law, and other institutions. consequently, france took the lead in progress, and mr. guizot is quite right in assuming that every element of progress passed through france to give it form, before it became recognized. yet, in the later development of political liberty, law, and education, the teutonic element becomes more prominent, until it would seem that the native and acquired qualities of the teutonic life have the stronger representation in modern civilization. in stating this, due acknowledgment must be made to the roman influence through law and government. but the spirit of progress is teutonic, although the form, in many instances, may be roman. it must be observed, too, that the foundation of local government in germany, england, and the united states was of teutonic {283} origin; that the road from imperialism to democracy is lined with teutonic institutions and lighted with teutonic liberty, and that the whole system of individual rights and popular government has been influenced by the attitude of the teutonic spirit toward government and law. _teutonic liberty_.--all writers recognize that the germanic tribes contributed the quality of personal liberty to the civilization of the west. the roman writers, in setting forth their own institutions, have left a fair record of the customs and habits of the so-called barbarians. titus said of them: "their bodies are, indeed, great, but their souls are greater." caesar had a remarkable method of eulogizing his own generalship by praising the valor and strength of the vanquished foes. "liberty," wrote lucanus, "is the german's birthright." and florus, speaking of liberty, said: "it is a privilege which nature has granted to the germans, and which the greeks, with all of their arts, knew not how to obtain." at a later period montesquieu was led to exclaim: "liberty, that lovely thing, was discovered in the wild forests of germany." while hume, viewing the results of this discovery, said: "if our part of the world maintains sentiments of liberty, honor, equity, and valor superior to the rest of mankind, it owes these advantages to the seeds implanted by the generous barbarians." more forcible than all these expressions of sentiment are the results of the study of modern historians of the laws and customs of the early teutons, and the tracing of these laws in the later civilization. this shows facts of the vitalizing process of the teutonic element. the various nations to-day which speak the teutonic languages, of which the english is the most important, are carrying the burden of civilization. these, rather than those overcome by a preponderance of roman influences, are forwarding the progress of the world. _tribal life_.--referring to the period of germanic history prior to the influence of the romans on the customs, laws, and institutions of the people, which transformed them from {284} wandering tribes into settled nationalities, it is easy to observe, even at this time, the teutonic character. the tribes had come in contact with roman civilization, and many of them were already being influenced by the contact. their social life and habits were becoming somewhat fixed, and the elements of feudalism were already prominent as the foundation of the great institution of the middle ages. this period also embraces the time when the tribes were about to take on the influence of the christian religion, and when there was a constant mingling of the christian spirit with the spirit of heathenism. in fact, the subject should cover all that is known of the germanic tribes prior to the roman contact and after it, down to the full entrance of the middle ages and the rise of new nationalities. in this period we shall miss the full interest of the society of the middle ages after the feudal system had transformed europe or, rather, after europe had entered into a great period of transformation from the indefinite, broken-down tribal life into the new life of modern nations. tribal society has its limitations and types distinctive from every other. the very name "tribe" suggests to us something different from the conditions of a modern nation. caesar and tacitus were accustomed to speak of the germanic tribes as _nationes_, although with no such fulness of meaning as we attach to our modern nations. the germanic, like the grecian, tribe is founded upon two cardinal principles, and is a natural and not an artificial assemblage of people. these two principles are religion and kinship, or consanguinity. in addition to this there is a growth of the tribe by adoption, largely through the means of matrimony and the desire for protection. these principles in the formation of the tribe are universal with the aryan people, and, probably, with all other races. there is a clustering of the relatives around the eldest parent, who becomes the natural leader of the tribe and who has great power over the members of the expanded family. there is no state, there are no citizens, consequently the social life must be far different from that which we are accustomed to see. at {285} the time of our first knowledge of the germans, the family had departed a step from the conditions which bound the old families of greece and rome into such compact and firmly organized bodies. there was a tendency toward individualism, freedom, and the private ownership of land. all of these points, and more, must be taken into consideration, as we take a brief survey of the characteristics of the early teutonic society. what has been said in reference to the tribe, points at once to the fact that there must have been different ranks of society, according to the manner in which a person became a member of the tribe. _classes of society_.--the classes of people were the freemen of noble blood, or the nobility, the common freemen, the freedmen, or half-free, and the slaves. the class of the nobility was based largely upon ancient lineage, some of whom could trace their ancestry to such a distance that they made tenable the claim that they were descended from the gods. the position of a noble was so important in the community that he found no difficulty in making good his claim to pure blood and a title of reverence, but this in no way gave him any especial political privilege. it assured a consideration which put him in the way of winning offices of preferment by his wealth and influence, but he must submit to the decision of the people for his power rather than depend upon the virtues of his ancestry. this is why, in a later period, the formation of the new kingship left out the idea of nobility and placed the right of government upon personal service. the second class represented the rank and file of the german freemen, the long-haired and free-necked men, who had never felt the yoke of bondage. those were the churls of society, but upon them fell the burden of service and the power of leadership. out of this rank came the honest yeomen of england. the third class represented those who held lands of the freemen as serfs, and in the later period of feudal society they became attached to the soil and were bought with the land and {286} sold with the land, though not slaves in the common acceptation of the term. the fourth class were those who were reduced to the personal service of others. they were either captives taken in war or those who had lost their freedom by gambling. this body was not large in the early society, although it tended to increase as society developed. it will be seen at once that in the primitive life of a people like the one we are studying, there is a mingling of the political, religious, and social elements of society. there are no careful lines of distinction to be drawn as in present society, and more than this--there was a tendency to consolidate and simplify all of the forms of political and social life. there was a simplicity of forms and a lack of conventional usage, with a complexity of functions. _the home and the home life_.--the family of the germans, like the family of all other aryan races, was the social, political, and religious unit of the larger organization. as compared with the oriental nations, the family was monogamic and noted for purity and virtue. add to this the idea of reverence for women that characterized the early german people, and we may infer that the home life, though of a somewhat rude nature, was genuine, and that the home circle was not without a salutary influence in those times of wandering and war. the mother, as we may well surmise, was the ruler of the home, had the care of the household, deliberated with the husband in the affairs of the tribe, and even took her place by his side in the field of battle when it seemed necessary. in truth, if we may believe the chroniclers, woman was supposed to be the equal of man. but returning to the tribal life, we find that the houses were of the rudest kind, made of undressed lumber or logs, with a hole in the roof for the smoke to pass out, with but one door and sometimes no window. there were no cities among the germans until they were taught by contact with rome to build them. the villages were, as a rule, an irregular collection of houses, more or less scattered, as is customary where land is {287} plentiful and of no particular value. there were no regularly laid out streets, the villagers being a group of kinsmen of the same tribe, grouped together for convenience. around the village was constructed a ditch and a hedge as a rampart for protection. this was called a "tun" (german _zoun_), from which word we derive our name "town." the house generally had but one room, which was used for all purposes. there was another class of houses, belonging to the nobility and the chiefs, called halls. they consisted of one long room, which sometimes had transepts or alcoves for the women, partitioned off by curtains from the main hall. this large room was the place where the lord and his companions were accustomed to sit at the great feasts after their return from a successful expedition. this is the "beer hall" that we read so much about in song, epic, and legend. here the beer and the mead were passed; here arose the songs and the mirth of the warriors. on the walls of the hall might be seen the rude arms of the warrior, the shield and the spear, or decorations composed of the heads and the skins of wild beasts--all of which bring us to the early type of the hall of the great baron of the feudal age. until the age of chivalry, women were not present at these rude feasts. the religious life of the early germans was tribal rather than personal or of the simple family. there were certain times at which members of the same tribe were wont to assemble and sacrifice to the gods. there was a common meeting-place from year to year. as it has been related, this had a tendency to cement the tribe together and enhance political unity. this custom must have had its influence on social order and must have, in a measure, arrested the tendency of the people to an unsocial and selfish life. _political assemblies_.--the political assemblies, where all of the freemen met to discuss the affairs of the community, must have been powerful factors in the establishment of social customs and usage. the kinsmen or fellow tribesmen were grouped in villages, and each village maintained its privilege {288} of self-government, and consequently the freemen met in the village assembly to consider the affairs of the community. we find combined in the political representation the ideas of tribal unity and individuality, or at least family independence. as the tribes federated, there was a tendency to make the assemblies more general, and thus the family exclusiveness tended to give way in favor of the development of the individual as a member of the tribal state. it was a slow transition from an ethnic to a democratic type of society. this association created a feeling of common interest akin to patriotism. mr. freeman has given us a graphic representation of the survival of the early assembly in the swiss cantons.[1] in the forest cantons the freemen met in the open field on stated occasions to enact the laws and transact the duties of legislators and judges. but although there was a tendency to sectional and clannish relations in society, this became much improved by the communal associations for political and economic life. but society, as such, could not advance very far when the larger part of the occupation of the freemen was that of war. the youth were educated in the field, and the warriors spent much of their time fighting with neighboring tribes. the entire social structure, resting as it did upon kinship, found its changes in developing economic, political, and religious life. especially is this seen in the pursuit of the common industries. as soon as the tribes obtained permanent seats and had given themselves mostly to agriculture, the state of society became more settled, and new customs were gradually introduced. at the same time society became better organized, and each man had his proper place, not only in the social scale but also in the industrial and political life of the tribe. _general social customs_.--in the summer-time the clothing was very light. the men came frequently to the roman camp clad in a short jacket and a mantle; the more wealthy ones {289} wore a woollen or linen undergarment. but in the cold weather sheepskins and the pelts of wild animals, as well as hose for the legs and shoes made of leather for the feet, were worn. the mantle was fastened with a buckle, or with a thorn and a belt. in the belt were carried shears and knives for daily use. the women were not as a general thing dressed differently from the men. after the contact with the romans the methods of dress changed, and there was a greater difference in the garments worn by men and women. marriage was a prominent social institution among the tribes, as it always is where the monogamic family prevails. there were doubtless traces of the old custom, common to most races, of wife capture, a custom which long continued as a mere fiction to some extent among the peasantry of certain localities in germany. in this survival the bride makes feint to escape, and is chased and captured by the bridegroom. some modern authorities have tried to show that there is a survival of this old custom of courtship, whereby the advances are supposed to be made by the men. the engagement to be married meant a great deal more in those days than at present. it was more than half of the marriage ceremony. just as among the hebrews, the engagement was the real marriage contract, and the latter ceremony only a form, so among the germans the same custom prevailed. after engagement, until marriage they were called the brã¤ut and brã¤utigam, but when wedded they ceased to be thus entitled. the betrothal contained the essential bonds of matrimony, and was far more important before the law than the later ceremony. in modern usage the opposite custom prevails. the woman was always under wardship; her father was her natural guardian and made the marriage contract or the engagement. when a woman married, she brought with her a dower, furnished by her parents. this consisted of all house furnishings, clothes, and jewelry, and a more substantial dower in lands, money, or live stock. on the morning of the day after marriage the husband gave to the wife the "morgengabe," {290} which thereafter was her own property. it was the wedding-present of the groom. this is but a survival of the time when marriage among the germans meant a simple purchase of a wife. it is said that "ein weib zu kaufen" (to buy a wife) was the common term for getting engaged, and that this phrase was so used as late as the eleventh century. the wardship was called the _mundium_, and when the maid left her father's house for another home, her _mundium_ was transferred from her father to her husband. this dower began, indeed, with the engagement, and the price of the _mundium_ was paid over to the guardian at the time of the contract. from this time suit for breach of promise could be brought. these are the primitive customs of the marriage ceremony, but they were changed from time to time. through the influence of christianity, the woman finally attained prominence in the matter of choosing a husband, and learned, much to her satisfaction, to make her own contracts in matrimony. _the economic life_.--the economic life was of the most meagre kind in the earlier stages of society. we find that tacitus, writing 150 years after caesar, shows that there had been some changes in the people. in the time of caesar, the tribes were just making their transition from the pastoral-nomadic to the pastoral-agricultural state, and by the time of tacitus this transition was so general that most of the tribes had settled to a more or less permanent agricultural life. it must be observed that the development of the tribes was not symmetrical, and that which reads very pleasantly on paper represents a very confused state of society. however much the tribes practised agriculture, they had but little peace, for warfare continued to be one of their chief occupations. it was in the battle that a youth received his chief education, and in the chase that he occupied much of his spare time. but the ground was tilled, and barley, wheat, oats, and rye were raised. flax was cultivated, and the good housewife did the spinning and weaving--all that was done--for the household. greens, or herbage, were also cultivated, but {291} fruit-trees seldom were cultivated. with the products of the soil, of the chase, and of the herds, the teutons lived well. they had bread and meat, milk, butter and cheese, beer and mead, as well as fish and wild game. the superintending of the fields frequently fell to the lot of the hausfrau, and the labor was done by serfs. the tending of the fields, the pursuit of wild animals or the catching of fish, the care of the cattle or herds, and the making of butter and cheese, the building of houses, the bringing of salt from the sea, the making of garments, and the construction of weapons of war and utensils of convenience--these represent the chief industries of the people. later, the beginnings of commerce sprang up between the separate tribes, and gradually extended to other nationalities. _contributions to law_.--the principle of the trial by jury, which was developed in the english common law, was undoubtedly of teutonic origin. that a man should be tried by his peers for any misdemeanor was considered to be a natural right. the idea of personal liberty made a personal law, which gradually gave way to civil law, although the personal element was never entirely obliterated. the teutonic tribes had no written law, yet they had a distinct legal system. the comparison of this legal system with the roman or with our modern system brings to light the individual character of the early germanic laws. the teuton claimed rights on account of his own personality and his relation to a family, not because he was a member of a state. when the teutons came in contact with the romans they mingled their principles of law with those of the latter, and thus made law more formal. nearly all of the tribes, after this contact, had their laws codified and written in latin, by roman scholars, chiefly of the clergy, who incorporated not only many elements of roman law but also more or less of the elements of christian usage. those tribes which had been the longer time in contact with the romans had a greater body of laws, more systematized and of more roman {292} characteristics. finally, as modern nationality arose, the laws were codified, combining the roman and the teutonic practice. the forms of judicial procedure remained much the same on account of the character of teutonic social organization. the personal element was so strong in the teutonic system as to yield a wide influence in the development of judicial affairs. the trial by combat and the early ordeals, the latter having been instituted largely through the church discipline, and the idea of local courts based upon a trial of peers, had much to do with shaping the course of judicial practice. the time came, however, when nearly every barbarian judicial process was modified by the influence of the roman law, until the predominance of the state, in judicial usage, was recognized in place of the personal element which so long prevailed in the early teutonic customs. but in the evolution of the judicial systems of the various countries the teutonic element of individual liberty and individual offenses never lost its influences. these simple elements of life indicate the origin of popular government, individual and social liberty, and the foundation of local self-government. wherever the generous barbarians have gone they have carried the torch of liberty. in italy, greece, england, germany, spain, and the northern nations, wherever the lurid flames of revolt against arbitrary and conventional government have burst forth, it can be traced to the teutonic spirit of freedom. this was the greatest contribution of the teutonic people to civilization.[2] {293} subjects for further study 1. the vital elements of modern civilization contributed by the germans. 2. teutonic influence on roman civilization. 3. compare the social order of the teutons with that of the early greeks. 4. causes of the invasion of rome by the teutonic tribes. 5. what were the racial relations of romans, greeks, germans, celts, and english? 6. modern contributions to civilization by germany. [1] see chapter xxi. [2] the modern prussian military state was a departure from the main trend of teutonic life. it represented a combination of later feudalism and the roman imperialism. it was a perversion of normal development, a fungous growth upon institutions of freedom and justice. {294} chapter xviii feudal society _feudalism a transition of social order_.--feudalism represents a change from the ancient form of imperialism to the newer forms of european government. it arose out of the ruins of the roman system as an essential form of social order. it appears to be the only system fitted to bring order out of the chaotic conditions of society, but by the very nature of affairs it could not long continue as an established system. it is rather surprising, indeed, that it became so universal, for every territory in europe was subjected to its control in a greater or less degree. frequently those who were forced to adopt its form condemned its principle, and those who sought to maintain the doctrine of roman imperialism were subjected to its sway. the church itself, seeking to maintain its autocracy, came into direct contact with feudal theory and opposed it bitterly. the people who submitted to the yoke of personal bondage which it entailed hated the system. yet the whole european world passed under feudalism. but notwithstanding its universality, feudalism could offer nothing permanent, for in the development of social order it was forced to yield to monarchy, although it made a lasting influence on social life and political and economic usage. _there are two elementary sources of feudalism_.--the spirit of feudalism arises out of the early form of teutonic social life. it sprang from the personal obligation of the comitatus, which was composed of a military leader and his followers or companions. the self-constituted assembly elected the leader who was most noted for courage and prowess in battle. to him was consigned the task of leading in battle the host, which was composed of all the freemen in arms. usually {295} these chiefs were chosen for a single campaign, but it not infrequently happened that their leadership was continuous, with all the force of hereditary selection. another phase of the comitatus is represented by the leader's setting forth in time of peace with his companions to engage in fighting, exploiting, and plunder on his own account. the courageous young men of the tribe, thirsting for adventure in arms, gathered about their leader, whom they sought to excel in valor. he who was bravest and strongest in battle was considered most honorable. the principal feature to be noted is the personal allegiance of the companions to their leader, for they were bound to him with the closest ties. for the service which they rendered, the leader gave them sustenance and also reward for personal valor. they sat at his table and became his companions, and thus continually increased his power in the community. this custom represents the germ of the feudal system. the leader became the lord, the companions his vassals. when the lord became a tribal chief or king, the royal vassals became the king's thegns, or represented the nobility of the realm. the whole system was based upon service and personal allegiance. as conquest of territory was made, the land was parcelled out among the followers, who received it from the leader as allodial grants and, later, as feudal grants. the allodial grant resembled the title in fee simple, the feudal grant was made on condition of future service. the roman element of feudalism finds its representation in clientage. this was a well-known institution at the time of the contact of the romans with their invaders. the client was attached to the lord, on whom he depended for support and for representation in the community. two of the well-known feudal aids, namely, the ransom of the lord from captivity and the gift of dowry money on the marriage of his eldest daughter, are similar to the services rendered by the roman client to his lord. the personal tie of clientage resembled the personal {296} allegiance in the comitatus, with the difference that the client stood at a great distance from the patron, while in the comitatus the companions were nearly equal to their chief. the roman influence tended finally to make the wide difference which existed between the lord and vassal in feudal relations. other forms of roman usage, such as the institution of the _coloni_, or half-slaves of the soil, and the custom of granting land for use without actual ownership, seem to have influenced the development of feudalism. without doubt the roman institutions here gave form and system to feudalism, as they did in other forms of government. _the feudal system in its developed state based on land-holding_.--in the early period in france, where feudalism received its most perfect development, several methods of granting land were in vogue. first, the lands in the immediate possession of the conquered were retained by them on condition that they pay tribute to the conquerors; the wealthy romans were allowed to hold all or part of their large estates. second, many lands were granted in fee simple to the followers of the chiefs. third was the beneficiary grant, most common to feudal tenure in its developed state. by this method land was granted as a reward for services past or prospective. the last method to be named is that of commendation, by which the small holder of land needing protection gave his land to a powerful lord, who in turn regranted it to the original owner on condition that the latter became his vassal. thus the lands conquered by a chief or lord were parcelled out to his principal supporters, who in turn regranted them to those under them, so that all society was formed in a gradation of classes based on the ownership of land. each lord had his vassal, every vassal his lord. each man swore allegiance to the one next above him, and this one to his superior, until the king was reached, who himself was but a powerful feudal lord. as the other forms and functions of state life developed, feudalism became the ruling principle, from which many strove in vain to free themselves. there were in france, in the time {297} of hugh capet, according to kitchen, "about a million of souls living on and taking their names from about 70,000 separate fiefs or properties; of these about 3,000 carried titles with them. of these again, no less than a hundred were sovereign states, greater or smaller, whose lords could coin money, levy taxes, make laws, and administer their own justice."[1] thus the effect of feudal tenure was to arrange society into these small, compact social groups, each of which must really retain its power by force of arms. the method gave color to monarchy, which later became universal. _other elements of feudalism_.--prominent among the characteristics of feudalism was the existence of a close personal bond between the grantor and the receiver of an estate. the receiver did homage to the grantor in the form of oath, and also took the oath of fealty. in the former he knelt before the lord and promised to become his man on account of the land which he held, and to be faithful to him in defense of life and limb against all people. the oath of fealty was only a stronger oath of the same tenor, in which the vassal, standing before the lord, appealed to god as a witness. these two oaths, at first entirely separate, became merged into one, which passed by the name of the oath of fealty. when the lord desired to raise an army he had only to call his leading vassals, and they in turn called those under them. when he needed help to harvest his grain the vassals were called upon for service. besides the service rendered, there were feudal aids to be paid on certain occasions. the chief of these were the ransom of the lord when captured, the amount paid when the eldest son was knighted, and the dowry on the marriage of the eldest daughter. there were lesser feudal taxes called reliefs. of these the more important were the payment of a tax by the heir of a deceased vassal upon succession to property, one-half year's profit paid when a ward became of age, and the right to escheated lands of the vassal. the lord also had the right to land forfeited on account of certain heinous crimes. {298} wardship entitled the lord to the use of lands during the minority of the ward. the lord also had a right to choose a husband for the female ward at the age of fourteen; if she refused to accept the one chosen, the lord had the use of her services and property until she was twenty-one. then he could dispose of her lands as he chose and refuse consent for her to marry. these aids and reliefs made a system of slavery for serfs and vassals. _the rights of sovereignty_.--the feudal lord had the right of sovereignty over all of his own vassal domain. not only did he have military sovereignty on account of allegiance of vassals, but political sovereignty also, as he ruled the assemblies in his own way. he had legal jurisdiction, for all the courts were conducted by him or else under his jurisdiction, and this brought his own territory completely under his control as proprietor, and subordinated everything to his will. in this is found the spirit of modern absolute monarchy. _the classification of feudal society_.--in france, according to duruy, under the perfection of feudalism, the people were grouped in the following classes: first, there was a group of gallic or frankish freemen, who were obliged to give military service to the king and give aids when called upon. second, the vassals, who rendered service to those from whom they held their lands. third, the royal vassals, from whom the king usually chose his dukes and counts to lead the army or to rule over provinces and cities. fourth, the _liti_, who, like the roman _coloni_, were bound to the soil, which they cultivated as farmers, and for which they paid a small rent. finally, there were the ordinary slaves. the character of the _liti_, or _glebe_, serfs varied according to the degree of liberty with which they were privileged. they might have emancipation by charter or by the grant of the king or the church, but they were never free. the feudal custom was binding on all, and no one escaped from its control. even the clergy became feudal, there being lords and vassals within the church. yet the ministry, in their preaching, recognized the opportunity of {299} advancement, for they claimed that even a serf might become a bishop, although there was no great probability of this. _progress of feudalism_.--the development of feudalism was slow in all countries, and it varied in character in accordance with the condition of the country. in england the normans in the eleventh century found feudalism in an elementary state, and gave formality to the system. in germany feudalism was less homogeneous than in france. it lacked the symmetrical finish of the roman institutions, although it was introduced from french soil through overlordship and proceeded from the sovereign to the serf, rather than springing from the serf to the sovereign. it varied somewhat in characteristics from french feudalism, although the essentials of the system were not wanting. in the scandinavian provinces the teutonic element was too strong, and in spain and italy the romanic, to develop in these countries perfect feudalism. but in france there was a regular, progressive development. the formative period began in caesar's time and ended with the ninth century. this was followed by the period of complete domination and full power, extending to the end of the thirteenth century, at the close of which offices and benefices were in the hands of the great vassals of charles the bald. then followed a period of transformation of feudalism, which extended to the close of the sixteenth century. finally came the period of the decay of feudalism, beginning with the seventeenth century and extending to the present time. there are found now, both in europe and america, laws and usages which are vestiges of the ancient forms of feudalism, which the formal organization of the state has failed to eradicate. the autocratic practice of the feudal lord survived in the new monarch, and, except in the few cases of constitutional limitation, became imperialistic. the prussian state, built upon a military basis, exercised the rights of feudal conquest over neighboring states. after the war with austria, prussia exercised an overlordship over part of the smaller german {300} states, with a show of constitutional liberty. after the franco-prussian war of 1870, the german empire was formed, still with a show of constitutional liberty, but with the feudal idea of overlordship dominant. having feudalized the other states of germany, prussia sought to extend the feudal idea to the whole world, but was checked by the world war of 1914. _state of society under feudalism_.--in searching for the effects of feudalism on human progress, the family deserves our first consideration. the wife of the feudal lord and her equal associates were placed on a higher plane. the family in no wise represented the ancient patriarchal family nor the modern family. the head of the family stood alone, independent of every form of government. he was absolute proprietor of himself and of all positions under him. he was neither magistrate, priest, nor king, nor subordinate to any system except as he permitted. his position developed arbitrary power and made him proud and aristocratic. with a few members of his family, he lived in his castle, far removed from serfs and vassals. he spent his life alternately in feats of arms or in systematic idleness. away from home much of the time, fighting to defend his castle or obtain new territory, or engaging in hunting, while the wife and mother cared for the home, he developed strength and power. it was in the feudal family that woman obtained her position of honor and power in the home. it was this position that developed the chivalry of the middle ages. the improvement of domestic manners and the preponderance of home society among the few produced the moral qualities of the home. coupled with this was the idea of nobility on one side, and the idea of inheritance on the other, which had a tendency to unify the family under one defender and to perpetuate the right and title to property of future generations. it was that benign spirit which comes from the household in more modern life, giving strength and permanence to character. while there was a relation of common interest between the {301} villagers clustered around the feudal castle, the union was not sufficient to make a compact organization. their rights were not common, as there was a recognized superiority on one hand and a recognized inferiority on the other. this grew into a common hatred of the lower classes for the upper, which has been a thousand times detrimental to human progress. the little group of people had their own church, their own society. those who had a fellow-feeling for them had much influence directly, but not in bridging over the chasm between them and the feudal lord. feudalism gave every man a place, but developed the inequalities of humanity to such an extent that it could not be lasting as a system. society became irregular, in which extreme aristocracy was divorced from extreme democracy. relief came slowly, through the development of monarchy and the citizenship of the modern state. it was a rude attempt to find the secret of social organization. the spirit of revolt of the oppressed lived on suppressed by a galling tyranny. to maintain his position as proprietor of the soil and ruler over a class of people treated as serfs required careful diplomacy on the part of the lord, or else intolerant despotism. he usually chose the latter, and sought to secure his power by force of arms. he cared little for the wants or needs of his people. he did not associate with them on terms of equality, and only came in contact with them as a master meets a servant. consulting his own selfish interest, he made his rule despotic, and all opposition was suppressed with a high hand. the only check upon this despotism was the warlike attitude of other similar despotic lords, who always sought to advance their own interests by the force of arms. feudalism in form of government was the antithesis of imperialism, yet in effect something the same. it substituted a horde of petty despots for one and it developed a petty local tyranny in the place of a general despotism. _lack of central authority in feudal society_.--so many feudal lords, each master of his own domain, contending with one {302} another for the mastery, each resting his course on the hereditary gift of his ancestors, or, more probably, on his force of armed men and the strength of his castle, made it impossible that there should be any recognized authority in government, or any legal determination of the rights of the ruler and his subjects. feudal law was the law of force; feudal justice the right of might. among all of these feudal lords there was not one to force by will all others into submission, and thus create a central authority. there was no permanent legislative body, no permanent judicial machinery, no standing army, no uniform and regular system of taxation. there could be no guaranty to permanent political power under such circumstances. there was little progress in social order under the rule of feudalism. although we recognize that it was an essential form of government necessary to control the excesses of individualism; although we realize that a monarchy was impossible until it was created by an evolutionary process, that a republic could not exist under the irregularity of political forces, yet it must be maintained that social progress did not exist under the feudal rã©gime. there was no unity of social action, no co-operation of classes in government. the line between the governed and the governing, though clearly marked at times, was an irregular, wavering line. outside of the family life--which was limited in scope--and of the power of the church--which failed to unify society--there was no vital social growth. _individual development in the dominant group_.--feudalism established a strong individualism among leaders, a strong personality based on sterling intellectual qualities. it is evident that this excessive individual development became very prominent in the later evolution of social order, and is recognized as a gain in social advancement. individual culture is essential to social advancement. to develop strong, independent, self-reliant individuals might tend to produce anarchy rather than social order, yet it must eventually lead to the latter; and so it proved in the case of feudalism, for its very {303} chaotic state brought about, as a necessity, social order. but it came about through survival of the fittest, in conquest and defense. nor did the most worthy always succeed, but rather those who had the greatest power in ruthless conquest. unity came about through the unbridled exercise of the predatory spirit, accompanied by power to take and to hold. this chaotic state of individualistic people was the means of bringing about an improvement in intellectual development. the strong individual character with position and leisure becomes strong intellectually in planning defense and in meditating upon the philosophy of life. the notes of song and of literature came from the feudal times. the determination of the mind to intellectual pursuits appeared in the feudal rã©gime, and individual culture and independent intellectual life, though of the few and at the expense of the majority, were among the important contributions to civilization. subjects for further study 1. what was the basis of feudal society? 2. what elements of feudalism were roman and what teutonic? 3. what service did feudalism render civilization? 4. show that feudalism was transition from empire to modern nationality. 5. how did feudal lords obtain titles to their land? give examples. 6. what survivals of feudalism may be observed in modern governments? 7. when king john of england wrote after his signature "king of _england_," what was its significance? 8. how did feudalism determine the character of monarchy in modern nations? [1] _history of france_. {304} chapter xix arabian conquest and culture the dissemination of knowledge, customs, habits, and laws from common centres of culture has been greatly augmented by population movements or migrations, by great empires established, by wars of conquest, and systems of intercommunication and transportation. the babylonian, assyrian, persian, alexandrian, and roman empires are striking examples of the diffusion of knowledge and the spread of ideas over different geographical boundaries and through tribal and national organizations; and, indeed, the contact of the barbarian hordes with improved systems of culture was but a process of interchange and intermingling of qualities of strength and vigor with the conventionalized forms of human society. one of the most remarkable movements was that of the rise and expansion of the arabian empire, which was centred about religious ideals of mohammed and the koran. having accepted the idea of one god universal, which had been so strongly emphasized by the hebrews, and having accepted in part the doctrine of the teachings of jesus regarding the brotherhood of man, mohammed was able through the mysticism of his teaching, in the koran, to excite his followers to a wild fanaticism. nor did his successors hesitate to use force, for most of their conquests were accomplished by the power of the sword. at any rate, nation after nation was forced to bow to mohammedanism and the koran, in a spectacular whirlwind of conquest such as the world had not previously known. it is remarkable that after the decline of the old semitic civilization, as exhibited in the babylonian and assyrian empires, the practical extinction of the phoenicians, the conquest of jerusalem, and the spread of the jews over the whole world, there should have risen a new semitic movement to disrupt {305} and disorganize the world. it is interesting to note in this connection, also, that wherever the arabs went they came in contact with learned jews of high mentality, who co-operated with them in advancing learning. _the rise and expansion of the arabian empire_.--mohammedanism, which arose in the beginning of the seventh century, spread rapidly over the east and through northern africa, and extended into spain. all arabia was converted to the koran, and persia and egypt soon after came under its influence. in the period 623-640, syria was conquered by the mohammedans, upper asia in 707, and spain in 711. they established a great caliphate, extending from beyond the euphrates through egypt and northern africa to the pyrenees in spain. they burned the great library at alexandria, founded by ptolemy, destroying the manuscripts and books in a relentless zeal to blot out all vestiges of christian learning. in their passage westward they mingled with the moors of northern africa, whom they had subdued after various struggles, the last one ending in 709. in this year they crossed the strait of gibraltar and encountered the barbarians of the north. the visigothic monarchy was in a ruined condition. frequent internal quarrels had led to the dismemberment of the government and the decay of all fortifications, hence there was little organized resistance to the incoming of the arabs. all spain, except in the far north in the mountains of the asturias, was quickly reduced to the sway of the arabs. they crossed the pyrenees, and the broad territory of gaul opened before them, awaiting their conquest. but on the plains between tours and poitiers they met charles martel with a strong army, who turned the tide of invasion back upon itself and set the limits of mohammedan dominion in europe. in the tenth century the great arabian empire began to disintegrate. one after another of the great caliphates declined. the caliphate of bagdad, which had existed so long in oriental splendor, was first dismembered by the loss of africa. the fatimate caliphate of northern africa next lost its power, {306} and the caliphate of cordova, in spain, brilliant in its ascendancy, followed the course of the other two. the arabian conquest of spain left the country in a state of tolerable freedom, but cordova, like the others, was doomed to be destroyed by anarchy and confusion. all the principal cities became in the early part of the eleventh century independent principalities. thus the mohammedan conquest, which built an extensive arabian empire, ruling first in asia, then africa, and finally europe, spreading abroad with sudden and irresistible expansion, suddenly declined through internal dissensions and decay, having lasted but a few centuries. the peculiar tribal nature of the arabian social order had not developed a strong central organization, nor permitted the practice of organized political effort on a large scale, so that the sudden transition from the small tribe, with its peculiar government, to that of the organization and management of a great empire was sufficient to cause the disintegration and downfall of the empire. so far as political power was concerned, the passion for conquest was the great impelling motive of the mohammedans. _the religious zeal of the arab-moors_.--the central idea of the mohammedan conquest seems to have been a sort of religious zeal or fanaticism. the whole history of their conquest shows a continual strife to propagate their religious doctrine. the arabians were a sober people, of vivid imagination and excessive idealism, with religious natures of a lofty and peculiar character. their religious life in itself was awe-inspiring. originally dwelling on the plains of arabia, where nature manifested itself in strong characteristics, living in one sense a narrow life, the imagination had its full play, and the mystery of life had centred in a sort of wisdom and lore, which had accumulated through long generations of reflection. there always dwelt in the minds of this branch of the semitic people a conception of the unity of god, and when the revelation of god came to them through mohammed, when they realized "allah is allah, and mohammed is his prophet," they were swept entirely away by this religious conception. when once {307} this idea took firm hold upon the arabian mind, it remained there a permanent part of life. under military organization the conquest was rapidly extended over surrounding disintegrated tribes, and the strong unity of government built on the basis of religious zeal. so strong was this religious zeal that it dominated their entire life. it turned a reflective and imaginative people, who had sought out the hidden mysteries of life by the acuteness of their own perception, to base their entire operations upon faith. faith dominated the reason to such an extent that the deep and permanent foundations of progress could not be laid, and the vast opportunities granted to them by position and conquest gradually declined for the lack of vital principles of social order. not only had the arabians laid the foundations of culture and learning through their own evolution, but they had borrowed much from other oriental countries. their contact with learning of the far east, of palestine, of egypt, of the greeks, and of the italians, had given them an opportunity to absorb most of the elements of ancient culture. having borrowed these products, they were able to combine them and use them in building an empire of learning in spain. if their own subtle genius was not wanting in the combination of the knowledge of the ancients, and in its use in building up a system, neither lacked they in original conception, and on the early foundation they built up a superstructure of original knowledge. they advanced learning in various forms, and furnished means for the advancement of civilization in the west. _the foundations of science and art_.--in the old caliphates of bagdad and damascus there had developed great interest in learning. the foundation of this knowledge, as has been related, was derived from the greeks and the orientals. it is true that the koran, which had been accepted by them as gospel and law, had aroused and inspired the arabian mind to greater desires for knowledge. their knowledge, however, could not be set by the limitations of the koran, and the desire {308} for achievement in learning was so great that scarcely a century had passed after the burning of the libraries of alexandria before all branches of knowledge were eagerly cultivated by the arabians. they ran a rapid course from the predominance of physical strength and courage, through blind adherence to faith, to the position of superior learning. the time soon came when the scholar was as much revered as the warrior. in every conquered country the first duty of the conquerors was to build a mosque in which allah might be worshipped and his prophet honored. attached to this mosque was a school, where people were first taught to read and write and study the koran. from this initial point they enlarged the study of science, literature, and art, which they pursued with great eagerness. through the appreciation of these things they collected the treasures of art and learning wherever they could be found, and, dwelling upon these, they obtained the results of the culture of other nations and other generations. from imitation they passed to the field of creation, and advances were made in the contributions to the sum of human knowledge. in spain schools were founded, great universities established, and libraries built which laid the permanent foundation of knowledge and art and enabled the arab-moors to advance in science, art, invention, and discovery. _the beginnings of chemistry and medicine_.--in chemistry the careful study of the elements of substances and the agents in composition was pursued by the arab-moors in spain, but it must be remembered that the chemistry of their day is now known as alchemy. chemistry then was in its formative period and not a science as viewed in the modern sense. yet when we consider that the science of modern chemistry is but a little over a century old, we find the achievements of the arabians in their own time, as compared with the changes which took place in the following seven centuries, to be worthy of note. in the eleventh century a philosopher named geber knew the chemical affinities of quicksilver, tin, lead, copper, iron, {309} gold, and silver, and to each one was given a name of the planet which was supposed to have special influence over it. thus silver was named for the moon, gold for the sun, copper for venus, tin for jupiter, iron for vulcan, quicksilver for mercury, and lead for saturn. the influences of the elements were supposed to be similar to the influence of the heavenly bodies over men. this same chemist was acquainted with oxidizing and calcining processes, and knew methods of obtaining soda and potash salts, and the properties of saltpetre. also nitric acid was obtained from the nitrate of potassium. these and other similar examples represent something of the achievements of the arabians in chemical knowledge. still, their lack of knowledge is shown in their continued search for the philosopher's stone and the attempt to create the precious metals. the art of medicine was practised to a large extent in the orient, and this knowledge was transferred to spain. the entire knowledge of these early physicians, however, was limited to the superficial diagnosis of cases and to a knowledge of medicinal plants. by the very law of their religion, anatomy was forbidden to them, and, indeed, the arabians had a superstitious horror of dissection. by ignorance of anatomy their practice of surgery was very imperfect. but their physicians, nevertheless, became renowned throughout the world by their use of medicines and by their wonderful cures. they plainly led the world in the art of healing. it is true their superstition and their astrology constantly interfered with their better judgment in many things, but notwithstanding these drawbacks they were enabled to develop great interest in the study of medicine and to accomplish a great work in the advancement of the science. in _al makkari_ it is stated "that disease could be more effectively checked by diet than by medicine, and that when medicine became necessary, simples were far preferable to compound medicaments, and when these latter were required, as few drugs as possible ought to enter into their composition." this exhibits the thoughtful reflection that was {310} given to the administration of drugs in this early period, and might prove a lesson to many a modern physician. toward the close of their career, the arabian doctors began the practice of dissecting and the closer study of anatomy and physiology, which added much to the power of the science. yet they still believed in the "elixir of life," and tried to work miracle cures, which in many respects may have been successful. it is a question whether they went any farther into the practice of miracle cures than the quacks and charlatans and faith doctors of modern times have gone. the influence of their study of medicine was seen in the great universities, and especially in the foundation of the university at salerno at a later time, which was largely under the arabian influence. _metaphysics and exact science_.--it would seem that the arab-moors were well calculated to develop psychological science. their minds seemed to be in a special measure metaphysical. they laid the foundation of their metaphysical speculations on the philosophy of the greeks, particularly that of aristotle, but later they attempted to develop originality, although they succeeded in doing little more, as a rule, than borrowing from others. in the early period of arabian development the koran stood in the way of any advancement in philosophy. it was only at intervals that philosophy could gain any advancement. indeed, the philosophers were driven away from their homes, but they carried with them many followers into a larger field. the long list of philosophers who, after the manner of the greeks, each attempted to develop his own separate system, might be mentioned, showing the zeal with which they carried on inquiry into metaphysical science. as may be supposed, they added little to the sum of human knowledge, but developed a degree of culture by their philosophical speculations. but it is in the exact sciences that the arabs seem to have met with the greatest success. the arabic numerals, probably brought from india to bagdad, led to a new and larger use of arithmetic. the decimal system and the art of figures were {311} introduced into spain in the ninth century, and gave great advancement in learning. but, strange to relate, these numerals, though used so early by the arabs in spain, were not common in germany until the fifteenth century. the importance of their use cannot be overestimated, for by means of them the arabians easily led the world in astronomy, mechanics, and mathematics. the science of algebra is generally attributed to the arabians. its name is derived from gabara, to bind parts together, and yet the origin of this science is not certain. it is thought that the arabs derived their knowledge from the greeks, but in all probability algebra had its first origin among the philosophers of india. the arabians used geometry, although they added little to its advancement. geometry had reached at this period an advanced stage of progress in the problems of euclid. it was to the honor of the arabians that they were the first of any of the western peoples to translate euclid and use it, for it was not until the sixteenth century that it was freely translated into the modern languages. but in trigonometry the arabians, by the introduction of the use of the sine, or half-chord, of the double arc in the place of the arc itself, made great advancement, especially in the calculations of surveying and astronomy. in the universities and colleges of spain under arabian dominion we find, then, that students had an opportunity of mastering nearly all of the useful elementary mathematics. great attention was paid to the study of astronomy. here, as before, they used the greek knowledge, but they advanced the study of the science greatly by the introduction of instruments, such as those for measuring time by the movement of the pendulum and the measurement of the heavenly bodies by the astrolabe. likewise they employed the word "azimuth" and many other terms which show a more definite knowledge of the relation of the heavenly bodies. they were enabled, also, to {312} measure approximately a degree of latitude. they knew that the earth was of spheroid form. but we find astrology accompanying all this knowledge of astronomy. while the exact knowledge of the heavenly bodies had been developed to a certain degree, the science of star influence, or astrology, was cultivated to a still greater extent. thus they sought to show the control of mind forces on earth, and, indeed, of all natural forces by the heavenly bodies. this placed mystical lore in the front rank of their philosophical speculations. _geography and history_.--in the study of the earth the arabians showed themselves to be practical and accurate geographers. they applied their mathematical and astronomical knowledge to the study of the earth, and thus gave an impulse to exploration. while their theories of the origin of the earth were crude and untenable, their practical writings on the subject derived from real knowledge, and the practical instruction in schools by the use of globes and maps, were of immense practical value. their history was made up chiefly of the histories of cities and the lives of prominent men. there was no national history of the rise and development of the arabian kingdom, for historical writing and study were in an undeveloped state. _discoveries, inventions, and achievements_.--it cannot be successfully claimed that the arabians exhibited very much originality in the advancement of the civilized arts, yet they had the ability to take what they found elsewhere developed by other scholars, improve upon it, and apply it to the practical affairs of life. thus, although the chinese discovered gunpowder over 3,000 years ago, it remained for the arabs to bring it into use in the siege of mecca in the year 690, and introduce it into spain some years later. the persians called it chinese salt, the arabians indian snow, indicating that it might have originated in different countries. the arab-moors used it in their wars with the christians as early as the middle of the thirteenth century. they excelled also in making paper from flax, or cotton, which was probably an imitation {313} of the paper made by the chinese from silk. we find also that the arabs had learned to print from movable type, and the introduction of paper made the printing-press possible. linen paper made from old clothes was said to be in use as early as 1106. without doubt the arab-moors introduced into spain the use of the magnet in connection with the mariner's compass. but owing to the fact that it was not needed in the short voyages along the coast of the mediterranean, it did not come into a large use until the great voyages on the ocean, in the beginning of the fourteenth century. yet the invention of the mariner's compass, so frequently attributed to flavio giorgio, may be as well attributed to the arab-moors. knives and swords of superior make, leather, silk, and glass, as well as large collections of delicate jewelry, show marked advancement in arabian industrial art and mechanical skill. one of the achievements of the arab-moors in spain was the introduction of agriculture, and its advancement to an important position among the industries by means of irrigation. the great, fertile valleys of spain were thus, through agricultural skill, made "to blossom as the rose." seeds were imported from different parts of the world, and much attention was given to the culture of all plants which could be readily raised in this country. rice and cotton and sugar-cane were cultivated through the process of irrigation. thus spain was indebted to the arab-moors not only for the introduction of industrial arts and skilled mechanics, but the establishment of agriculture on a firm foundation. _language and literature_.--the language of the arabians is said to be peculiarly rich in synonyms. for instance, it is said there are 1,000 expressions for the word "camel," and the same number for the word "sword," while there are 4,000 for the word "misfortune." very few remnants of the arabic remain in the modern european languages. quite a number of words in the spanish language, fewer in english and in {314} other modern languages, are the only remnants of the use of this highly developed arabian speech. it represents the southern branch of the semitic language, and is closely related to the hebrew and the aramaic. the unity and compactness of the language are very much in evidence. coming little in contact with other languages, it remained somewhat exclusive, and retained its original form. when it came into spain the arabic language reigned almost supreme, on account of the special domination of arabic influences. far in the north of spain, however, among the christians who had adopted the low latin, was the formation of the spanish language. the hatred of the spaniards for the arabs led these people to refuse to use the language of the conquerors. nevertheless, the arabic had some influence in the formation of the spanish language. the isolated geographic terms, and especial names of things, as well as idioms of speech, show still that the arabian influence may be traced in the spanish language. in literature the arabians had a marked development. the arabian poetry, though light in its character, became prominent. there were among these arabians in spain ardent and ready writers, with fertile fancy and lively perception, who recited their songs to eager listeners. the poet became a universal teacher. he went about from place to place singing his songs, and the troubadours of the south of france received in later years much of their impulse indirectly from the arabic poets. while the poetry was not of a high order, it was wide-reaching in its influence, and extended in later days to italy, sicily, and southern france, and had a quickening influence in the development of the light songs of the troubadours. the influence of this lighter literature through italy, sicily, and southern france on the literature of europe and of england in later periods is well marked by the historians. in the great schools rhetoric and grammar were also taught to a considerable extent. in the universities these formed one of the great branches of special culture. we find, then, on the linguistic {315} side that the arabians accomplished a great deal in the advancement of the language and literature of europe. _art and architecture_.--perhaps the arabians in spain are known more by their architecture than any other phase of their culture. not that there was anything especially original in it, except in the combination which they made of the architecture of other nations. in the building of their great mosques, like that of cordova and of the alhambra, they perpetuated the magnificence and splendor of the east. even the actual materials with which they constructed these magnificent buildings were obtained from greece and the orient, and placed in their positions in a new combination. the great original feature of the mooresque architecture is found in the famous horseshoe arch, which was used so extensively in their mosques and palaces. it represented the roman arch, slightly bent into the form of a horseshoe. yet from architectural strength it must be considered that the real support resting on the pillar was merely the half-circle of the roman arch, while the horseshoe was a continuation for ornamental purposes. the arab-moors were forbidden the use of sculpture, which they never practised, and hence the artistic features were limited to architectural and art decorations. many of the interior decorations of the walls of these great buildings show advanced skill. upon the whole, their buildings are remarkable mainly in the perpetuation of oriental architecture rather than in the development of any originality except in skill of decoration and combination. _the government of the arab-moors was peculiarly centralized_.--the caliph was at the head as an absolute monarch. he appointed viceroys in the different provinces for their control. the only thing that limited the actual power of the caliph was the fact that he was a theocratic governor. otherwise he was supreme in power. there was no constitutional government, and, indeed, but little precedent in law. the government depended somewhat upon the whims and caprices {316} of a single individual. it was said that in the beginning the caliph was elected by the people, but in a later period the office became hereditary. it is true the caliph, who was called the "vicar of god," or "the shadow of god," had his various ministers appointed from the wise men to carry out his will. yet, such was the power of the people what when in spain they were displeased with the rulings of the judges, they would pelt the officers or storm the palace, thus in a way limiting the power of these absolute rulers. the government, however, was in a precarious condition. there could be nothing permanent under such a rã©gime, for permanency of government is necessary to the advancement of civilization. the government was non-progressive. it allowed no freedom of the people and gave no incentive to advancement, and it was a detriment many times to the progressive spirit. closely connected with a religion which in itself was non-progressive, we find limitations set upon the advancement of the civilization of the arab-moors in spain. _arabian civilization soon reached its limits_.--one views with wonder and astonishment the brilliant achievements of the arabian civilization, extending from the tagus to the indus. but brilliant as it was, one is impressed at every turn with the instability of the civilization and with its peculiar limitations. it reached its culmination long before the christian conquest. what the arabians have given to the european world was formulated rapidly and given quickly, and the results were left to be used by a more slowly developing people, who rested their civilization upon a permanent basis. much stress has been laid by mr. draper and others upon the great civilization of the arabians, comparing it favorably with the civilization of christian europe. but it must be remembered that the arab-moors, especially in spain, had come so directly in contact with oriental nations that they were enabled to borrow and utilize for a time the elements of civilization advanced by these more mature peoples. however, built as it was upon borrowed materials, the structure once completed, {317} there was no opportunity for growth or original development. it reached its culmination, and would have progressed no further in spain, even had not the christians under ferdinand and isabella conquered the arab-moors and eventually overcome and destroyed their civilization. in this conquest, in which the two leading faiths of the western world were fighting for supremacy, doubtless the christian world could not fully appreciate what the arab-moors accomplished, nor estimate their value to the economic system of spain. subsequent facts of history show that, the christian religion once having a dominant power in spain, the church became less liberal in its views and its rule than that exhibited by the government of the arab-moors. admitting that the spirit of liberty had burst forth in old asturias, a seat of nordic culture, it soon became obscure in the arbitrary domination of monarchy, and of the church through the instrumentality of torquemada and the inquisition. nevertheless, the civilization of the arab-moors cannot be pictured as an ideal one, because it was lacking in the fundamentals of continuous progress. knowledge had not yet become widely disseminated, nor truth free enough to arouse vigorous qualities of life which make for permanency in civilization. with all of its borrowed art and learning and its adaptation to new conditions, still the civilization was sufficiently non-progressive to be unsuited to carry the burden of the development of the human race. nevertheless, in the contemplation of human progress, the arab-moors of spain are deserving of attention because of their universities and their studies, which influenced other parts of mediaeval europe at a time when they were breaking away from scholastic philosophy and assuming a scientific attitude of mind. subjects for further study 1. what contributions to art and architecture did the arab-moors make in spain? 2. the nature of their government. {318} 3. how did their religion differ from the christian religion in principle and in practice? 4. the educational contribution of the universities of the arab-moors. 5. what contributions to science and learning came from the arabian civilization? 6. why and by whom were the arab-moors driven from spain? what were the economic and political results? 7. what was the influence of the arabs on european civilization? {319} chapter xx the crusades stir the european mind _what brought about the crusades_.--we have learned from the former chapters that the arabs had spread their empire from the euphrates to the strait of gibraltar, and that the christian and mohammedan religions had compassed and absorbed the entire religious life over this whole territory. as christianity had become the great reforming religion of the western part of europe, so mohammedanism had become the reforming religion of asia. the latter was more exacting in its demands and more absolute in its sway than the former, spreading its doctrines mainly by force, while the former sought more to extend its doctrine by a leavening process. nevertheless, when the two came in contact, a fierce struggle for supremacy ensued. the meteorlike rise of mohammedanism had created consternation and alarm in the christian world as early as the eighth century. there sprang up not only fear of islamism, but a hatred of its followers. after the arabian empire had become fully established, there arose to the northeast of bagdad, the moslem capital, a number of turkish tribes that were among the more recent converts to mohammedanism. apparently they took the mohammedan religion as embodied in the koran literally and fanatically, and, considering nothing beyond these, sought to propagate the doctrine through conquest by sword. they are frequently known as seljuks. it is to the credit of the arabs, whether in mesopotamia, africa, or spain, that their minds reached beyond the koran into the wider ranges of knowledge, a fact which tempered their fanatical zeal, but the seljuk turks swept forward with their armies until they conquered the byzantine empire of the east, the last branch of the great roman empire. they had also conquered jerusalem and {320} taken possession of the holy sepulchre, to which pilgrimages of christians were made annually, and aroused the righteous indignation of the christians of the western world. the ostensible purpose of the crusades was to free palestine, the oppressed christians, and the holy sepulchre from the domination of the turks. it must be remembered that the period of the middle ages was represented by fancies and theories and an evanescent idealism which controlled the movements of the people to a large extent. born of religious sentiment, there dwelt in the minds of christian people a reverence for the land of the birth of christ, to which pilgrims passed every year to show their adoration for the saviour and patriotism for the land of his birth. these pilgrims were interfered with by the mohammedans and especially by the seljuk turks. the turks in their blind zeal for mohammedanism could see nothing in the christian belief worthy of respect or even civil treatment. the persecution of christians awakened the sympathy of all europe and filled the minds of people with resentment against the occupation of jerusalem by the turks. this is one of the earliest indications of the development of religious toleration, which heralded the development of a feeling that people should worship whom they pleased unmolested, though it was like a voice crying in the wilderness, for many centuries passed before religious toleration could be acknowledged. there were other considerations which made occasion for the crusades. gregory vii preached a crusade to protect constantinople and unify the church under one head. but trouble with henry iv of germany caused him to abandon the enterprise. there still dwelt in the minds of the people an ideal monarchy, as represented by the roman empire. it was considered the type of all good government, the one expression of the unity of all people. many dreamed of the return of this empire to its full temporal sway. it was a species of idealism which lived on through the middle ages long after the {321} western empire had passed into virtual decay. in connection with this idea of a universal empire controlling the whole world was the idea of a universal religion which should unite all religious bodies under one common organization. the centre of this organization was to be the papal authority at rome. there dwelt then in the minds of all ecclesiastics this common desire for the unity of all religious people in one body regardless of national boundaries. and it must be said that these two ideas had much to do with giving europe unity of thought and sentiment. disintegrated as it was, deflected and disturbed by a hundred forces, thoughts of a common religion and of universal empire nevertheless had much to do to harmonize and unify the people of europe. hence, it was when urban ii, who had inherited all of the great religious improvements instituted by gregory vii, preached a crusade to protect constantinople, on the one hand, and to deliver jerusalem, on the other, and made enthusiastic inflammatory speeches, that europe awoke like an electric flash. peter the hermit, on the occasion of the first crusade, was employed to travel throughout europe to arouse enthusiasm in the minds of the people. the crusades so suddenly inaugurated extended over a period of nearly two hundred years, in which all europe was in a restless condition. the feudal life which had settled down and crystallized all forms of human society throughout europe had failed to give that variety and excitement which it entertained in former days. thousands of knights in every nation were longing for the battle-field. many who thought life at home not worth living, and other thousands of people seeking opportunities for change, sought diversion abroad. all europe was ready to exclaim "god wills it!" and "on to jerusalem!" to defend the holy city against the turk. _specific causes of the crusades_.--if we examine more specifically into the real causes of the crusades we shall find, as mr. guizot has said, that there were two causes, the one moral, the other social. the moral cause is represented in the {322} desire to relieve suffering humanity and fight against the injustice of the turks. both the mohammedan and the christian, the two most modern of all great religions, were placed upon a moral basis. morality was one of the chief phases of both religions; yet they had different conceptions of morality, and no toleration for each other. although prior to the turkish invasion the mohammedans, through policy, had tolerated the visitations of the christians, the two classes of believers had never gained much respect for each other, and after the turkish invasion the enmity between them became intense. it was the struggle of these two systems of moral order that was the great occasion and one of the causes of the crusades. the social cause, however, was that already referred to--the desire of individuals for a change from the monotony which had settled down over europe under the feudal rã©gime. it was the mind of man, the enthusiasm of the individual, over-leaping the narrow bounds of his surroundings, and looking for fields of exploitation and new opportunities for action. the social cause represents, then, the spontaneous outburst of long-pent-up desires, a return to the freedom of earlier years, when wandering and plundering were among the chief occupations of the teutonic tribes. to state the causes more specifically, perhaps it may be said that the ambition of temporal and spiritual princes and the feudal aristocracy for power, the general poverty of the community on account of overpopulation leading the multitudes to seek relief through change, and a distinct passion for pilgrimages were influential in precipitating this movement. _unification of ideals and the breaking of feudalism_.--it is to be observed that the herald of the crusades thrilled all europe, and that, on the basis of ideals of empire and church, there were a common sentiment or feeling and a common ground for action. all europe soon placed itself on a common plane in the interest of a common cause. at first it would seem that this universal movement would have tended to {323} develop a unity of western nations. to the extent of breaking down formal custom, destroying the sterner aspects of feudalism, and levelling the barriers of classes, it was a unifier of european thought and life. but a more careful consideration reveals the fact that although all groups and classes of people ranged themselves on one side of the great and common cause, the effect was not merely to break down feudalism but, in addition, to build up nationality. there was a tendency toward national unity. the crusades in the latter part of the period became national affairs, rather than universal or european affairs, even though the old spirit of feudalism, whereby each individual followed by his own group of retainers sought his own power and prestige, still remained. the expansion of this spirit to larger groups invoked the national spirit and national life. while, in the beginning, the papacy and the church were all-powerful in their controlling influence on the crusades, in the later period we find different nationalities, especially england, france, and germany, struggling for predominance, the french nation being more strongly represented than any other. among the important results of the crusades, then, were the breaking down of feudalism and the building up of national life. the causes of this result are evident. many of the nobility were slain in battle or perished through famine and suffering, or else had taken up their abode under the new government that had been established at jerusalem. this left a larger sway to those who were at home in the management of the affairs of the territory. moreover, in the later period, the stronger national lines had been developed, which caused the subordination of the weaker feudal lords to the more powerful. many, too, of the strong feudal lords had lost their wealth, as well as their position, in carrying on the expenses of the crusades. there was, consequently, the beginning of the remaking of all europe upon a national basis. first, the enlarged ideas of life broke the bounds of feudalism; second, the failure to unite the nations in the common sentiment of a western {324} empire had left the political forces to cluster around new nationalities which sprang up in different sections of europe. _the development of monarchy_.--the result of this centralization was to develop monarchy, an institution which became universal in the process of the development of government in europe. it became the essential form of government and the type of national unity. through no other known process of the time could the chaotic state of the feudal rã©gime be reduced to a system. constitutional liberty could not have survived under these conditions. the monarchy was not only a permanent form of government, but it was possessed of great flexibility, and could adapt itself to almost any conditions of the social life. while it may, primarily, have rested on force and the predominance of power of certain individuals, in a secondary sense it represented not only the unity of the race from which it had gained great strength, but also the moral power of the tribe, as the expression of their will and sentiments of justice and righteousness. it is true that it drew a sharp line between the governing and the governed; it made the one all-powerful and the other all-subordinate; yet in many instances the one man represented the collective will of the people, and through him and his administration centred the wisdom of a nation. among the teutonic peoples, too, there was something more than sentiment in this form of government. it was an old custom that the barbarian monarch was elected by the people and represented them; and whether he came through hereditary rank, from choice of nobles, or from the election of the people, this idea of monarchy was never lost sight of in europe in the earliest stages of existence, and it was perverted to a great extent only by the louis's of france and the stuarts of england, in the modern era. monarchy, then, as an institution, was advanced by the crusades; for a national life was developed and centralization took place, the king expressed the unity of it all, and so everywhere throughout europe it became the universal type. {325} _the crusades quickened intellectual development_.--the intense activity of europe in a common cause could not do otherwise than stimulate intellectual life. in a measure, it was an emancipation of mind, the establishment of large and liberal ideas. this freedom of the mind arose, not so much from any product of thought contributed by the orientals to the christians, although in truth the former were in many ways far more cultured than the latter, but rather from the development which comes from observation and travel. a habit of observing the manners and customs, the government, the laws, the life of different nations, and the action and reaction of the different elements of human life, tended to develop intellectual activity. both greek and mohammedan had their influence on the minds of those with whom they came in contact, and christians returned to their former homes possessed of new information and new ideas, and quickened with new impulses. the crusades also furnished material for poetic imagination and for literary products. it was the development of the old saga hero under new conditions, those of christianity and humanity, and this led to greater and more profound sentiments concerning life. the crusades also took men out from their narrow surroundings and the belief that the christian religion, supported by the monasteries, or cloisters, embodied all that was worth living in this life and a preparation for a passage into a newer, happier future life beyond. humanity, according to the doctrine of the church, had not been worth the attention of the thoughtful. life, as life, was not worth living. but the mingling of humanity on a broader basis and under new circumstances quickened the thoughts and sentiments of man in favor of his fellows. it gave an enlarged view of the life of man as a human creature. there was a thought engendered, feeble though it was at first, that the life on earth was really important and that it could be enlarged and broadened in many ways, and hence it was worth saving here for its own sake. the culmination of this idea appeared in the period of the renaissance, a century later. {326} _the commercial effects of the crusades_.--a new opportunity for trade was offered, luxuries were imported from the east in exchange for money or for minerals and fish of the west. cotton, wine, dyestuffs, glassware, grain, spice, fruits, silk, and jewelry, as well as weapons and horses, came pouring in from the orient to enlarge and enrich the life of the europeans. for, with all the noble spirit manifested in government and in social life, western europe was semibarbaric in the meagreness of the articles of material wealth there represented. the italian cities, seizing the opportunity of the contact of the west with the east, developed a surprising trade with the oriental cities and with the northwest of europe, and thus enhanced their power.[1] from this impulse of trade that carried on commerce with the orient largely through the italian cities, there sprang up a group of hanse towns in the north of europe. from a financial standpoint we find that money was brought into use and became from this time on a necessity. money-lending became a business, and those who had treasure instead of keeping it lying idle and unfruitful were now able to develop wealth, not only for the borrower but also for the lender. this tended to increase the rapid movement of wealth and to stimulate productive industry and trade in every direction. _general influence of the crusades on civilization_.--we see, then, that it mattered little whether jerusalem was taken by the turks or the christians, or whether thousands of christians lost their lives in a great and holy cause, or whether the mohammedans triumphed or were defeated at jerusalem--the great result of the crusades was one of education of the people of europe. the boundaries of life were enlarged, the power of thought increased, the opportunities for doing and living multiplied. it was the breaking away from the narrow shell of its own existence to the newly discovered life of the orient that gave europe its first impulse toward a larger life. and to this extent the crusades may be said to have been a {327} great civilizer. many regard them as merely accidental phenomena difficult to explain, and yet, by tracing the various unobserved influences at work in their preparation, we shall see it was merely one phase of a great transitional movement in the progress of human life, just as we have seen that the feudal system was transitional between one form of government and another. the influence of the crusades on civilization was immense in giving it an impulse forward. under the general intellectual awakening, commercial enterprise was quickened, industry developed, and new ideas of government and art obtained. the boundaries of christian influences were extended and new nationalities were strengthened. feudalism was undermined by means of the consolidation of fiefs, the association of lord and vassal, the introduction of a new military system, the transfer of estates, and the promotion of the study and use of roman jurisprudence. ecclesiasticism was greatly strengthened at rome, through the power of the pope and the authority of his legates, the development of monastic orders, by the introduction of force and the use of the engine of excommunication. but something was gained for the common people, for serfs could be readily emancipated and there was a freer movement among all people. ideas of equality began to be disseminated, which had their effect on the relation of affairs. upon the whole it may be stated in conclusion that the emancipation of the mind had begun. subjects for further study 1. show how the crusades helped to break down feudalism and prepare for monarchy. 2. what intellectual benefit were the crusades to europe? 3. were there humanitarian and democratic elements of progress in the crusades? 4. what was the effect of the crusades on the power of the church? 5. what was the general influence of the crusades on civilization? 6. how did the crusades stimulate commerce? [1] see chapter xxi. {328} chapter xxi attempts at popular government _the cost of popular government_.--the early forms of government were for the most part based upon hereditary authority or upon force. the theories of government first advanced seldom had reference to the rule of the popular will. the practice of civil affairs, enforcing theories of hereditary government or the rule of force, interfered with the rights of self-government of the people. hence every attempt to assume popular government was a struggle against old systems and old ideas. freedom has been purchased by money or blood. men point with interest to the early assemblies of the teutonic people to show the germs of democratic government, afterward to be overshadowed by imperialism, but a careful consideration would show that even this early stage of pure democracy was only a developed state from the earlier hereditary nobility. the goddess of liberty is ideally a creature of beautiful form, but really her face is scarred and worn, her figure gnarled and warped with time, and her garments besprinkled with blood. the selfishness of man, the struggle for survival, and the momentum of governmental machinery, have prevented the exercise of justice and of political equality. the liberty that has been gained is an expensive luxury. it has cost those who have tried to gain it the treasures of accumulated wealth and the flower of youth. when it has once been gained, the social forces have rendered the popular will non-expressive of the best government. popular government, although ideally correct, is difficult to approximate, and frequently when obtained in name is far from real attainment. after long oppression and subservience to monarchy or aristocracy, when the people, suddenly gaining power through great expense of treasure and blood, assume self-government, they find to their distress that they are incapable of it when {329} struggling against unfavorable conditions. the result is a mismanaged government and an extra expense to the people. there has been through many centuries a continual struggle for popular government. the end of each conflict has seen something gained, yet the final solution of the problem has not been reached. nevertheless, imperfect as government by the people may be, it is, in the long run, the safest and best, and it undoubtedly will triumph in the end. the democratic government of great nations is the most difficult of all forms to maintain, and it is only through the increased wisdom of the people that its final success may be achieved. the great problem now confronting it arises from purely economic considerations. _the feudal lord and the towns_.--feudalism made its stronghold in country life. the baronial castle was built away from cities and towns--in a locality favorable for defense. this increased the importance of country life to a great extent, and placed the feudal lord in command of large tracts of territory. many of the cities and towns were for a time accorded the municipal privileges that had been granted them under roman rule; but in time these wore away, and the towns, with a few exceptions, became included in large feudal tracts, and were held, with other territory, as feudatories. in italy, where feudalism was less powerful, the greater barons were obliged to build their castles in the towns, or, indeed, to unite with the towns in government. but in france and germany, and even to a certain extent in england, the feudal lord kept aloof from the town. there was, consequently, no sympathy existing between the feudal lord and the people of the cities. it was his privilege to collect feudal dues and aids from the cities, and beyond this he cared nothing for their welfare. it became his duty and privilege to hold the baronial court in the towns at intervals and to regulate their internal affairs, but he did this through a subordinate, and troubled himself little about any regulation or administration except to further his own ends. {330} _the rise of free cities_.--many of the towns were practically run by the surviving machinery of the old roman municipal system, while many were practically without government except the overlordship of the feudal chief by his representative officer. the romans had established a complete system of municipal government in all their provinces. each town or city of any importance had a complete municipal machinery copied after the government of the imperial city. when the roman system began to decay, the central government failed first, and the towns found themselves severed from any central imperial government, yet in possession of machinery for local self-government. when the barbarians invaded the roman territory, and, avoiding the towns, settled in the country, the towns fell into the habit of managing their own affairs as far as feudal rã©gime would permit. it appears, therefore, that the first attempts at local self-government were made in the cities and towns. in fact, liberty of government was preserved in the towns, through the old roman municipal life, which lived on, and, being shorn of the imperial idea, took on the spirit of roman republicanism. it was thus that the principles of roman municipal government were kept through the middle ages and became useful in the modern period, not only in developing independent nationality but in perpetuating the rights of a people to govern themselves. the people of the towns organized themselves into municipal guilds to withstand the encroachments of the barons on their rights and privileges. this gave a continued coherence to the city population, which it would not otherwise have had or perpetuated. in thus perpetuating the idea of self-government, this cohesive organization, infused with a common sentiment of defense, made it possible to wrest liberty from the feudal baron. when he desired to obtain money or supplies in order to carry on a war, or to meet other expenditures, he found it convenient to levy on the cities for this purpose. his exactions, coming frequently and irregularly, aroused the {331} citizens to opposition. a bloody struggle ensued, which usually ended in compromise and the purchase of liberty by the citizens by the payment of an annual tax to the feudal lord for permission to govern themselves in regard to all internal affairs. it was thus that many of the cities gained their independence of feudal authority, and that some, in the rise of national life, gained their independence as separate states, such, for instance, as hamburg, venice, lã¼beck, and bremen. _the struggle for independence_.--in this struggle for independent life the cities first strove for just treatment. in many instances this was accorded the citizens, and their friendly relations with the feudal lord continued. when monarchy arose through the overpowering influence of some feudal lord, the city remained in subjection to the king, but in most instances the free burgesses of the towns were accorded due representation in the public assembly wherever one existed. many cities, failing to get justice, struggled with more or less success for independence. the result of the whole contest was to develop the right of self-government and finally to preserve the principle of representation. it was under these conditions that the theory of "taxation without representation is tyranny" was developed. a practical outcome of this struggle for freedom has been the converse of this principle--namely, that representation without taxation is impossible. taxation, therefore, is the badge of liberty--of a liberty obtained through blood and treasure. _the affranchisement of cities developed municipal organization_.--the effect of the affranchisement of cities was to develop an internal organization, usually on the representative plan. there was not, as a rule, a pure democracy, for the influences of the roman system and the feudal surroundings, rapidly tending toward monarchy, rendered it impossible that the citizens of the so-called free cities should have the privileges of a pure democracy, hence the representative plan prevailed. there was not sufficient unity of purpose, nor common sentiment of the ideal government, sufficient to maintain {332} permanently the principles and practice of popular government. yet there was a popular assembly, in which the voice of the people was manifested in the election of magistrates, the voting of taxes, and the declaration of war. in the mediaeval period, however, the municipal government was, in its real character, a business corporation, and the business affairs of the town were uppermost after defense against external forces was secured, hence it occurred that the wealthy merchants and the nobles who dwelt within the town became the most influential citizens in the management of municipal affairs. there sprang up, as an essential outcome of these conditions, an aristocracy within the city. in many instances this aristocracy was reduced to an oligarchy, and the town was controlled by a few men; and in extreme cases the control fell into the hands of a tyrant, who for a time dominated the affairs of the town. whatever the form of the municipal government, the liberties of the people were little more than a mere name, recognized as a right not to be denied. having obtained their independence of foreign powers, the towns fell victims to internal tyranny, yet they were the means of preserving to the world the principles of local self-government, even though they were not permitted to enjoy to a great extent the privileges of exercising them. it remained for more favorable circumstances to make this possible. _the italian cities_.--the first cities to become prominent after the perpetuation of the roman system by the introduction of barbarian blood were those of northern italy. these cities were less influenced by the barbarian invasion than others, on account of, first, their substantial city organization; second, the comparatively small number of invaders that surrounded them; and, third, the opportunity for trade presented by the crusades, which they eagerly seized. their power was increased because, as stated above, the feudal nobility, unable to maintain their position in the country, were forced to live in the cities. the italian cities were, therefore, less interfered with by barbarian and feudal influences, and continued to {333} develop strength. the opportunity for immense trade and commerce opened up through the crusades made them wealthy. another potent cause of the rapid advancement of the italian cities was their early contact with the greeks and the saracens, for they imbibed the culture of these peoples, which stimulated their own culture and learning. also, the invasions of the saracens on the south and of the hungarians on the north caused them to strengthen their fortifications. they enclosed their towns with walls, and thus made opportunity for the formation of small, independent states within the walls. comparatively little is known of the practice of popular government, although most of these cities were in the beginning republican and had popular elections. in the twelfth century freedom was granted, in most instances, to the peasantry. there were a parliament, a republican constitution, and a secret council (_credenza_) that assisted the consuls. there was also a great council called a senate, consisting of about a hundred representatives of the people. the chief duty of the senate was to discuss important public measures and refer them to the parliament for their approval. in this respect it resembled the greek senate (_boule_). the secret council superintended the public works and administered the public finance. these forms of government were not in universal use, but are as nearly typical as can be found, as the cities varied much in governmental practice. it is easy to see that the framework of the government is roman, while the spirit of the institutions, especially in the earlier part of their history, is affected by teutonic influence. there was a large number of these free towns in italy from the close of the twelfth to the beginning of the fourteenth century. at the close of this period, the republican phase of their government declined, and each was ruled by a succession of tyrants, or despots (_podestas_). in vain did the people attempt to regain their former privileges; they succeeded only in introducing a new kind of despotism in the captains of the people. the cities had fallen {334} into the control of the wealthy families, and it mattered not what was the form of government, despotism prevailed. in many of the cities the excessive power of the despots made their reign a prolonged terror. as long as enlightened absolutism prevailed, government was administered by upright rulers and judges in the interests of the people; but when the power fell into the hands of unscrupulous men, the privileges and rights of the people were lost. it is said that absolutism, descending from father to son, never improves in the descent; in the case of some of the italian cities it produced monsters. as the historian says: "the last visconti, the last la scalas, the last sforzas, the last farnesi, the last medici--magnificent promoters of the humanities as their ancestors had been--were the worst specimens of the human race." the situation of government was partially relieved by the introduction at a later period of the trade guilds. all the industrial elements were organized into guilds, each one of which had its representation in the government. this was of service to the people, but nothing could erase the blot of despotism. the despots were of different classes, according to the method by which they obtained power. first, there were nobles, who were representatives of the emperor, and governed parts of lombardy while it was under the federated government, a position which enabled them to obtain power as captains of the people. again, there were some who held feudal rights over towns and by this means became rulers or captains. there were others who, having been raised to office by the popular vote, had in turn used the office as a means to enslave the people and defeat the popular will. the popes, also, appointed their nephews and friends to office and by this means obtained supremacy. merchant princes, who had become wealthy, used their money to obtain and hold power. finally, there were the famous _condottieri_, who captured towns and made them principalities. into the hands of such classes as these the rights and privileges of the people were continually falling, and the result was disastrous to free government. {335} _government of venice_.--florence and venice represent the two typical towns of the group of italian cities. wealthy, populous, and aggressive, they represent the greatest power, the highest intellectual development, becoming cities of culture and learning. in 1494 the inhabitants of florence numbered 90,000, of whom only 3,200 were burghers, or full citizens, while venice had 100,000 inhabitants and only 5,000 burghers. this shows what a low state popular government had reached--only one inhabitant in twenty was allowed the rights of citizens. venice was established on the islands and morasses of the adriatic coast by a few remnants of the beneti, who sought refuge upon them from the ravages of the huns. these people were early engaged in fishing, and later began a coast trade which, in time, enlarged into an extensive commerce. in early times it had a municipal constitution, and the little villages had their own assemblies, discussed their own affairs, and elected their own magistrates. occasionally the representatives of the several tribal villages met to discuss the affairs of the whole city. this led to a central government, which, in 697 a.d., elected a doge for life. the doges possessed most of the attributes of kings, became despotic and arbitrary, and finally ruled with absolute sway, so that the destinies of the republic were subjected to the rule of one man. aristocracy established itself, and the first families struggled for supremacy. venice was the oldest republic of modern times, and continued the longest. "it was older by 700 years than the lombard republics, and it survived them for three centuries. it witnessed the fall of the roman empire; it saw italy occupied by odoacer, by charlemagne, and by napoleon." its material prosperity was very great, and great buildings remain to this day as monuments of an art and architecture the foundations of which were mostly laid before the despots were at the height of their power. _government of florence_.--there was a resemblance between florence and athens. indeed, the former has been called the {336} athens of the west, for in it the old greek idea was first revived; in it the love for the artistic survived. both cities were devoted to the accumulating of wealth, and both were interested in the struggles over freedom and general politics. situated in the valley of the arno, under the shadow of the apennines, florence lacked the charm of venice, situated on the sea. it was early conquered by sulla and made into a military city of the romans, and by a truce the roman government and the roman spirit prevailed in the city. it was destroyed by the goths and rebuilt by the franks, but still retained the roman spirit. it was then a city of considerable importance, surrounded by a wall six miles in circumference, having seventy towers. after it was rebuilt, the city was governed by a senate, but finally the first families predominated. then there arose, in 1215, the great struggle between the papal and the imperial parties, the ghibellines and the guelphs--internal dissensions which were not quieted until these two opposing factions were driven out and a popular government established, with twelve _seignors_, or rulers, as the chief officers. soon after this the art guilds obtained considerable power. they elected _priors_ of trades every two months. at first there were seven guilds that held control in florence; they were the lawyers, who were excluded from all offices, the physicians, the bankers, the mercers, the woollen-drapers, the dealers in foreign cloths, and the dealers in pelts from the north. subsequently, men following the baser arts--butchers, retailers of cloth, blacksmiths, bakers, shoemakers, builders--were admitted to the circle of arts, until there were twenty-one. after having a general representative council, it was finally (1266) determined that each of the seven greater arts should have a council of its own. the next step in government was the appointment of a _gonfalconier_ of justice by the companies of arts that had especial command of citizens. but soon a struggle began between the commons and the nobility, in which for a long time the former were successful. under the {337} leadership of giano della bella they enacted ordinances of justice destroying the power of the nobles, making them ineligible to the office of _prior_, and fining each noble 13,000 pounds for any offense against the law. the testimony of two credible persons was sufficient to convict a person if their testimony agreed; hence it became easy to convict persons of noble blood. yet the commons were in the end obliged to succumb to the power of the nobility and aristocracy, and the light of popular government went out. _the lombard league_.--the lombard cities of the north of italy were established subsequent to the invasion of the lombards, chiefly through the peculiar settlement of the lombard dukes over different territories in a loose confederation. but the lombards found cities already existing, and became the feudal proprietors of these and the territory. there were many attempts to unite these cities into a strong confederation, but owing to the nature of the feudal system and the general independence and selfishness of each separate city, they proved futile. we find here the same desire for local self-government that existed in the greek cities, the indulgence of which was highly detrimental to their interests in time of invasion or pressure from external power. there were selfishness and rivalry between all these cities, not only in the attempt to outdo each other in political power, but by reason of commercial jealousy. "venice first, christians next, and italy afterward" was the celebrated maxim of venice. to the distressing causes which kept the towns apart, the strife between the guelphs and the ghibellines increased the trouble. nor had the pope any desire to see a strong, unified government so near him. in those days popes were usually not honored in their own country, and, moreover, had enough to do to control their refractory subjects to the north of the alps. unity was impossible among cities so blindly and selfishly opposed to one another, and it was, besides, especially prevented by jealous sovereigns from without, who wished rather to see these cities acting independently and separately {338} than effectively, in a strong, united government. under these circumstances it was impossible there should be a strong and unified government; yet, could they have been properly utilized, all the materials were at hand for developing a national life which would have withstood the shock of opposing nationalities through centuries. the attempt to make a great confederation, a representative republic, failed, however, and with it failed the real hopes of republicanism in italy. _the rise of popular assemblies in france_.--in the early history of france, while feudalism yet prevailed, it became customary for the provinces to have their popular assemblies. these assemblies usually were composed of all classes of the people, and probably had their origin in the calls made by feudal lords to unite all those persons within their feudatories who might have something to say respecting the administration of the government and the law. in them the three estates were assembled--the clergy, the nobility, and the commons. many of these old provincial assemblies continued for a long time, for instance, in brittany and languedoc, where they remained until the period of the revolution. it appears that every one of these provinces had its own provincial assembly, and a few of these assemblies survived until modern times, so that we know somewhat of their nature. although their powers were very much curtailed on the rise of monarchy, especially in the time of the louis's, yet the provinces in which they continued had advantages over those provinces which had lost the provincial assemblies. they had purchased of the crown the privilege of collecting all taxes demanded by the central government, and they retained the right to tax themselves for the expenses of their local administration and to carry on improvements, such as roads and water-courses, without any administration of the central government. notwithstanding much restriction upon their power within their own domain, they moved with a certain freedom which other provinces did not possess. _rural communes arose in france_.--although feudalism had prevailed over the entire country, there was a continual growth {339} of local self-government at the time when feudalism was gradually passing into monarchial power. it was to the interest of the kings to favor somewhat the development of local self-government, especially the development of the cities while the struggle for dominion over feudalism was going on; but when the kings had once obtained power they found themselves confronted with the uprising spirit of local government. the struggle between king and people went on for some centuries, until the time when everything ran to monarchy and all the rights of the people were wrested from them; indeed, the perfection of the centralized government of the french monarch left no opportunity for the voice of the people to be heard. the rural communes existed by rights obtained from feudal lords who had granted them charters and given them self-government over a certain territory. these charters allowed the inhabitants of a commune to regulate citizenship and the administration of property, and to define feudal rights and duties. their organ of government was a general assembly of all the inhabitants, which either regulated the affairs of a commune directly or else delegated especial functions to communal officers who had power to execute laws already passed or to convoke the general assembly of the people on new affairs. the collection of taxes for both the central and the local government, the management of the property of the commune, and the direction of the police system represented the chief powers of the commune. the exercise of these privileges led into insistence upon the right of every man, whether peasant, freeman, or noble, to be tried by his peers. _the municipalities of france_.--as elsewhere related, the barbarians found the cities and towns of france well advanced in their own municipal system. this system they modified but little, only giving somewhat of the spirit of political freedom. in the struggle waged later against the feudal nobility these towns gradually obtained their rights, by purchase or agreement, and became self-governing. in this struggle we find the christian church, represented by the bishop, always arraying itself on the side of the commons against the nobility, {340} and thus establishing democracy. among the municipal privileges which were wrested from the nobility was included the right to make all laws that might concern the people; to raise their own taxes, both local and for the central government; to administer justice in their own way, and to manage their own police system. the relations of the municipality to the central government or the feudal lord forced them to pay a certain tribute, which gave them a legal right to manage themselves. their pathway was not always smooth, however, but, on the contrary, full of contention and struggle against overbearing lords who sought to usurp authority. their internal management generally consisted of two assemblies--one a general assembly of citizens, in which they were all well represented, the other an assembly of notables. the former elected the magistrates, and performed all legislative actions; the latter acted as a sort of advisory council to assist the magistrates. sometimes the cities had but one assembly of citizens, which merely elected magistrates and exercised supervision over them. the magistracy generally consisted of aldermen, presided over by a mayor, and acted as a general executive council for the city. municipal freedom gradually declined through adverse circumstances. within the city limits tyranny, aristocracy, or oligarchy sometimes prevailed, wresting from the people the rights which they had purchased or fought for. without was the pressure of the feudal lord, which gradually passed into the general fight of the king for royal supremacy. the king, it is true, found the towns very strong allies in his struggle against the nobility. they too had commenced a struggle against the feudal lords, and there was a common bond of sympathy between them. but when the feudal lords were once mastered, the king must turn his attention to reducing the liberties of the people, and gradually, through the influence of monarchy and centralization of government, the rights and privileges of the people of the towns of france passed away. {341} _the states-general was the first central organization_.--it ought to be mentioned here that after the monarchy was moderately well established, philip the fair (1285-1314) called the representatives of the nation together. he called in the burghers of the towns, the nobility, and the clergy and formed a parliament for the discussion of the affairs of the realm. it appeared that the constitutional development which began so early in england was about to obtain in france. but it was not to be realized, for in the three centuries that followed--namely, the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth--the monarchs of france managed to keep this body barely in existence, without giving it any real power. when the king was secure upon his throne and imperialism had received its full power, the nobility, the clergy, and the commons were no longer needed to support the throne of france, and, consequently, the will of the people was not consulted. it is true that each estate of nobility, clergy, and commons met separately from time to time and made out its own particular grievances to the king, but the representative power of the people passed away and was not revived again until, on the eve of the revolution, louis xvi, shaken with terror, once more called together the three estates in the last representative body held before the political deluge burst upon the french nation. _failure of attempts at popular government in spain_.--there are signs of popular representation in spain at a very early date, through the independent towns. this representation was never universal or regular. many of the early towns had charter rights which they claimed as ancient privileges granted by the roman government. these cities were represented for a time in the popular assembly, or cortes, but under the reign of ferdinand and isabella the cortes were seldom called, and when they were, it was for the advantage of the sovereign rather than of the people. many attempts were made in spain, from time to time, to fan into flame this enthusiasm for popular representation, but the predominance of monarchy and the dogmatic centralized power of the church tended to {342} repress all real liberty. even in these later days sudden bursts of enthusiasm for constitutional liberty and constitutional privilege are heard from the southern peninsula; but the transition into monarchy was so sudden that the rights of the people were forever curtailed. the frequent outbursts for liberty and popular government came from the centres where persisted the ideas of freedom planted by the northern barbarians. _democracy in the swiss cantons_.--it is the boast of some of the rural districts of switzerland, that they never submitted to the feudal rã©gime, that they have never worn the yoke of bondage, and, indeed, that they were never conquered. it is probable that several of the rural communes of switzerland have never known anything other than a free peasantry. they have continually practised the pure democracy exemplified by the entire body of citizens meeting in the open field to make the laws and to elect their officers. although it is true that in these rural communities of switzerland freedom has been a continuous quantity, yet during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries switzerland, as a whole, was dominated by feudalism. this feudalism differed somewhat from the french feudalism, for it represented a sort of overlordship of absentee feudal chiefs, which, leaving the people more to themselves, made vassalage less irksome. at the beginning of the fourteenth century, in the year 1309, the cantons, schwyz, uri, and unterwalden, lying near lake lucerne, gained, through the emperor, henry vii, the recognition of their independence in all things except allegiance to the empire. each of these small states had its own government, varying somewhat from that of its neighbors. yet the rural cantons evinced a strong spirit of pure democracy, for they had already, about half a century previous, formed themselves into a league which proved the germ of confederacy, which perpetuated republican institutions in the middle ages. the spirit of freedom prevailing throughout diverse communities brought the remainder of the swiss cantons into the confederation. {343} the first liberties possessed by the various cantons were indigenous to the soil. from time immemorial they had clung to the ancient right of self-government, and had developed in their midst a local system which feudalism never succeeded in eradicating. it mattered not how diverse their systems of local government, they had a common cause against feudal domination, and this brought them into a close union in the attempt to throw off such domination. it is one of the remarkable phenomena of political history, that proud, aristocratic cities with monarchial tendencies could be united with humble and rude communes which held expressly to pure democracy. it is but another illustration of the truth that a particular form of government is not necessary to the development of liberty, but it is the spirit, bravery, independence, and unity of the people that make democracy possible. another important truth, also, is illustrated here--that italian, german, and french people who respect each other's liberty and have a common cause may dwell together on a basis of unity and mutual support. switzerland stands, then, for the perpetuation of the early local liberties of the people. it has always been the synonym of freedom and the haven of refuge for the politically oppressed of all nations, and its freedom has always had a tendency to advance civilization, not only within the boundaries of the swiss government, but throughout all europe. progressive ideas of religion and education have ever accompanied liberty in political affairs. the long struggle with the feudal lords and the monarchs of european governments, and with the emperor of germany, united the swiss people on a basis of common interests and developed a spirit of independence. at the same time, it had a tendency to warp their judgments respecting the religious rights and liberties of a people, and more than once the swiss have shown how narrow in conception of government a republic can be. yet, upon the whole, it must be conceded that the watch-fires of liberty have never been extinguished in switzerland, and that the light they {344} have shed has illumined many dark places in europe and america. _the ascendancy of monarchy_.--outside of switzerland the faint beginning of popular representation was gradually overcome by the ascendancy of monarchy. feudalism, after its decline, was rapidly followed by the development of monarchy throughout europe. the centralization of power became a universal principle, uniting in one individual the government of an entire nation. it was an expression of unity, and was essential to the redemption of europe from the chaotic state in which it had been left by declining feudalism. monarchy is not necessarily the rule of a single individual. it may be merely the proclamation of the will of the people through one man, the expression of the voice of the people from a single point. of all forms of government a monarchy is best adapted to a nation or people needing a strong central government able to act with precision and power. as illustrative of this, it is a noteworthy fact that the old lombard league of confederated states could get along very well until threatened with foreign invasion; then they needed a king. the roman republic, with consuls and senate, moved on very well in times of peace, but in times of war it was necessary to have a dictator, whose voice should have the authority of law. the president of the united states is commander-in-chief of the army, which position in time of war gives him a power almost resembling imperialism. could greece have presented against her invaders a strong monarchy which could unite all her heroes in one common command, her enemies would not so easily have prevailed against her. monarchy, then, in the development of european life seemed merely a stage of progress not unlike that of feudalism itself--a stage of progressive government; and it was only when it was carried to a ridiculous extreme in france and in england--in france under the louis's and in england under the stuarts--that it finally appeared detrimental to the highest interests of the people. on the other hand, the weak {345} republicanism of the middle ages had not sufficient unity or sufficient aggressiveness to maintain itself, and gave way to what was then a form of government better adapted to conditions and surroundings. but the fires of liberty, having been once lighted, were to burst forth again in a later period and burn with sufficient heat to purify the governments of the world. _beginning of constitutional liberty in england_.--when the normans entered england, feudalism was in its infancy and wanted yet the form of the roman system. the kings of the english people soon became the kings of england, and the feudal system spread over the entire island. but this feudalism was already in the grasp of monarchy which prevailed much more easily in england than in france. there came a time in england, as elsewhere, when the people, seeking their liberties, were to be united with the king to suppress the feudal nobility, and there sprang up at this time some elements of popular representative government, most plainly visible in the parliament of simon de montfort (1265) and the "perfect parliament" of 1295, the first under the reign of henry iii, and the second under edward i. in one or two instances prior to this, county representation was summoned in parliament in order to facilitate the method of assessing and collecting taxes, but these two parliaments marked the real beginnings of constitutional liberty in england, so far as local representation is concerned. prior to this, in 1215, the nobles and the commons, working together, had wrested the concession of the great _magna charta_ from king john, and thus had established a precedent of the right of each class of individuals to have its share in the government of the realm; under its declaration king, nobility, and commons, each a check upon the other, each struggling for power, and all developing through the succeeding generations the liberty of the people under the constitution. this long, slow process of development, reminding one somewhat of the struggle of the plebeians of rome against the patricians, {346} finally made the lower house of parliament, which represents the people of the realm, the most prominent factor in the government of the english people--and at last, without a cataclysm like the french revolution, established liberty of speech, popular representation, and religious liberty. we find, then, that in england and in other parts of europe a liberalizing tendency set in after monarchy had been established and become predominant, which limited the actions of kings and declared for the liberties of the people. imperialism in monarchy was limited by the constitution of the people. england laid the foundations of democracy in recognizing the rights of representation of all classes. subjects for further study 1. what phases of popular government are to be noted in the italian cities? 2. what is the relation of "enlightened absolutism" to social progress? 3. the characteristics of mediaeval guilds. 4. why were the guilds discontinued? 5. the rise and decline of popular assemblies and rural communes of france. 6. the nature of the government of the swiss cantons. 7. the transition from feudalism to monarchy. 8. in what ways was the idea of popular government perpetuated in europe? {347} chapter xxii the intellectual awakening of europe _social evolution is dependent upon variation_.--the process by which ideas are born and propagated in human society is strangely analogous to the methods of biological evolution. the laws of survival, of adaptation, of variation and mutation prevail, and the evidence of conspicuous waste is ever present. the grinding and shifting of human nature under social law is similar to the grinding and shifting of physical nature under organic law. when we consider the length of time it takes physical nature to accomplish the ultimate of fixed values, seventy millions of years or more to produce an oak-tree, millions of years to produce a horse or a man, we should not be impatient with the slow processes of human society nor the waste of energy in the process. for human society arises out of the confusion of ideas and progresses according to the law of survival. new ideas must be accepted, diffused, used, and adapted to new conditions. it would seem that europe had sufficient knowledge of life contributed by the orient, by greek, roman, and barbarian to go forward; but first must come a period of readjustment of old truth to new environment and the discovery of new truth. for several centuries, in the dark ages, the intellectual life of man lay dormant. then must come a quickening of the spirit before the world could advance. however, in considering human progress, the day of small things must "not be despised." for in the days of confusion and low tide of regression there are being established new modes of life and thought which through right adaptation will flow on into the full tide of progress. revivals come which gather up and utilize the scattered and confused ideas of life, adapting and utilizing them by setting new standards and imparting new impulses of progress. {348} _the revival of progress throughout europe_.--human society, as a world of ideas, is a continuous quantity, and therefore it is difficult to mark off any definite period of time to show social causation. roughly speaking, the period from the beginning of the eighth century to the close of the fifteenth is a period of intellectual ferment, the climax of which extended from the eleventh to the close of the fifteenth century. it was in this period that the forces were gathering in preparation for the achievements of the modern era of progress. there was one general movement, an awakening along the whole line of human endeavor in the process of transition from the old world to the new. it was a revival of art, language, literature, philosophy, theology, politics, law, trade, commerce, and the additions of invention and discovery. it was the period of establishing schools and laying the foundation of universities. in this there was a more or less continuous progress of the freedom of the mind, which permitted reflective thought, which subsequently led on to the religious reformation that permitted freedom of belief, and the french revolution, which permitted freedom of political action. it was the rediscovery of the human mind, a quickening of intellectual liberty, a desire of alert minds for something new. it was a call for humanity to move forward. _the revival of learning a central idea of progress_.--as previously stated, the church had taken to itself by force of circumstances the power in the western world relinquished by the fallen roman empire. in fighting the battles against unbelief, ignorance, and political corruption, it had become a powerful hierarchy. as the conservator of learning, it eventually began to settle the limits of knowledge and belief on its own interpretation and to force this upon the world. it saved the elements of knowledge from the destruction of the barbarians, but in turn sought to lock up within its own precincts of belief the thoughts of the ages, presuming to do the thinking for the world. it became dogmatic, arbitrary, conservative, and conventional. moreover, this had become the {349} attitude of all inert europe. the several movements that sought to overcome this stifling condition of the mind are called the "revival of learning." a more specific use of the term renaissance, or revival of learning, refers especially to the restoration of the intellectual continuity of europe, or the rebirth of the human mind. it is generally applied to what is known as humanism, or the revival of classical learning. important as this phase of general progress is, it can be considered only as a part of the great revival of progress. humanism, or the revival of classical learning, having its origin and first great impulse in italy, it has become customary to use humanism and the italian renaissance interchangeably, yet without careful consideration; for although the italian renaissance is made up largely of humanism, it had such wide-reaching consequences on the progress of all europe as not to be limited by the single influence of the revival of the classical learning. _influence of charlemagne_.--clovis founded the frankish kingdom, which included the territory now occupied by france and the netherlands. subsequently this kingdom was enlarged under the rule of charles martel, who turned back the moslem invasion at poitiers in 732, and became ruler of europe north of the alps. his son pepin enlarged and strengthened the kingdom, so that when his successor charlemagne came into power in 768 he found himself in control of a vast inland empire. he conquered rome and all north italy and assumed the title of roman emperor. the movement of charlemagne was a slight and even a doubtful beginning of the revival. possibly his reform was a faint flickering of the watch-fires of intellectual and civil activity, but they went out and darkness obscured the horizon until the breaking of the morn of liberty. yet in the darkness of the ages that followed new forces were forming unobserved by the contemporary historian--forces which should give a new awakening to the mind of all europe. charlemagne re-established the unity of government which {350} had been lost in the decline of the old roman government; he enlarged the boundary of the empire, established an extensive system of administration, and promoted law and order. he did more than this: he promoted religion by favoring the church in the advancement of its work throughout the realm. but unfortunately, in the attempt to break down feudalism, he increased it by giving large donations to the church, and so helped to develop ecclesiastical feudalism, and laid the foundation of subsequent evils. he was a strong warrior, a great king, and a master of civil government. charlemagne believed in education, and insisted that the clergy should be educated, and he established schools for the education of his subjects. he promoted learning among his civil officers by establishing a school all the graduates of which were to receive civil appointments. it was the beginning of the civil service method in europe. charlemagne was desirous, too, of promoting learning of all kinds, and gathered together the scattered fragments of the german language, and tried to advance the educational interests of his subjects in every direction. but the attempts to make learning possible, apparently, passed for naught in later days when the iron rule of charlemagne had passed away, and the weaker monarchs who came after him were unable to sustain his system. darkness again spread over europe, to be dispelled finally by other agencies. _the attitude of the church was retrogressive_.--the attitude of the christian church toward learning in the middle ages was entirely arbitrary. it had become thoroughly institutionalized and was not in sympathy with the changes that were taking place outside of its own policy. it assumed an attitude of hostility to everything that tended toward the development of free and independent thought outside the dictates of the authorities of the church. it found itself, therefore, in an attitude of bitter opposition to the revival of learning which had spread through europe. it was unfortunate that the church appeared so diametrically opposed to freedom of {351} thought and independent activity of mind. even in england, when the new learning was first introduced, although henry viii favored it, the church in its blind policy opposed it, and when the renaissance in germany had passed continuously into the reformation, luther opposed the new learning with as much vigor as did the papalists themselves. but from the fact of the church's assuming this attitude toward the new learning, it must not be inferred that there was no learning within the church, for there were scholars in theology, logic, and law, astute and learned. yet the church assumed that it had a sort of proprietorship or monopoly of learning, and that only what it might see fit to designate was to receive attention, and then only in the church's own way; all other knowledge was to be opposed. the ecclesiastical discussions gave evidence of intense mental activity within the church, but, having little knowledge of the outside world to invigorate it or to give it something tangible upon which to operate, the mind passed into speculative fields that were productive of little permanent culture. dwelling only upon a few fundamental conceptions at first, it soon tired itself out with its own weary round. the church recognized in all secular advocates of literature and learning its own enemies, and consequently began to expunge from the literary world as far as possible the remains of the declining roman and greek culture. it became hostile to greek and latin literature and art and sought to repress them. in the rise of new languages and literature in new nationalities every attempt was made by the church to destroy the effects of the pagan life. the poems and sagas treating of the religion and mythologies of these young, rising nationalities were destroyed. the monuments of the first beginnings of literature, the products of a period so hard to compass by the historian, were served in the same way as were the greek and latin masterpieces. the church said, if men will persist in study, let them ponder the precepts of the gospels as interpreted by the church. {352} for those who inquired about the problems of life, the churchmen pointed to the creeds and the dogmas of the church, which had settled all things. if men were too persistent in inquiring about the nature of this world, they were told that it is of little importance, only a prelude to the world to come; that they should spend their time in preparation for the future. even as great a man as gregory of tours said: "let us shun the lying fables of the poets and forego the wisdom of the sages at enmity with god, lest we incur the condemnation of endless death by the sentence of our lord." saint augustine deplored the waste of time spent in reading virgil, while alcuin regretted that in his boyhood he had preferred virgil to the legends of the saints. with the monks such considerations gave excuse for laziness and disregard of rhetoric. but in this movement of hostility to the new learning, the church went too far, and soon found the entire ecclesiastical system face to face with a gross ignorance, which must be eradicated or the superstructure would fall. as latin was the only vehicle of thought in those days, it became a necessity that the priests should study virgil and the other latin authors, consequently the churches passed from their opposition to pagan authors to a careful utilization of them, until the whole papal court fell under the influence of the revival of learning, and popes and prelates became zealous in the promotion and, indeed, in the display of learning. when the son of lorenzo the magnificent became pope leo x, the splendor of the ducal court of florence passed to the papal throne, and no one was more zealous in the patronage of learning than he. he encouraged learning and art of every kind, and built a magnificent library. it was merely the transferrence of the pomp of the secular court to the papacy. such was the attitude of the church toward the new learning--first, a bitter opposition; second, a forced toleration; and third, the absorption of its best products. yet in all this the spirit of the church was not for the freedom of mind nor independence of thought. it could not recognize this freedom nor {353} the freedom of religious belief until it had been humiliated by the spirit of the reformation. _scholastic philosophy marks a step in progress_.--there arose in the ninth century a speculative philosophy which sought to harmonize the doctrine of the church with the philosophy of neo-platonism and the logic of aristotle. the scholastic philosophy may be said to have had its origin with john scotus erigena, who has been called "the morning star of scholasticism." he was the first bold thinker to assert the supremacy of reason and openly to rebel against the dogma of the church. in laying the foundation of his doctrine, he starts with a philosophical explanation of the universe. his writings and translations were forerunners of mysticism and set forth a peculiar pantheistic conception. his doctrine appears to ignore the pretentious authority of the church of his time and to refer to the earlier church for authority. in so doing he incorporated the doctrine of emanation advanced by the neo-platonists, which held that out of god, the supreme unity, evolve the particular forms of goodness, and that eventually all things will return to god. in like manner, in the creation of the universe the species comes from the genera by a process of unfolding. the complete development and extension of scholastic philosophy did not come until the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. the term "scholastics" was first applied to those who taught in the cloister schools founded by charlemagne. it was at a later period applied to the teachers of the seven liberal arts--grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, in the _trivium,_ and arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, in the _quadrivium_. finally it was applied to all persons who occupied themselves with science or philosophy. scholastic philosophy in its completed state represents an attempt to harmonize the doctrines of the church with aristotelian philosophy. there were three especial doctrines developed in the scholastic philosophy, called respectively nominalism, realism, and conceptualism. the first asserted that there are no generic {354} types, and consequently no abstract concepts. the formula used to express the vital point in nominalism is "_universalia post rem_." its advocates asserted that universals are but names. roscellinus was the most important advocate of this doctrine. in the fourteenth century william of occam revived the subject of nominalism, and this had much to do with the downfall of scholasticism, for its inductive method suggested the acquiring of knowledge through observation. realism was a revival of the platonic doctrine that ideas are the only real things. the formula for it was "_universalia ante rem_." by it the general name preceded that of the species. universal concepts represent the real; all else is merely illustrative of the real. the only real sphere is the one held in the mind, mathematically correct in every way. balls and globes and other actual things are but the illustrations of the genus. perhaps anselm was the strongest advocate of this method of reasoning. it remained for abelard to unite these two theories of philosophical reasoning into one, called conceptualism. he held that universals are not ideals, but that they exist in the things themselves. the formula given was "_universalia in re_." this was a step in advance, and laid something of a foundation for the philosophy of classification in modern science. the scholastic philosophers did much to sharpen reason and to develop the mind, but they failed for want of data. indeed, this has been the common failure of man, for in the height of civilization men speculate without sufficient knowledge. even in the beginning of scientific thought, for lack of facts, men spent much of their time in speculation. the scholastic philosophers were led to consider many unimportant questions which could not be well settled. they asked the church authorities why the sacramental wine and bread turned into blood and flesh, and what was the necessity of the atonement? and in considering the nature of pure being they asked: "how many angels can dance at once on the point of a needle?" and "in moving from point to point, do angels pass through {355} intervening space?" they asked seriously whether "angels had stomachs," and "if a starving ass were placed exactly midway between two stacks of hay would he ever move?" but it must not be inferred that these people were as ridiculous as they appear, for each question had its serious side. having no assistance from science, they fell single-handed upon dogmatism; yet many times they busied themselves with unprofitable discussions, and some of them became the advocates of numerous doctrines and dogmas which had a tendency to confuse knowledge, although in defense of which wits were sharpened. lord bacon, in a remarkable passage, has characterized the scholastic philosophers as follows: "this kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign among the schoolmen, who--having sharp and strong wits and abundance of leisure and small variety of reading, but their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors (chiefly aristotle, their dictator) as their persons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges, and having little history, either of nature or of time--did, out of no great quantity of matter and infinite agitation of wit, spin out unto us those laborious webs of learning which are extant in their books. for the wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter which is the contemplation of the creatures of god, worketh according to the stuff and is limited thereby; but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh its web, then it is endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit."[1] scholasticism, as the first phase of the revival of learning, though overshadowed by tradition and mediaeval dogmatism, showed great earnestness of purpose in ascertaining the truth by working "the wit and mind of man"; but it worked not "according to the stuff," and, having little to feed upon, it produced only speculations of truth and indications of future possibilities. there were many bright men among the scholastic {356} philosophers, especially in the thirteenth century, who left their impress upon the age; yet scholasticism itself was affected by dogmatism and short-sightedness, and failed to utilize the means at its hand for the improvement of learning. it exercised a tyranny over all mental endeavor, for the reason that it was obliged in all of its efforts to carry through all of its reasoning the heavy weight of dogmatic theology. whatever else it attempted, it could not shake itself free from this incubus of learning, through a great system of organized knowledge, which hung upon the thoughts and lives of men and attempted to explain all things in every conceivable way. but to show that independent thinking was a crime one has only to refer to the results of the knowledge of roger bacon, who advanced his own methods of observation and criticism. had the scholastics been able to accept what he clearly pointed out to them, namely, that reason can advance only by finding, through observation, new material upon which to work, science might have been active a full century in advance of what it was. he laid the foundation of experimental science, and pointed out the only way in which the revival of learning could be made permanent, but his voice was unheeded by those around him, and it remained for the philosophers of succeeding generations to estimate his real worth. _cathedral and monastic schools_.--there were two groups of schools under the management of the church, known as the cathedral and monastic schools. the first represented the schools that had developed in the cathedrals for the sons of lay members of the church; the second, those in the monasteries that were devoted largely to the education of the ministry. to understand fully the position of these schools it is necessary to go back a little and refer to the educational forces of europe. for a long period after alexandria had become established as a great centre of learning, athens was really the centre of education in the east, and this city held her sway in educational affairs down to the second century. the influence of the traditions of great teachers and the encouragement and {357} endowments given by emperors kept up a school at athens, to which flocked the youth of the land who desired a superior education. finally, when the great roman empire joined to itself the greek culture, there sprang up what was known as the greek and roman schools, or graeco-roman schools, although rome was not without its centre of education at the famous athenaeum. in these graeco-roman schools were taught grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. the grammar of that day frequently included language, criticism, history, literature, metre; the dialectic considered logic, metaphysics, and ethics; while rhetoric contemplated the fitting of the youth for public life and for the law. but these schools, though dealing in real knowledge for a time, gradually declined, chiefly on account of the declining moral powers of the empire and the relaxation of intellectual activity, people thinking more of ease and luxury and the power of wealth than of actual accomplishment. the internal disorganization, unjust taxation, and unjust rule of the empire had also a tendency to undermine education. the coming of the barbarians, with their honest, illiterate natures, had its influence, likewise, in overthrowing the few schools that remained. the rise of christianity, which supposed that all pagan literature and pagan knowledge were of the devil, and hence to be suppressed, opposed secular teaching, and tended to dethrone these schools. constantine's effort to unite the church and state tended for a while to perpetuate secular institutions. but the pagan schools passed away; the philosophy of the age had run its course until it had become a hollow assumption, a desert of words, a weary round of speculation without vitality of expression; and the activity of the sophists in these later times narrowed all literary courses until they dwindled into mere matters of form. perhaps, owing to its force, power, and dignity, the roman law retained a vital {358} position in the educational curriculum. the school at athens was suppressed in 529 by justinian, because, as it had been claimed, it was tainted with oriental philosophy and allied with egyptian magic, and hence could not develop ethical standards. it is easy to observe how the ideas of christian learning came into direct competition with the arrogant self-assumption and the hollowness of the selfish teachings of the old graeco-roman schools. the christian doctrine, advocating the development of the individual life, intimate relations with god, the widening of social functions, with its teachings of humility, and humanity, could not tolerate the instruction given in these schools. moreover, the christian doctrine of education consisted, on the one hand, in preparing for the future life, and on the other, in the preparation of christian ministers to teach this future life. as might be expected, when narrowed to this limit, christian education had its dwarfing influence. if salvation were an important thing and salvation were to be obtained only by the denial of the life of this world, then there would be no object in perpetuating learning, no attempt to cultivate the mind, no tendency to develop the whole man on account of his moral and intellectual worth. the use of secular books was everywhere discouraged. as a result the instruction of the religious schools was of a very meagre nature. within the monasteries devotional exercises and the study of the scriptures represented the chief intellectual development of the monks. the western monks required a daily service and a systematic training, but the practice of the eastern monks was not educational in its nature at all. after a while persons who were not studying for religious vows were admitted to the schools that they might understand the bible and the services of the church. they were taught to write, that they might copy the manuscripts of the church fathers, the sacred books, and the psalter; they were taught arithmetic, that they might be able to calculate the return of easter and the other festivals; they were taught music, that they might {359} be able to chant well. but the education in any line was in itself superficial and narrow. the benedictine order was exceptional in the establishment of better schools and in promoting better educational influences. their curriculum consisted of the old and new testaments, the exposition of the scriptures by learned theologians, and the discourses, or conversations, of cassianus; yet, as a rule, the monks cared little for knowledge as such, not even for theological knowledge. the monasteries, however, constituted the great clerical societies, where many prepared for secular pursuits. the monasteries of ireland furnished many learned scholars to england, scotland, and germany, as well as to ireland; yet it was only a monastic education which they exported. finally it became customary to found schools within the monasteries, and this was the beginning of the church schools of the middle ages. formal and meagre as the instruction of these schools was, it represents a beginning in church education. but in the seventh and eighth centuries they again declined, and learning retrograded very much; literature was forgotten; the monks and friars boasted of their ignorance. the reforms of charlemagne restored somewhat the educational status of the new empire, and not only developed the church schools and cathedral schools but also founded some secular schools. the cathedral schools became in many instances centres of learning apart from monasticism. the textbooks, however, of the middle ages were chiefly those of boethius, isidor, and capella, and were of the most meagre content and character. that of capella, as an illustration, was merely an allegory, which showed the seven liberal arts in a peculiar representation. the logic taught in the schools was that given by alcuin; the arithmetic was limited to the reckoning of holidays and festivals; astronomy was limited to a knowledge of the names and courses of the stars; geometry was composed of the first four books of euclid, and supplemented with a large amount of geography. {360} but all this learning was valued merely as a support to the church and the church authorities, and for little else. yet there had been schools of importance founded at paris, bologna, and padua, and at other places which, although they were not the historical foundations of the universities, no doubt became the means, the traditional means, of the establishment of universities at these places. also, many of the scholars, such as theodore of tarsus, adalbert, bede, and alcuin, who studied latin and greek and also became learned in other subjects, were not without their influence. _the rise of universities_.[2]--an important phase of this period of mediaeval development was the rise of universities. many causes led to their establishment. in the eleventh century the development of independent municipal power brought the noble and the burgher upon the same level, and developed a common sentiment for education. the activity of the crusades, already referred to, developed a thirst for knowledge. there was also a gradual growth of traditional learning, an accumulation of knowledge of a certain kind, which needed classification, arrangement, and development. by degrees the schools of arabia, which had been prominent in their development, not only of oriental learning but of original investigation, had given a quickening impulse to learning throughout southern europe. the great division of the church between the governed and governing had led to the development of a strong lay feeling as opposed to monasticism or ecclesiasticism. perhaps the growth of local representative government had something to do with this. but the time came when great institutions were chartered at these centres of learning. students flocked to bologna, where law was taught; to salerno, where medicine was the chief subject; and to paris, where philosophy and theology predominated. at first these schools were open to all, without special rules. subsequently they were organized, and finally were chartered. in those days students elected their own {361} instructors and built up their own organization. the schools were usually called _universitas magistrorum et scholarium_. they were merely assemblages of students and instructors, a sort of scholastic guild or combination of teachers and scholars, formed first for the protection of their members, and later allowed by pope and emperor the privilege of teaching, and finally given the power by these same authorities to grant degrees. the result of these schools was the widening of the influence of education. the universities proposed to teach what was found in a new and revived literature and to adopt a new method of presenting truth. yet, with all these widening foundations, there was a tendency to be bound by traditional learning. the scholastic philosophy itself invaded the universities and had its influence in breaking down the scientific spirit. not only was this true of the universities of the continent, but of those of england as well. the german universities, however, were less affected by this tendency of scholasticism. founded at a later period, when the renaissance was about to be merged into the reformation, there was a wider foundation of knowledge, a more earnest zeal in its pursuit, and also a tendency for the freedom and activity of the mind which was not observed elsewhere. the universities may be said to mark an era in the development of intellectual life. they became centres where scholars congregated, centres for the collection of knowledge; and when the humanistic idea fully prevailed, in many instances they encouraged the revival of classical literature and the study of those things pertaining to human life. the universities entertained and practised free discussion of all subjects, which made an important landmark of progress. they encouraged people to give a reason for philosophy and faith, and prepared the way for scientific investigation and experiment. _failure to grasp scientific methods_.--perhaps the greatest wonder in all this accumulation of knowledge, quickening of the mind, philosophy, and speculation, is that men of so much {362} learning failed to grasp scientific methods. could they but have turned their attention to systematic methods of investigation based upon facts logically stated, the vast intellectual energy of the middle ages might have been turned to more permanent account. it is idle, however, to deplore their ignorance of these conditions or to ridicule their want of learning. when we consider the ignorance that overshadowed the land, the breaking down of the old established systems of greece and rome, the struggle of the church, which grew naturally into its power and made conservatism an essential part of its life; indeed, when we consider that the whole medieval system was so impregnated with dogmatism and guided by tradition, it is a marvel that so many men of intellect and power raised their voices in the defense of truth, and that so much advancement was made in the earnest desire for truth. _inventions and discoveries_.--the quickening influence of discovery was of great moment in giving enlarged views of life. the widening of the geographical horizon tended to take men out of their narrow boundaries and their limited conceptions of the world, into a larger sphere of mental activity, and to teach them that there was much beyond their narrow conceptions to be learned. the use of gunpowder changed the method of warfare and revolutionized the financial system of nations. the perfection of the mariner's compass reformed navigation and made great sea voyages possible; the introduction of printing increased the dissemination of knowledge; the building of great cathedrals had a tendency to develop architecture, and the contact with oriental learning developed art. these phases tended to assist the mind in the attempt to free itself from bondage. _the extension of commerce hastened progress_.--but more especially were men's ideas enlarged and their needs supplied by the widening reach of commerce. through its exchanges it distributed the food-supply, and thus not only preserved thousands from want but furnished leisure for others to study. it had a tendency to distribute the luxuries of manufactured {363} articles, and to quicken the activity of the mind by giving exchange of ideas. little by little the mariners, plying their trade, pushed farther and farther into unknown seas, and at last brought the products of every clime in exchange for those of europe. the manner in which commerce developed the cities of italy and of the north has already been referred to. through this development the foundations of local government were laid. the manner in which it broke down the feudal system after receiving the quickening impulse of the crusades has also been dealt with. in addition to its influence in these changes, it brought about an increased circulation of money--which also struck at the root of feudalism, in destroying the mediaeval manor and serfdom, for men could buy their freedom from serfdom with money--which also made taxation possible; and the possibility of taxation had a vast deal to do with the building up of new nations and stimulating national life. moreover, as a distributer of habits and customs, commerce developed uniformity of political and social life and made for national solidarity. subjects for further study 1. what is meant by renaissance, revival of learning, revival of progress and humanism, as applied to the mediaeval period? 2. the causes of the revival of progress. 3. the direct influence of humanism. 4. the attitude of the church toward freedom of thought. 5. the scholastic philosophy, its merits and its defects. 6. what did the following persons stand for in human progress: dante, savonarola, charlemagne, john scotus erigena, thomas aquinas, abelard, william of occam, roger bacon? 7. rise of universities. how did they differ from modern universities? [1] _advancement of learning_, iv, 5. [2] see chapter xxix. {364} chapter xxiii humanism and the revival of learning perhaps the most important branch of the revival of learning is that which is called humanism, or the revival of the study of the masterpieces of greek and latin literature. the promoters of this movement are called humanists, because they held that the study of the classics, or _litterae humaniores_, is the best humanizing agent. it has already been shown how scholasticism developed as one of the important phases of the renaissance, and how, close upon its track, the universities rose as powerful aids to the revival of learning, and that the cathedral and monastic schools were the traditional forerunners of the great universities. primarily, then, were taught in the universities scholastic philosophy, theology, the roman and the canon law, with slight attention to greek and hebrew, the real value of the treasures of antiquity being unknown to the western world. the arabic or saracen schools of spain had taken high rank in learning, and through their efforts the scientific works of aristotle were presented to the mediaeval world. there were many men of importance, such as roger bacon, albertus magnus, who were leaders in universities and who lent their influence to the development of learning in europe. the translation of the scientific works of aristotle into latin at the beginning of the thirteenth century by thomas aquinas had its influence. but, after all, scholasticism had settled down to speculative ideas within the universities and without, and little attention was paid to the old classical authors. _the discovery of manuscripts_.--the real return to the study of greek literature and art finally came through the fortunate discoveries of ancient sculpture and ancient manuscripts on the occasion of the turning of the mind of europe {365} toward the eastern learning. the fall of the eastern empire accelerated the transfer of learning and culture to the west. the discovery and use of old manuscripts brought a survival of classical literature and of the learning of antiquity. the bringing of this literature to light gave food for thought and means of study, and turned the mind from its weary round of speculative philosophy to a large body of literature containing the views of the ancients respecting the progress and development of man. as has been heretofore shown, the greeks, seeking to explain things by the human reason, although not advanced far in experimental science, had accomplished much by way of logical thought based upon actual facts. they had turned from credulity to inquiry. _who were the humanists?_--dante was not a humanist, but he may be said to have been the forerunner of the italian humanists, for he furnished inspiration to petrarch, the so-called founder of humanism. his magnificent creation of _the divine comedy_, his service in the foundation of the italian language, and his presentation of the religious influence of the church in a liberal manner made him a great factor in the humanizing of europe. dante was neither modern nor ancient. he stood at the parting of the ways controlling the learning of the past and looking toward the open door of the future, and directed thought everywhere to the latin. his masterpiece was well received through all italy, and gave an impulse to learning in many ways. petrarch was the natural successor of dante. the latter immortalized the past; the former invoked the spirit of the future. he showed great enthusiasm in the discovery of old manuscripts, and brought into power more fully the latin language. he also attempted to introduce greek into the western world, but in this he was only partially successful. but in his wide search for manuscripts, monasteries and cathedrals were ransacked and the literary treasures which the monks had copied and preserved through centuries, the products of the classical writers of the early times, were brought to {366} light. petrarch was an enthusiast, even a sentimentalist. but he was bold in his expression of the full and free play of the intellect, in his denunciation of formalism and slavery to tradition. the whole outcome of his life, too, was a tendency toward moral and aesthetic aggrandizement. inconsistent in many things, his life may be summed up as a bold remonstrance against the binding influences of tradition and an enthusiasm for something new. "we are, therefore," says symonds,[1] "justified in hailing petrarch as the columbus of a new spiritual hemisphere, the discoverer of modern culture. that he knew no greek, that his latin verse was lifeless and his prose style far from pure, that his contributions to history and ethics have been superseded, and that his epistles are now read only by antiquaries, cannot impair his claim to this title. from him the inspiration needed to quicken curiosity and stimulate zeal for knowledge proceeded. but for his intervention in the fourteenth century it is possible that the revival of learning, and all that it implies, might have been delayed until too late." his influence was especially felt by those who followed him, and his enthusiasm made him a successful promoter of the new learning. but it remained for boccaccio, who was of a more practical turn of mind than petrarch, to systematize the classical knowledge of antiquity. if petrarch was an enthusiastic collector, boccaccio was a practical worker. with the aid of petrarch, he was the first to introduce a professor of greek language and literature into italy, and through this influence he secured a partial translation of homer. boccaccio began at an early age to read the classical authors and to repent the years he had spent in the study of law and in commercial pursuits. it was petrarch's example, more than anything else, which caused boccaccio to turn his attention to literature. by persistence and vigor in study, he was enabled to accomplish much by his own hand in the translation of the authors, and in middle life {367} he began a persistent and successful study of greek. his contributions to learning were great, and his turn toward naturalism was of immense value in the foundation of modern literature. he infused a new spirit in the common literature of the times. he turned away from asceticism, and frankly and openly sought to justify the pleasures of life. although his teaching may not be of the most wholesome kind, it was far-reaching in its influence in turning the mind toward the importance and desirability of the things of this life. stories of "beautiful gardens and sunny skies, fair women and luxurious lovers" may not have been the most healthful diet for universal consumption; they introduced a new element into the literature of the period and turned the thoughts of men from the speculative to the natural. a long line of italian writers followed these three great master spirits and continued to develop the desire for classical literature. for such power and force did these men have that they turned the whole tide of thought toward the masterpieces of the greeks and romans. _relation of humanism to language and literature_.--when the zeal for the classical learning declined somewhat, there sprang up in italy a group of italian poets who were the founders of an italian literature. they received their impulse from the classical learning, and, turning their attention to the affairs which surrounded them, developed a new literature. the inspiration which humanism had given to scholars of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had a tendency to develop a literary spirit among all classes of students. the products of the italian literature, however, brought out through the inspiration of humanistic studies, were not great masterpieces. while the number and variety were considerable, the quality was inferior when the intellectual power of the times is considered. the great force of italian intellect had been directed toward classical manuscripts, and hence failed to develop a literature that had real originality. perhaps among the few great italian writers of these times {368} may be mentioned guicciardini and machiavelli. the former wrote a history of italy, and the latter is rendered immortal by his _prince_. guicciardini was a native of florence, who had an important position in the service of leo x. as professor of jurisprudence, ambassador to spain, and subsequently minister of leo x, governor of modena, lieutenant-general of the pope in the campaign against the french, president of the romagna and governor of bologna, he had abundant opportunity for the study of the political conditions of italy. he is memorable for his admirable history of italy, as a talented florentine and as a member of the medicean party. machiavelli, in his _prince_, desired to picture the type of rulers needed to meet the demands of italy at the time he wrote. it is a picture of imperialism and, indeed, of despotism. the prince or ruler was in no way obliged to consider the feelings and rights of individuals. machiavelli said it was not necessary that a prince should be moral, humane, religious, or just; indeed, that if he had these qualities and displayed them they would harm him, but if he were new to his place in the principality he might seem to have them. it would be as useful to him to keep the path of rectitude when this was not too inconvenient as to know how to deviate from it when circumstances dictate. in other words, a prudent prince cannot and ought not really to keep his word except when he can do it without injury to himself. among other italian writers may be mentioned boiardo, on account of his _orlando innamorato_, and ariosto, who wrote _orlando furioso_. upon the whole, the writings of the period were not worthy of its intellectual development, although torquato tasso, in his _jerusalem delivered_, presents the first crusade as homer presented the trojan war. the small amount of really worthy literature of this age has been attributed to the lack of moral worth. _art and architecture_.--perhaps the renaissance art exceeded that which it replaced in beauty, variety, and naturalness, as well as in exuberance. there was an attempt to make {369} all things beautiful, and no attempt to follow the spirit of asceticism in degrading the human body, but rather to try to delineate every feature as noble in itself. the movement, life, and grace of the human form, the beauty of landscape, all were enjoyed and presented by the artists of the renaissance. the beauty of this life is magnified, and the artists represented in joyous mood the best qualities that are important in the world. they turned the attention from asceticism to the importance of the present life. perhaps the italians reached the highest point of development in painting, for the madonnas of italy have given her celebrity in art through all succeeding generations. cimabue was the first to paint the madonna as a beautiful woman. giotto followed next, and a multitude of succeeding madonnas have given italy renown. raphael excelled all others in the representation of the madonna, and was not only the greatest painter of all italy, but a master artist of all ages. architecture, however, appears to be the first branch of art that defied the arbitrary power of tradition. it could break away more readily than any other form of art, because of the great variety which existed in different parts of the roman empire--the byzantine in the south of italy, the gothic in the north, and romanesque in rome and the provinces. there was no conventional law for architectural style, hence innovations could be made with very little opposition. in the search for classical remains, a large number of buildings had already become known, and many more were uncovered as the searching continued. these gave types of architecture which had great influence in building the renaissance art. the changes, beginning with brunelleschi, were continued until nearly all buildings were completely romanized. then came michael angelo, who excelled in both architecture and sculpture at rome, and palladio, who worked at venice and verona. in the larger buildings the basilica of rome became the model, or at least the principles of its construction became the prevailing element in architectural design. {370} florence became the centre of art and letters in the italian renaissance.[2] though resembling athens in many respects, and bearing the same relations to surrounding cities that athens did to cities in the classic times, her scholars were more modern than those of greece or rome, and, indeed, more modern than the scholars who followed after the florentines, two centuries later. it was an important city, on the arno, surrounded by hills, a city of flowers, interesting to-day to the modern scholar and student of history. surrounded by walls, having magnificent gates, with all the modern improvements of paved streets, of sewers, gardens, and spacious parks, it represented in this early period the ideal city life. even to-day the traveller finds the palazzo vecchio, or ancient official residence of the city fathers, and very near this the loggia dei lanzi, now filled with the works of precious art, and the palazzo del podesta, now used as a national museum, the great cathedral, planned in 1294 by arnolfo, ready for consecration in 1498, and not yet completed, and many other remarkable relics of this wonderful era. the typical idea in building the cathedral was to make it so beautiful that no other in the world could ever surpass it. opposite the main door were the gates of ghiberti, which michael angelo, for their great beauty, thought worthy to be the gates of paradise. they close the entrance of the temple of saint john the baptist, the city's patron saint. more than a hundred other churches, among them the santa croce and the santa maria novella, the latter the resting-place of the medici, were built in this magnificent city. the churches were not only used for religious worship, but were important for meeting-places of the florentines. the arno was crossed by four bridges, of which the ponte vecchio, built in the middle of the fourteenth century, alone remains in its original form. upon it rest two rows of houses, each three stories high, and over this is the passageway from the palazzo pitti to the palazzo vecchio. in addition to the public buildings of {371} florence, there were many private residences and palaces of magnificence and splendor. _the effect of humanism on social manners_.--by the intellectual development of italy, fresh ideas of culture were infused into common society. to be a gentleman meant to be conversant with poetry, painting, and art, intelligent in conversation and refined in manners. the gentleman must be acquainted with antiquity sufficiently to admire the great men of the past and to reverence the saints of the church. he must understand archaeology in order to speak intelligently of the ancient achievements of the classical people. but this refinement was to a large extent conventional, for there was a lack of genuine moral culture throughout the entire renaissance. these moral defects of italy in this period have often been the occasion of dissertations by philosophers, and there is a question as to whether this moral condition was caused by the revival of classical learning or the decline of morality in the church. it ought to be considered, without doubt, as an excessive development of certain lines of intellectual supremacy without the accustomed moral guide. the church had for years assumed to be the only moral conservator, indeed the only one morally responsible for the conduct of the world. yet its teachings at this time led to no self-developed morality; helped no one to walk alone, independent, in the dignity of manhood, for all of its instructions were superimposed and not vital. at last the church fell into flagrant discord under the rule of worldly popes, and this gave a great blow to italy through the loss of the one great moral control. but the renaissance had in its day a wide-spread influence throughout europe, and gave us as its result a vitalizing influence to the whole world for centuries to come, although italy suffered a decline largely on account of its lack of the stable moral character of society. the awakening of the mind from lethargy, the turning away from dogmatism to broader views of life, enlarged duties, and new surroundings causing {372} the most intense activity of thought, needed some moral stay to make the achievements permanent and enduring. _relation of humanism to science and philosophy_.--the revival of the freedom of thought of the greeks brought an antagonism to the logic and the materialistic views of the times. it set itself firmly against tradition of whatsoever sort. the body of man had not been considered with care until anatomy began to be studied in the period of the italian renaissance. the visionary notions of the world which the people had accepted for a long time began gradually to give way to careful consideration of the exact facts. patience and loving admiration in the study of man and nature yielded immense returns to the scholars of italy. it changed the attitude of the thoughtful mind toward life, and prepared the way for new lines of thought and new accomplishments in the world of philosophy and science. through the scientific discoveries of galileo and copernicus and exploration of columbus, brought about largely by the influence of humanistic studies, were wrought far-reaching consequences in the thought of the age. and finally the scholars of italy not only threw off scholasticism but also disengaged themselves from the domineering influence of the classical studies and laid the foundation of modern freedom of inquiry. _the study of the classics became fundamental in education_.--the modern classical education received its first impulse from the italian renaissance. as before stated, it was customary for the universities to teach, with some vigor,[3] physics, medicine, law, and philosophy, largely after the manner of the medieval period, though somewhat modified and broadened in the process of thought. but in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, those who taught the ancient languages and literature were much celebrated. under the title of rhetoric we find progress not only in the study of the greek and roman masterpieces, but in a large number of subjects which had a tendency to widen the views of students and to change {373} the trend of the education in universities. it became customary for the towns and cities to have each a public place, an academy, a university, or a hall, for the means of studying the humanistic branches. the professors of the classics passed from town to town, giving instruction where the highest pay was offered. the direct influence of the renaissance on the italian education, and, indeed, on the english classical education, introduced somewhat later, has continued until this day. closely connected with the educational influences of the renaissance was the introduction of literary criticism. there was a tendency among the early humanists to be uncritical, but as intelligence advanced and scholarship developed, we find the critical spirit introduced. form, substance, and character of art and letters were carefully examined. this was the essential outcome of the previous sharp criticism of dogmatic theology and philosophy. _general influence of humanism_.--the development of new intellectual ideals was the most important result of this phase of the renaissance. nor did this extend in any particular direction. a better thought came to be held of god and man's relation to him. instead of being an arbitrary, domineering creature, he had become in the minds of the people rational and law-loving; instead of being vindictive and fickle, as he was wont to be pictured, he had been endowed with benevolence toward his creatures. the result of all this was that religion itself became more spiritual and the conscience more operative. there was less of formality and conventionality in religion and more of real, devout feeling and consciousness of worthy motive in life, but the church must have more strenuous lessons before spiritual freedom could be fulfilled. life, too, came to be viewed as something more than merely a temporary expedient, a thing to be viewed as a necessary evil. it had come to be regarded as a noble expression worthy of the thought and the best attention of every individual. this world, too, was meant to be of use and to make people happy. it was to be enjoyed and used as best it might be. {374} the old guild classes finally broke down, and where formerly men thought in groups, a strong individuality developed and man became an independent, thinking being in himself, bound by neither religion nor philosophy. he was larger than either philosophy or religion made him. he was a being of capacity and strength, and enabled to take the best of this life in order to enhance the delight of living. there came, also, with this a large belief in the law and order of the universe. old beliefs had become obsolete because the people could no longer depend on them. and when these dogmatic formulas ceased to give satisfaction to the human mind, it sought for order in the universe and the laws which controlled it, and the intellectual world then entered the field of research for truth--the field of experiment. subjects for further study 1. how did the revival of learning prepare the way for modern science? 2. what contributions to progress were made by petrarch, boccaccio, michael angelo, justinian, galileo, copernicus, columbus? 3. the nature of machiavelli's political philosophy. 4. compare gothic, romanesque, and arabian architecture. 5. the status of morals during the period of the intellectual development of europe. 6. the great weakness of the philosophy of this period. 7. what was the state of organized society and what was the "common man" doing? [1] _revival of learning_. [2] see chapter xxi. [3] see preceding chapter. {375} chapter xxiv the reformation _the character of the reformation_.--the reformation, or protestant revolution, as it is sometimes called, was a movement of such extended relations as to be difficult to define. in general, it was the liberalizing movement of the revival of learning applied to the church. as the church had attempted to be all things to all men, the movement was necessarily far-reaching in its results, affecting not only the religious but the social, educational, and political affairs of europe. in its religious aspect it shows an attempt to reform the church. this failing, the revolution followed, resulting in the independence of certain parts of the church, which were then organized under separate constitutions and governments. then followed a partial reform within the catholic church. the whole movement may be characterized as a revolt against papal authority and ecclesiastical usurpation of power. it was an assertion of independence of the mind respecting religious beliefs and a cry for a consistent life of righteousness and purity. the church had assumed an attitude which made either a speedy reformation or else a revolution necessary. the "reforming councils" of pisa, constance, and basel failed to adopt adequate reform measures. the result of these councils was merely to confirm the absolutism of papal authority. at the same time there were a very large number of adherents to the church who were anxiously seeking a reform in church government, as well as a reform in the conduct of the papacy, the clergy, and the lay membership. the papal party succeeded in suppressing all attempts of this nature, the voice of the people being silenced by a denial of constitutional government; nor was assurance given that the intrigues of the papacy, and of the church in general, would be removed. {376} the people had lost faith in the assumptions of infallibility of the papacy. the great schism in the church, in which three popes, each claiming to be the rightful successor of saint peter, each one having the "keys," each one calling the others impostors, and seeking by all possible means to dethrone them, was a great shock to the claims of infallible authority. for many years, to maintain their position as a ruling power, the popes had engaged in political squabbles with the princes of europe. while the popes at times were victorious, the result of their course was to cause a feeling of contempt for their conduct, as well as of fear of their power. the quarrel of henry iv and gregory vii, of innocent iii and john of england, of boniface and philip the fair, the babylonian captivity, and many lesser difficulties, had placed the papacy in a disreputable light. distrust, fear, and contempt for the infallible assumptions were growing. the papacy had been turned into a political engine to maintain the temporal possessions of the church and to increase its temporal power. the selfishness of the ruling prince became uppermost in all papal affairs, which was so different from the teachings of the christ who founded his kingdom on love that the contrast became observable, and even painful, to many devout people. added to this, the corruption of the members of religious orders, who had departed from their vows of chastity, was so evident to the people with whom they came in daily contact as to bring shame and disgrace upon the cause of religion. consequently, from these and other irregularities there developed a strong belief that the church needed reforming from the lowest to the highest offices. _signs of the rising storm_.--for several centuries before the religious revolution broke out there were signs of its coming. in the first place, the rise of the laical spirit was to be observed, especially after the establishment of local self-government in the free cities. the desire for representative government had extended to the lay members of the church. there was a growing feeling that the clergy, headed by the papacy, had {377} no right to usurp all the governing power of the church. many bold laymen asserted that the lay members of the church should have a voice in its government, but every such plea was silenced, every aspiration for democratic government suppressed, by a jealous papacy. there arose a number of religious sects which opposed the subordination to dogma, and returned to the teachings of the bible for authority. prominent among these were the albigenses, who became the victims of the cruel crusade instigated by the pope and led by simon de montfort. they were a peaceable, religious people who dwelt far and wide in the south of france, who refused to obey implicitly the harsh and arbitrary mandates of the pope. the waldenses were another society, composed of the followers of peter waldo, known at first as the "poor man of lyons," believing in a return to the scriptures, which they persistently read. like the albigenses, they were zealous for purity of life, and bitterly opposed to the usurpation and profligacy of the clergy. they, too, suffered bitter persecution, which indicated to many that a day of retribution was coming. there were also praying societies, formed in the church to read the scriptures and to promote a holy life. all these had their influence in preparing for a general reformation. the revival of learning had specific influences in bringing about the reformation. the two movements were blended in one in several countries, but the revival of learning in germany was overtaken by the reformation. the former sought freedom of the mind respecting philosophy and learning, the latter sought liberty of conscience respecting religious belief. the revival of learning broke down scholasticism, and thus freed the mind from dogmatic philosophy. seeking for the truth, the works of the church fathers were brought forth and read, and the texts of the old and the new testament were also used, as a criterion of authority. they showed to what extent the papacy had gone in its assumption of power, and making more prominent the fact that the church, particularly {378} the clergy, had departed from a life of purity. the result of the quickening thought of the revival was to develop independent characteristics of mind, placing it in the attitude of revolt against ecclesiastical dogmatism. _attempts at reform within the church_.--many attempts were made, chiefly on the part of individuals, to work a reform of abuses within the church. many devout men, scholars engaged in theological research and living lives of purity, sought by precept and example to bring about better spiritual and moral conditions. others sought to bring about changes in ecclesiastical government, not only in the "reforming councils" but through efforts at the papal court and in the strong bishoprics. had the church listened to these cries of the laity and zealously availed itself of the many opportunities presented, possibly the religious revolution would not have come. although it is difficult to say what would have been the result had the church listened to the voice of reform, yet it is certain that the revolution would at least have taken a different course, and the position of the church before the world would have been greatly changed. powerful individual reformers exercised great influence in bringing on the religious revolution. the voices of john wyclif, john huss, john tauler, and john wessel, like the voice of john the baptist, cried out for repentance and a return to god. these reformers desired among other things a change in the constitutional government of the church. they sought a representation of the laity and the re-establishment of the authority of the general councils. through influence such as theirs the revolution was precipitated. others in a different way, like savonarola, hastened the coming of the revolution by preaching liberty of thought and attacking the abuses of the church and its methods of government. wyclif in england advocated a simple form of church worship, rebelled against the arbitrary power of popes and priests, preached against transubstantiation, and advocated the practice of morality. he was greatly influenced by william of {379} occam, who asserted that the pope, or even a general council, might err in declaring the truth, and that the hierarchy might be given up if the good of the church demanded it. wyclif, in england, started a movement for freedom and purity which never died out. his translation of the bible was the most valuable of all his work. though he preceded the religious revolution by nearly two centuries, his influence was of such great importance that his enemies, who failed to burn him at the stake in life, ordered his grave to be desecrated. at first wyclif had the support of the king and of the university, as well as the protection of the prince of wales. but when, in 1381, he lectured at oxford against transubstantiation, he lost the royal protection, and by a senate of twelve doctors was forbidden longer to lecture at the university, although he continued preaching until his death. as his opinions agreed very nearly with those of calvin and luther, he has been called "the morning star of the reformation." the council of constance, before burning john huss and jerome of prague at the stake, condemned the doctrines of wyclif in forty-five articles, declared him a heretic, and ordered his body to be removed from consecrated ground and thrown upon a dunghill. thirteen years later clement viii, hyena-like, ordered his bones to be burned and the ashes thrown into the swift. thus his short-sighted enemies thought to stay the tide of a great reformation. john huss, a bohemian reformer, followed closely after the doctrine of wyclif, although he disagreed with him in his opposition to transubstantiation. he preached for constitutional reform of the church, reformative administration, and morality. he urged a return to the bible as a criterion for belief and a guide to action. finally he was summoned to the council of constance to answer for his heresy, and guaranteed safe-conduct by the emperor sigismund, who presided; but, notwithstanding this promise, the council declared him a heretic and burned him at the stake with jerome of prague. this was one of the results of the so-called reforming council of {380} constance--its reform consisted in silencing the opponents of papal authority and corruption. john tauler belonged to a group of people called mystic philosophers, who, though remaining within the church, opposed dogmatism and formalism and advocated spiritual religion. their doctrine was to leave formality and return to god. many other societies, calling themselves "friends of god," sprang up in the netherlands and in the south and west of germany. john tauler was the most prominent of all their preachers. he held that man is justified by faith alone, and luther, who republished tauler's book on german theology,[1] asserted that it had more influence over him than any other books, except the bible and the works of saint augustine. savonarola, a most powerful orator and great scholar of italy, lifted his voice in favor of reform in the church administration and in favor of the correction of abuses. he transcended the teachings of the schools of philosophy, departed from the dogma of the church, and preached in the name of god and his son. he was shocked at the signs of immorality which he saw in common society. as a preacher of righteousness, he prophesied a judgment speedily to come unless men turned from the error of their ways. but in the ways of the world he paid for his boldness and his enthusiasm, for the pope excommunicated him, and his enemies created distrust of him in the hearts of the people. he was put in prison, afterward brought to trial and condemned to death, and finally hanged and burned and his ashes thrown into the arno--all because the pope hoped to stay the tide of religious and social reform. _immediate causes of the reformation_.--mr. bryce, in his _holy roman empire_,[2] says: "there is perhaps no event in history which has been represented in so great a variety of lights as the reformation. {381} it has been called a revolt of the laity against the clergy, or of the teutonic races against the italians, or of the kingdoms of europe against the universal monarchy of the popes. some have seen in it only a burst of long-repressed anger at the luxury of the prelates and the manifold abuses of the ecclesiastical system; others a renewal of the youth of the church by a return to primitive forms of doctrine. all these, indeed, to some extent it was; but it was also something more profound, and fraught with mightier consequences than any of them. it was in its essence the assertion of the principle of individuality--that is to say, of true spiritual freedom." the primary nature of the reformation was, first, a return to primitive belief and purity of worship. this was accompanied by a protest against the vices and the abuses of the church and of formalism in practice. it was also an open revolt against the authority of the church, authority not only in constitution and administration but in spiritual affairs. according to bryce, "true spiritual freedom" was the prime motive in the religious revolution. and guizot, in his chapter on the reformation, clusters all statements around a single idea, the idea that it was freedom of the mind in religious belief and practice which was the chief purpose of the reformation.[3] but the immediate causes of the precipitation of the reformation may be stated as follows: _first_.--the great and continued attack on the unreasonableness of the roman catholic church, caused by the great mental awakening which had taken place everywhere in europe, the persistent and shameless profligacy of the clergy and the various monastic orders and sects, the dissolute and rapacious character of many of the popes, and the imperial attitude of the entire papacy. _second_.--we may consider as another cause the influence of the art of printing, which scattered the bible over the land, so that it could be read by a large number of people, who were thus incited to independent belief. {382} _finally_.--it may be said that the sale of indulgences, and particularly the pretensions of many of the agents of the pope as to their power to release from the bondage of sin, created intense disgust and hatred of the church, and caused the outbreak of the reformation.[4] _luther was the hero of the reformation in germany_.--he was not the cause of the reformation, only its most powerful and efficient agency, for the reformation would have taken place in time had luther never appeared. somebody would have led the phalanx, and, indeed, luther, led steadily on in his thought and researches, became a reformer and revolutionist almost before he was aware. he began (1517) by preaching against the sale of indulgences. he claimed that works had been made a substitute for faith, while man is justified by faith alone. his attack on indulgences brought him in direct conflict with one tetzel, who stirred up the jealousy of other monks, who reported luther to pope leo x.[5] luther, in a letter to the pope, proclaimed his innocence, saying that he is misrepresented and called heretic "and a thousand ignominious names; these things shock and amaze me; one thing only sustains me--the sense of my innocence." he had pinned his ninety-five theses on the door of the church at wittenberg. in writing to the pope he claimed that these were set forth for their own local interest at the university, and that he knows not why they "should go forth into all the earth." then he says: "but what shall i do? recall them i cannot, and yet i see their notoriety bringeth upon me great odium." but luther, in spite of the censure of the pope and his friends, was still an ardent adherent to the papal power and the authority of the church. he says to the pope: "save or slay, kill or recall, approve or disapprove, as it shall please you, i will acknowledge you even as the voice of christ {383} presiding and speaking in you." in writing to spalatine, he says that he may err in disputation, but that he is never to be a heretic, that he wishes to decide no doctrine, "only i am not willing to be the slave of the opinions of men." luther persisted in his course of criticism. to staupitz he wrote: "i see that attempts are made at rome that the kingdom of truth, _i.e._, of christ, be no longer the kingdom of truth." after the pope had issued his first brief condemning him, luther exclaimed: "it is incredible that a thing so monstrous should come from the chief pontiff, especially leo x. if in truth it be come forth from the roman court, then i will show them their most licentious temerity and their ungodly ignorance." these were bold words from a man who did not wish to become a reformer, a revolutionist, or a heretic. now the pope regarded this whole affair as a quarrel of monks, and allowed luther to give his side of the story. he was induced to send a certain cardinal legate, cajetan, to augsburg to bring this heretic into submission, but the legate failed to bring luther into subjection. luther then appealed to the pope, and when the pope issued a bull approving of the sale of indulgences, luther appealed to the council. thus far luther had only protested against the perversion of the rules of the church and of the papal doctrine, but there followed the public disputations with doctor john eck, the vice-chancellor of the university of ingolstadt, in which the great subject under discussion was the primacy of the pope. luther held that the pope was not infallible that he might err in matters of doctrine, and that the general council, which represented the universal church, should decide the case. now luther had already asserted that certain doctrines of huss were true, but the council of constance had condemned these and burned huss at the stake. luther was compelled by his shrewd opponent to acknowledge that a council also might err, and he had then to maintain his position that the pope and the council both might err and to commit himself to the proposition that there is no absolute authority on the {384} face of the earth to interpret the will of god. but now luther was forced to go yet a step farther. when the papal bull condemning him and excommunicating him was issued, he took the bull and burned it in the presence of a concourse of people, and then wrote his address to the german nobles. he thus set at defiance the whole church government and authority. he had become an open revolutionist. the catholic church, to defend itself from the position it had taken against luther, reasoned in this way: "where there is difference of opinion, there is doubt; where there is doubt, there is no certainty; where there is no certainty, there is no knowledge. therefore, if luther is right, that there is room for difference of opinion about divine revelation, then we have no knowledge of that revelation." in this way did the roman church attempt to suppress all freedom of religious belief. for the opposition which luther made, he was summoned to appear before the diet of augsburg, which condemned him as a heretic. had it not been that charles v, who presided, had promised him a safe-conduct to and from the diet, luther would have suffered the same fate as john huss. indeed, it is said that charles v, when near his death, regretted that he had not burned luther at the stake. it shows how little the emperor knew of the real spiritual scope of the reformation, that he hoped to stay its tide by the burning of one man. the safe-conduct of luther by charles v was decided on account of the existing state of european politics. the policy followed by the emperor at the diet was not based upon the arguments which luther so powerfully presented before the diet, but upon a preconceived policy. had the emperor of germany been only king of spain in seeking to keep the pretentious power of the pope within bounds he might have gained a great advantage by uniting with luther in the reformation. but as emperor he needed the support of the pope, on account of the danger of invasion of italy by francis i of france. he finally concluded it would be best to declare luther a heretic, but he was impotent to enforce {385} punishment by death. in this way he would set himself directly in opposition to the reformation and save his crown. apparently charles cared less for the reformation than he did for his own political preservation.[6] from this time on the reformation in germany became wholly political. its advantages and disadvantages hung largely upon the political intrigues and manipulations of the european powers. it furnished the means of an economic revolt, which luther, having little sympathy with the common people in their political and social bondage, was called to suppress from the castle of wartburg. the reformation spread rapidly over germany until the time of the organization of the jesuits, in 1542, when fully two-thirds of all germany had revolted from papal authority and had become protestant. after the organization of the jesuits, the reformation declined, on account of the zeal of that organization and the dissensions which arose among the protestants. _zwingli was the hero of the reformation in switzerland_.--the reformation which was begun by zwingli at first took on a social and a political aspect and, being soon taken up by the state, resulted in a decision by the council of zurich that no preacher could advance any arguments not found in the old or new testament. this position, with some variations, was maintained through the entire reformation. the moral and religious condition of the people of switzerland was at a very low ebb, and the course of the reformation was to preach against abuses. zwingli drew his knowledge and faith from the bible, holding that for authority one ought to return to it or to the primitive church. he advocated the abolition of image-worship, and, in addition, the abolition of enforced celibacy, nunneries, and the celebration of the mass. he held, too, that there ought to be a return to local church government, and {386} that all of the cloisters should be converted into schools. he objected to so many days being devoted to the festivals of the saints, because it lessened the productive power of the people. the whole tenor of his preaching was that the bible should be used as the basis of doctrine, and that there is no mediation except through jesus christ. as to the doctrine of the sacrament, he believed that the bread and wine are merely symbols, thus approximating the belief as established by the protestants of the present day. on the other hand, luther persistently held to the doctrine of transubstantiation, though the organized protestant churches held to "consubstantiation." the reformation in switzerland tended to develop more strongly an independent political existence, to make for freedom and righteousness, to work practical reforms in the abuses of both church and state, and to promote a deeper spiritual religion among the people. _calvin establishes the genevan system_.--john calvin was driven out of france on account of his preaching. he went to geneva and there perfected a unique system of religious organization. perhaps it is the most complete system of applied theology developed by any of the reformers. while it did not strongly unite the church and the state on the same foundation of government, it placed them in such a close unity that the religious power would be felt in every department of state life. the genevan system was well received in france, became the foundation of the reform party there, and subsequently extended its influence to scotland, and, finally, to england. it became the foundation of presbyterianism throughout the world. while calvinism was severe and arbitrary in its doctrine, on account of its system of administration, it greatly advanced civil liberty and gave a strong impulse toward democracy. it was the central force in the commonwealth of england, and upheld the representative system of government, which led to the establishment of constitutional liberty. _the reformation in england differed from the german_.--the work of john wyclif and his followers was so remote from {387} the period of the reformation as to have very little immediate influence. yet, in a general way, the influence of the teachings of wyclif continued throughout the reformation. the religious change came about slowly in england and was modified by political affairs. people gradually became liberal on the subject of religion, and began to exercise independent thought as to church government. yet, outwardly, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the followers of john wyclif made no impression upon religious affairs. the new learning, advocated by such men as erasmus, colet, and more, was gaining ground rapidly in england. its quickening influence was observed everywhere. it was confined to no particular field, but touched all departments, religious, social, political. it invaded the territory of art, of education, of literature. henry viii favored the new learning and gave it great impulse by his patronage. but the new learning in england was antagonistic to the reformation of luther. the circumstances were different, and luther attacked the attitude of the english reformers, who desired a slow change in church administration and a gradual purification of the ecclesiastical atmosphere. the difference of opinion called out a fierce attack by henry viii on luther, which gave the king the title of "defender of the faith." the real beginning of the reformation in england was a revolt from the papacy by the english king for political reasons. england established a national church, with the king at its head, and made changes in the church government and reformed abuses. the national, or anglican, church once formed, the struggle began, on the one hand, between it and the catholic church, and on the other, at a later date, against puritanism. the anglican church was not fully established until the reign of elizabeth. the real spirit of the reformation in england is best exhibited in the rise of puritanism, which received its impulse largely from the calvinistic branch of the reformation. the whole course of the reformation outside of the influence of the new learning, or humanism, was of a political nature. the {388} revolt from rome was prompted by political motives; the puritan movement was accompanied with political democracy. the result was to give great impetus to constitutional liberty, stimulate intellectual activity, and to declare for freedom of conscience in religious matters. yet it was a long way from complete religious toleration and the full establishment of the rights and liberties of the people. _many phases of reformation in other countries_.--the reformation in spain was crushed by the power of the church, which used the weapon of the inquisition so effectively. in italy the papal power prevailed almost exclusively. in the netherlands we find almost complete conversion to protestantism, and in the other northern countries we find protestantism prevailing to a great extent. indeed, we shall find between the north and the south an irregular line dividing protestantism from catholicism, in the north the former predominating, in the south the latter. in france a long, severe struggle between catholicism and protestantism took place. it was combined with the struggle of political factions, and led to bitter, hard oppression. in fact, the reformation varied in different countries according to the political, social, and intellectual state of each. interesting as the history of these countries is, it is not necessary to follow it to determine the spirit and results of the reformation. _results of the reformation were far-reaching_.--the results of the reformation interest us in this discussion far more than its historical progress. in the first place, we shall find, as the primary result, that the northern nations were separated from the power of rome and the great ecclesiastical power that the papacy possessed was broken. it could no longer maintain its position of supremacy throughout the world. although it still was powerful, especially in italy and austria, it could no longer rest its assumption on absolute authority, but must demonstrate that power by intrigue and political prowess in order to cope with the nations of europe. in the second place, there was a development of political liberty. the nations had freed {389} themselves from the domination and imperial power of the church, and were left alone to carry on their own affairs and develop their national freedom. but there was something more in the development of the reformation than those things which made for religious liberty. to the desire of freedom of the mind in religious belief the desire for freedom in political life had joined itself, and we shall find that the reformation everywhere stirred up a desire for political liberty. the fires of freedom, thus lighted, never went out, but slowly burned on until they burst out in the great conflagration of the french revolution. political liberty, then, was engendered and developed in the hearts of men and nations. again, the foundation of religious toleration was laid by the reformation, although it was not yet secured, for it must be maintained that even luther was as persistent and dogmatic in his own position, as intolerant of the beliefs of other people, as was the papal authority itself. convinced that he was right, he recognized no one's right to differ from his opinion, even though he himself had revolted from the authority of the church. he showed his bigotry and lack of tolerance in his treatment of zwingli, of calvin, and of erasmus. most of the early reformers, indeed, were intolerant of the opinions of others; the development of religious toleration has been a very slow process, not only in europe but in america. the many and various phases of the reformation nevertheless made as a whole for religious toleration. when in the reformation in germany it was decided at the religious peace of augsburg that catholics and protestants should have the same privileges, only one division of protestants was recognized, and that was the lutheran division. calvinists were entirely excluded. it was not until the peace of westphalia in 1648, which closed the great struggle known as the thirty years' war, that all denominations were recognized upon the same basis. the struggle for religious toleration in england is a history in itself, and it was not until the last century that it might be said that toleration really existed {390} in the united kingdom, for during two centuries or more there was a state religion supported by revenues raised by taxing the people, although other churches were tolerated. another great result of the reformation was the advancement of intellectual progress. all progress rests primarily upon freedom of the mind, and whatever enhances that freedom has a tendency to promote intellectual progress. the advancement of language and letters, of philosophy and science, and of all forms of knowledge, became rapid on account of this intense activity of the mind. the revival of learning received a new impulse in the development of man's spiritual nature--an impulse which was felt throughout the entire world. in this respect the reformation was far-reaching in its consequences. the church no longer assumed the sole power to think for the people. again, it may be said that the reformation improved man's material progress. the development of the independent individual life brought about strength of character, industry, and will force, which, in turn, built up material affairs and made great improvements in the economic conditions of man. everywhere that protestantism prevailed there was a rapid increase of wealth and better economic conditions. trade and commerce improved rapidly, and the industrial life went through a process of revolution. freedom upon a rational basis always brings about this vital prosperity, while despotism suppresses the desires of man for a better economic life. so we shall find that intellectual and material progress followed everywhere in the course of the reformation, while those states and nations over which the papal authority retained its strongest hold began to decline in intellectual power and material welfare. such was the force of the reformation to renovate and rejuvenate all which it touched. it made possible the slow evolution of the independence of the common man and established the dignity of labor. finally, let it be said that the reformation caused a counter-reformation within the catholic church. for many years {391} there was an earnest reform going on within the romanist church. abuses were corrected, vices eradicated, the religious tone of church administration improved, and the general character of church polity changed in very many ways. but once having reformed itself, the church became more arbitrary than before. in the council of trent, in clearly defining its position, it declared its infallibility and absolute authority, thus relapsing into the old imperial rã©gime. but the reformation, after all, was the salvation of the roman church, for through it that church was enabled to correct a sufficient number of abuses to regain its power and re-establish confidence in itself among the people. the reformation, like the renaissance, has been going on ever since it started, and we may say to-day that, so far as most of the results are concerned, we are yet in the midst of both. subjects for further study 1. needed reforms in the church and why they failed. 2. enumerate the causes that led to the reformation prior to luther. 3. compare the main characteristics in the reformation in the following countries: germany, england, switzerland, and france. 4. what were the characteristics of the genevan system instituted by john calvin? 5. the results of the reformation on intellectual development, political freedom, scientific thought, and, in general, on human progress. 6. the effect of the reformation on the character and policy of the romanist church (catholic). 7. what was the nature of the quarrels of henry iv and gregory vii, of innocent iii and john of england, of boniface and philip the fair? [1] _theologia germania_, generally accredited to tauler, but written by one of his followers. [2] _the holy roman empire_, p. 327. [3] _history of civilization_, vol. i, pp. 255-257. [4] recent writers emphasize the economic and national causes, which should be added to this list. [5] luther sent his ninety-five theses to archbishop albert of mainz. [6] luther had many friends in the diet. also he was in his own country before a german national assembly. huss was in a foreign country before a church assembly. {392} chapter xxv constitutional liberty and the french revolution _progress in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries_.--it is not easy to mark in brief space the steps of progress in the complex activities of the great movements of society of the first centuries of the period of modern history. it is not possible to relate the details of the great historical movements, with their many phases of life moving on toward great achievements. only a few of the salient and vital features may be presented, but these will be sufficient to show the resultant general achievements coming from the interaction of a multitude of forces of an expanding civilization. the great determiners of this period are found in the national life of england, france, germany, and america. out of many complex movements and causes the dominant factor is the struggle of monarchy and democracy. the revival of learning, the protestant revolution, and the attempts at popular government heralded the coming of political liberty and the recognition of the rights of man. the whole complex is a vivid example of the processes of social evolution through the interaction of groups, each moving about a central idea. again and again when freedom of mind and liberty of action seem to be successful, they have been obscured by new social maladies or retarded by adverse environmental conditions. _the struggle of monarchy with democracy_.--in a previous chapter, in which were recounted the early attempts at popular representation, it was shown that in nearly every instance the rise of popular power was suppressed by the rapid and universal growth of monarchy. having obtained power by combining with the people in their struggle against the nobility, monarchy finally denied the people the right to {393} participate in the government. it was recognized nearly everywhere in europe as the dominant type of government through which all nations must pass. through it the will of the people was to find expression, or, to use a more exact statement, monarchy proposed to express the will of the people without asking their permission. the intellectual revival which spread over europe tended to free the mind from the binding power of tradition, prestige, and dogmatism, and to give it freedom in religious belief. but while these great movements were taking place, monarchy was being established in europe, and wherever monarchy was established without proper checks of constitutional government, it became powerful and arbitrary to such a degree as to force the people into a mighty cry for political liberty. in france royalty ran rapidly into imperialism; in spain it became oppressive; but in england there was a decided check upon its absolute assumptions by way of slowly developing constitutional liberty. _struggle for constitutional liberty in england_.--for a long period monarchy had to struggle fiercely with the feudal nobility of england, but finally came off conqueror, and then assumed such arbitrary powers as appeared necessary for the government of the realm of england. it was inevitable, however, that in a people whose minds had been emancipated from absolute spiritual power and given freedom of thought, a conflict would eventually occur with monarchy which had suppressed municipal liberty, feudal nobility, and popular representation. pure monarchy sought at all times the suppression of political liberty. hence, in england, there began a struggle against the assumptions of absolute monarchy and in favor of the liberty of the people. there grew up in england under the tudors an advocacy of the inherited rights of kings. there was a systematic development of arbitrary power until monarchy in england declared itself superior to all laws and to all constitutional rights and duties. in another place it has been told how the english {394} reformation was carried on by the kings as a political institution, how the authority of rome was overthrown and the kings of england seized the opportunity to enhance their power and advance their own interests. when the people realized that they had exchanged an arbitrary power in rome for an arbitrary power in england, centred in the king, they cried out again at this latter tyranny, and sought for religious reform against the authority of the church. this movement was accompanied by a desire for political reform, also. indeed, all civil and religious authority centred in one person, the king, and a reform of religious administration could not take place without a reform of the political. the activity of english commerce and the wide-spread influence of the revival of learning, which developed a new and independent literary culture, made life intense and progress rapid. when this spirit of political liberty sought expression in england, it found it in the ancient privileges and rights of the english people, to which they sought to return. it was unfortunate that the desires for political liberty on the continent found no such means to which they could attach their ideas of a liberal government. in england we find these old rights and privileges a ready support for the principles of constitutional liberty. there were many precedents and examples of liberty which might be recalled for the purpose of quickening the zeal of the people--many, indeed, had been continued in local communities. nor were the english government and law wanting in the principles of liberty which had been handed down from former generations. moreover, it became necessary, as a practical measure, for the kings of england, if they desired to maintain their position, to call a parliament of the people for the sake of their co-operation and help in the support of the government. it is seen, therefore, that in england the spirit of constitutional liberty, though perhaps suppressed at times, never perished, though the assumption of royal power was very great, and when the party which was seeking to carry forward {395} religious reform joined itself to the party seeking political liberty, there was aroused a force in england which would be sure to prove a check on royalty and insure the rights and privileges of a free people. though the sentiment for religious reform was general throughout england, this principle was viewed in many different ways by different parties. thus the pure-monarchy party saw many evils in the laws of england and in the administration of affairs, and sought reform, but without yielding anything of the high conception of the absolute power of the king. they believed that the ancient laws and precedents of england were a check upon monarchy sufficient to reform all abuses of power that might arise. they acknowledged the divine right of kings and thought that royalty possessed a superior power, but they held that it was obliged, for its own preservation and the proper government of the realm, to confine its activity within certain limits. two other parties, the one political and the other religious, went hand in hand, both for revolution. the former denied the absolute sovereignty of the king and sought a great change in the form, the spirit, and the structure of government. they held that the ultimate power of control should rest in the house of commons as the representative of the people. the latter party sought the same process within the church. they held that it should be controlled by assemblages of the people, maintained that decentralization should take place and the constitution of the church be changed as well as its form of administration. it is easy to see that the leaders of either of these parties were also leaders of the other. a fourth party sought to repudiate the constitution, as radically wrong, and to build up an entirely new political system. it disregarded the past life of england and repudiated all precedents, desiring to build up a new government founded upon abstract theories of right and justice. the course of history under these four parties is plain. each one, struggling for power, tried to manage the government {396} upon its particular theory, and signally failed. the struggle in the house of commons, had it not finally brought about such great consequences, would be disgusting and discouraging in the extreme. the struggle in england for liberty of conscience and for government of the people through parliament went on through turmoil and disgrace for two centuries. it was king against the people, catholic against protestant, and, within the latter group, anglican, presbyterian, and independent, each against one another. all sorts of unjust and inhuman practices were indulged in. it would seem that the spirit of magna charta and of the christian religion was constantly outraged. when henry viii, in 1521, wrote his attack on luther embodied in the _assertion of the seven sacraments_, pope leo x gave him the title of "defender of the faith." subsequently, when he appealed to the pope to help him settle his marital difficulties, the pope refused to support him, and finally excommunicated him for divorcing his wife catherine. this led to a break with rome, and the supremacy act, which made the king protector and only supreme head of the church and clergy of england. this inaugurated the long struggle between catholic and protestant, with varying fortunes to each side. the tudor period closed with the death of elizabeth, in 1603, with a fairly well-established conformity to the anglican church; but puritanism was growing slowly but surely, which meant a final disruption. from this time on there was confusion of political and religious affairs for another century. in 1621 parliament rebuked king james i for his high-handed proceedings with protestation: "that the liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of parliament are the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of england, and that the arduous and urgent affairs of the king, state, and defense of the realm ... are proper subjects and matters of council and debate in parliament." the king tore the page containing the resolution from the journal of parliament; but this did not retard the struggle for the {397} recognition of ancient rights. the strife went on throughout the reign of the stuarts, until charles i lost his head and the nation was plunged into a great civil war. there finally appeared on the scene of action a man of destiny. cromwell, seizing the opportunity, turned everything toward democracy, and ruled republicans, puritans, and royalists with such an iron hand that his painful democracy came to a sudden close through reaction under the rule of his successor. the stuarts again came into power, and, believing in the divine right of kings--a principle which seems to have been imbibed from the imperialism of france--sought to bring everything into subordination to royalty. the people, weary of the irregular government caused by the attempts of the different parties to rule, and tired of the abuses and irregularities of the administration, welcomed the restoration of royalty as an advantage to the realm. but the stuarts sought not only to rule with high hand, regardless of the wants, desires, and will of the people, but also to bring back the absolute authority of the papacy. by their arbitrary, high-handed proceedings, they brought the english government to a crisis which was ended only by the coming of william of orange to rule upon the throne with constitutional right; for the people seized their opportunity to demand a guaranty of the rights of freemen which would thoroughly establish the principle of constitutional liberty in england. but the declaration of parliament at the accession of william and mary, which subsequently was enacted as a famous bill of rights, showed a great permanent gain in constitutional liberty. it centred the power in parliament, whose authority was in the commons. it was true the arbitrary power of kings came to the front during the rule of the four georges, but it was without avail, and reform measures followed their reign. constitutional government had won. it is true that the revolution failed to establish religious toleration, but it led the way with rapid strides. in the progress of civil liberty and freedom of conscience in {398} england, the literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had a powerful influence. in the world of ideas, freedom of thought found expression through the great writers. while few attacked the evils of government, they were not wanting in setting forth high ideals of life, liberty, and justice. such men as john milton, john locke, john bunyan, and shakespeare turned the thinking world toward better things in government and life. thus england had a check on the growth of monarchy, while freedom of investigation led to an inquiry about the rights of the people; hence, the seeds of popular liberty were growing at the time monarchy was making its greatest assumption. the people never yielded, in theory at least, their ancient rights to the absolute control of royalty. kingship in england was developed through service, and while the english were strong for monarchy because it expressed a unity of the nation, they expected the king to consider the rights of the people, which gave rise to a complex movement in england, making for religious and political liberty, in which all classes were engaged in some degree at different times. in france, however, it was different. at first the feudal nobility ruled with absolute sway. it continued in power long enough to direct the thoughts of the people toward it and to establish itself as a complete system. it had little opposition in the height of its power. when monarchy arose it, too, had the field all to itself. people recognized this as the only legitimate form of government. again, when monarchy failed, people rushed enthusiastically to democracy, and in their wild enthusiasm made of it a government of terror. how different were the results. in england there was a slow evolution of constitutional government in which the rights of the people, the king, the nobility, and the clergy were respected, and each class fell into its proper place in the government. in france, each separate power made its attempt to govern, and failed. its history points to a truth, namely, that no kind of government is safe without a system of checks. {399} _the place of france in modern civilization_.--guizot tries to show that in the seventeenth century france led the civilization of the world; that while louis xiv was carrying absolute government to its greatest height, philosophy, art, and letters flourished; that france, by furnishing unique and completed systems, has led the european world in civilization. to a great extent this is true, for france had better opportunities to develop an advanced civilization than any other european nation. it must be remembered that france, at an early period, was completely romanized, and never lost the force and example of the roman civilization; and, also, that in the invasion of the norman, the northern spirit gave france vigor, while its crude forms were overcome by the more cultured forms of french life. while other nations were still in turmoil france developed a distinct and separate nationality. at an early period she cast off the power of rome and maintained a separate ecclesiastical system which tended to develop an independent spirit and further increase nationality. her population was far greater than that of any other nation, and her wealth and national resources were vastly superior to those of others. these elements gave france great prestige and great power, and fitted her to lead in civil progress. they permitted her to develop a high state of civilization. if the genius of the french people gave them adaptability in communicating their culture to others, it certainly was of service to europe. yet the service of france must not be too highly estimated. if, working in the dark, other nations, not so far advanced as france on account of material causes, were laying a foundation of the elements of civilization, which were to be of vast importance in the development of the race, it would appear that as great credit should be given them as to the french manners, genius, and culture which gave so little permanent benefit to the world. guizot wisely refrains from elaborating the vices of the french monarchy, and fails to point out the failure of the french system of government. {400} _the divine right of kings_.--from the advent of the capetian dynasty of french kings royalty continually increased its power until it culminated under louis xiv. the court, the clergy, and, in fact, the greater number of the preachers of france, advocated the divine origin and right of kings. if god be above all and over all, his temporal rulers as well as his spiritual rulers receive their power from him; hence the king receives his right to rule from god. who, then, has the right to oppose the king? upon this theory the court preachers adored him and in some instances deified him. people sought to touch the hem of his garment, or receive from his divine majesty even a touch of the hand, that they might be healed of their infirmities. in literature louis was praised and deified. the "grand monarch" was lauded and worshipped by the courtiers and nobles who circled around him. he maintained an extravagant court and an elaborate etiquette, so extravagant that it depleted the rural districts of money, and drew the most powerful families to revolve around the king. the extravagant life paralyzed the energies of kings and ministers, who built a government for the advantage of the governing and not the governed. "i am the state!" said the grand monarch. although showing in many ways an enlightened absolutism, his rule plunged french royalty into despotism. louis xv held strongly to absolutism, but lacked the power to render it attractive and magnificent. louis xvi attempted to stem the rising tide, but it was too late. the evils were too deeply seated; they could not be changed by any temporary expedient. french royalty reached a logical outcome from all power to no power. louis xiv had built a strong, compact administration under the direction of able men, but it was wanting in liberty, it was wanting in justice, and it is only a matter of time when these deficiencies in a nation lead to destruction. _the power of the nobility_.--the french nobility had been mastered by the king, but to keep them subservient, to make them circle around royalty and chant its praises, they were {401} given a large extension of rights and privileges. they were exempt from the responsibilities for crime; they occupied all of the important places in church and state; they were exempt from taxation; many who dwelt at the court with the king lived off the government; many were pensioned by the government, their chief recommendation apparently being idleness and worthlessness. there was a great gulf between the peasantry and the nobility. the latter had control of all the game of the forests and the fish in the rivers; one-sixth of all the grain grown in the realm went to the nobility, as did also one-sixth of all the land sold, and all confiscated property fell to them. the peasants had no rights which the nobility were bound to respect. the nobility, with all of the emoluments of office, owned, with the clergy, two-thirds of all the land. yet this unproductive class numbered only about 83,000 families. _the misery of the people_.--if the nobility despised the lower classes and ignored their rights, they in turn were hated intensely by those whom they sought to degrade. the third estate in france was divided into the bourgeoisie and the peasantry and small artisans. the former gradually deteriorated in character and tended toward the condition of the lowest classes. by the revocation of the edict of nantes, a large number of the bourgeoisie, or middle class, was driven from france. this deprived france of the class that would have stood by the nation when it needed support, and would have stood for moderate constitutional government against the radical democrats like robespierre and marat. the lowest class, composed of small peasant farmers, laborers, and artisans, were improved a little under the reign of louis xiv, but this made them feel more keenly the degradation in succeeding years, from which there was no relief. the condition of the people indicated that a revolution was on its way. in the evolution of european society the common man was crowded down toward the condition of serfdom. the extravagances and luxuries of life, the power of kings, bishops, and nobles bore like a burden of heavy weight upon his {402} shoulders. he was the common fodder that fed civilization, and because of this more than anything else, artificial systems of society were always running for a fall, for the time must come when the burdens destroy the foundation and the superstructure comes tumbling down. _the church_.--the church earned an important position in france soon after the conquest by the romans; seizing opportunities, it came into power by right of service. it brought the softening influences of religion; it established government where there was no government; it furnished a home for the vanquished and the oppressed; it preserved learning from the barbarians; it conquered and controlled the warlike spirit of the germans; it provided the hungry with food, and by teaching agriculture added to the economic wealth of the community; and finally, it became learned, and thus brought order out of chaos. surely the church earned its great position, and reaped its reward. taine says: "its popes for two hundred years were the dictators of europe. it organized crusades, dethroned monarchs, and distributed kingdoms. its bishops and abbots became here sovereign princes and there veritable founders of dynasties. it held in its grasp a third of the territory, one-half the revenue, and two-thirds of the capital of europe." the church was especially strong in france. it was closely allied to the state, and opposed everything that opposed the state. when the king became the state, the church upheld the king. the church of france, prior to the revolution, was rich and aristocratic. in 1789 its property was valued at 4,000,000,000 francs, and its income at 200,000,000 francs; to obtain a correct estimate according to our modern measure of value, these amounts should be doubled. in some territories the clergy owned one-half the soil, in others three-fourths, and in one, at least, fourteen-seventeenths of the land. the abbey of st.-germain-des-prã©s possessed 900,000 acres. yet within the church were found both the wealthy and the poverty-stricken. in one community was a bishop rolling in luxury {403} and ease, in another a wretched, half-starved country curate trying to carry the gospel to half-starved people. such extremes were shocking commentaries upon a church founded on democracy. the church persecuted the literary men who expressed freedom of thought and opinion. it ignored facts and the people distrusted it. the religious reformation in france became identified with political factions, which brought the church into a prominent place in the government and made it take an important place in the revolution. it had succeeded in suppressing all who sought liberty, either political or religious, and because of its prominence in affairs, it was the first institution to feel the storm of the revolution. the church in france was attacked fully forty years before the king and the nobility were arraigned by the enraged populace. _influence of the philosophers_.--there appeared in france in the reign of louis xv what was known as "the new literature," in contrast with the classic literature of the previous reign. the king and the church combined fought this new literature, because it had a tendency to endanger absolutism. it was made by such brilliant men as helvetius, montesquieu, voltaire, condillac, and rousseau. perhaps the writings of these men had more to do with the precipitation of the revolution than the arbitrary assumptions of royalty, the wretchedness of the people, the supercilious abuses of the nobility, and the corruption of the church. without presenting the various philosophies of these writers, it may be said that they attacked the systems of government, religion, and philosophy prevailing in france, and each succeeding writer more boldly proclaimed the evils of the day. condillac finally convinced the people that they owed their evil conditions to the institutions of church and state under which they lived, and showed that, if they desired a change, all it was necessary to do was to sweep those institutions away. other philosophers speculated on the best means of improving the government. presenting ideal forms of {404} government and advocating principles not altogether certain in practice, they made it seem, through these speculative theories, that a perfect government is possible. of the great writers of france prior to the revolution who had a tremendous power in hastening the downfall of the royal rã©gime, three stand out more prominently than others, namely, voltaire, montesquieu, and rousseau. voltaire, keen critic and satirist, attacked the evils of society, the maladministration of courts and government, the dogmatism of the church, and aided and defended the victims of the system. he was a student of shakespeare, locke, and newton, and of english government. he was highly critical but not constructive. montesquieu, more philosophical, in his _spirit of the laws_ pointed out the cause of evils, expounded the nature of governments, and upheld english liberty as worthy the consideration of france. rousseau, although he attacked civilization, depicting its miseries and inconsistencies, was more constructive, for in his _social contract_ he advocated universal suffrage and government by the people through the principles of natural rights and mutual aid. these writers aroused a spirit of liberty among the thoughtful which could not do otherwise than prove destructive to existing institutions. _the failure of government_.--it soon became evident to all that a failure of the government from a practical standpoint was certain. the burdens of unequal taxation could no longer be borne; the treasury was empty; there was no means of raising revenue to support the government as it was run; there was no one who could manage the finances of the nation; the administration of justice had fallen into disrepute; even if there had been an earnest desire to help the various classes of people in distress, there were no opportunities to do so. louis xvi, in his weakness, called the states-general for counsel and advice. it was the first time the people had been called in council for more than 200 years; monarchy had said it could run the government without the people, and now, on the verge of destruction, called upon the people to save it from the {405} wreck. the well-intended king invoked a storm; his predecessors had sown the wind, he reaped the whirlwind. _france on the eve of the revolution_.--the causes of the revolution were dependent, in part, upon the peculiarity of the character of the french people, for in no other way can the sudden outburst or the course of the revolution be accounted for. yet a glimpse at the condition of france before the storm burst will cause one to wonder, not that it came, but that it was so long delayed. a careful examination of the facts removes all mystery respecting the greatest political phenomenon of all history, and makes of it an essential outcome of previous conditions. the french people were grossly ignorant of government. the long period of misrule had distorted every form of legitimate government. one school of political philosophers gave their attention to pointing out the evils of the system; another to presenting bright pictures of ideal systems of government which had never been put in practice. the people found no difficulty in realizing the abuses of government, for they were intense sufferers from them, and, having no expression in the management of affairs, they readily adopted ideal theories for the improvement of social conditions. moreover, there was no national unity, no coherence of classes such as in former days brought strength to the government. monarchy was divided against itself; the lay nobility had no loyalty, but were disintegrated by internal feuds; the people were divided into opposing classes; the clergy were rent asunder. monarchy, though harsh, arbitrary, and unjust, did not have sufficient coercive force to give a strong rule. the church had lost its moral influence--indeed, morality was lacking within its organization. it could persecute heretics and burn books which it declared to be obnoxious to its doctrines, but it could not work a moral reform, much less stem the tide that was carrying away its ancient prerogatives. the nobility had no power in the government, and the dissension between the crown, the nobility, and the church was continuous and {406} destructive of all authority. continuous and disreputable quarrels, profligacy, extravagance, and idleness characterized each group. worst of all was the condition of the peasantry. the commons of france, numbering twenty-five millions of people, had, let it be said in their favor, no part in the iniquitous and oppressive government. they were never given a thought by the rulers except as a means of revenue. there had grown up another, a middle class, especially in towns, who had grown wealthy by honest toil, and were living in ease and luxury, possessed of some degree of culture. they disliked the nobles, on the one hand, and the peasants, on the other; hated and opposed the nobility and ignored the common people. this class did not represent the sterling middle class of england or of modern life, but were the product of feudalism. the condition of the rural peasantry is almost beyond description. suffering from rack-rents, excessive taxation, and the abuses of the nobility, they presented a squalor and wretchedness worse than that of the lowest vassals of the feudal regime. in the large cities collected the dangerous classes who hated the rich. ignorant, superstitious, half-starved, they were ready at a moment's notice to attack the wealthy and to destroy property. the economic and financial conditions of the nation were deplorable, for the yield of wealth decreased under the poorly organized state. the laborers received such wages as left them at the verge of starvation and prepared them for open revolution. the revenues reserved for the support of the government were insufficient for the common needs, and an empty treasury was the result. the extravagance of king, court, and nobility had led to excessive expenditures and gross waste. there were no able ministers to manage the affairs of the realm on an economic basis. add to these evils lack of faith, raillery at decency and virtue, and the poisonous effects of a weak and irresponsible philosophy, and there are represented sufficient evils to make a revolution whenever there is sufficient vigor to start it. {407} _the revolution_.--the revolution comes with all of its horrors. the church is humbled and crushed, the government razed to the ground, monarchy is beheaded, and the flower of nobility cut off. the wild mob at first seeks only to destroy; later it seeks to build a new structure on the ruins. the weak monarch, attempting to stem the tide, is swept away by its force. he summons the states-general, and the commons declare themselves the national assembly. stupendous events follow in rapid succession--the revolt in paris, the insubordination of the army, the commune of paris, and the storming of the bastile. the legislative assembly brings about the constitutional assembly, and laws are enacted for the relief of the people. intoxicated with increasing liberty, the populace goes mad, and the legislators pass weak and harmful laws. the law-making and constitutional bodies cannot make laws fast enough to regulate the affairs of the state. lawlessness and violence increase until the "reign of terror" appears with all its indescribable horrors. the rest is plain. having levelled all government to the ground, having destroyed all authority, having shown themselves incapable of self-government, the french people are ready for napoleon. under his command and pretense they march forth to liberate humanity from oppression in other nations, but in reality to a world conquest. _results of the revolution_.--the french revolution was by far the most stupendous event of modern history. it settled forever in the western world the relation of man to government. it taught that absolutism of any class, if unchecked, must lead sooner or later to the destruction of all authority. it taught that men, to be capable of self-government, must be educated in its principles through a long period, yet proclaimed to the western world the freedom of man, and asserted his right to participate in government. while france temporarily failed to bring about this participation, it awoke the cry for independence, equality, and fraternity around the world. the results of the revolution became the common property {408} of all nations, and a universal sentiment arising from it pervaded every country, shaping its destiny. the severe blow given to absolutism and exclusive privilege in church and state settled forever the theory of the divine right of kings and prelates to govern. the revolution asserted that the precedent in religious and political affairs must yield to the necessities of the people; that there is no fixed principle in government except the right of man to govern himself. the establishment of the theory of the natural right of man to participate in government had great influence on succeeding legislation and modified the policy of surrounding nations. the social-contract theory was little understood and gave an incorrect notion of the nature of government. in its historical creation, government was a growth, continually suiting itself to the changing needs of a people. its practice rested upon convenience and precedent, but the real test for participation in government was capability. but the french revolution startled the monarchs of europe with the assumption of the natural right of people to self-government. possibly it is incorrect when carried to extremes, for the doctrine of natural right must be merged into the practice of social rights, duties, and privileges. but it was a check on despotism. the revolution had an influence on economic life also. it was only a step from freedom of intellectual opinion to freedom of religious belief, and only a step from religious freedom to political liberty. carried to its legitimate outcome, the growing sentiment of freedom asserted industrial liberty and economic equality. its influence in the emancipation of labor was far-reaching. many of the theories advanced in the french revolution were impracticable; sentiments engendered were untrue, which in the long run would lead to injustice. many of its promises remain unfulfilled, yet its lessons are still before us, its influence for good or evil continues unabated. {409} subjects for further study 1. the progress in constitutional government was made in england during the commonwealth. 2. changes in the social and economic condition of england from 1603 to 1760. 3. when did the industrial revolution begin? what were its causes? what its results? 4. the rise of british commerce. 5. effect of commerce on english economic and social life. 6. of what use to england were her american colonies? 7. the effect of the american revolution on the french revolution. 8. the effect of the french revolution on american liberty. {413} _part v_ modern progress chapter xxvi progress of political liberty _political liberty in the eighteenth century_.--looking backward from the standpoint of the close of the eighteenth century and following the chain of events in the previous century, the real achievement in social order is highly disappointing. the french revolution, which had levelled the monarchy, the church, and the nobility, and brought the proletariat in power for a brief season and lifted the hopes of the people toward a government of equality, was hurrying on from the directorate to the consulate to the empire, and finally returning to the old monarchy somewhat worn and dilapidated, indeed, but sufficient in power to smother the hopes of the people for the time being. numerous french writers, advocating anarchy, communism, and socialism, set up ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity which were not to be realized as the immediate result of the revolution. babeuf, saint-simon, cabet, and louis blanc set forth new ideals of government, which were diametrically opposed to the practices of the french government in preceding centuries. though some of their ideals were lofty, the writers were critical and destructive rather than constructive. england, after the coming of william and mary and the passing of the bill of rights in 1689, witnessed very little progress in political rights and liberty until the reform measures of the nineteenth century. on the continent, prussia had risen to a tremendous power as a military state and developed an autocratic government with some pretenses to political liberty. but the dominant force of prussia working on the basis of the ancient feudalism was finally to crush out the liberties of the german people and establish autocratic government. {414} the holy roman empire, which had continued so long under the union of austria and italy, backed by the papacy, had reached its height of arbitrary power, and was destroyed by the napoleonic wars. in the whole period there were political struggles and intrigues within the various states, and political struggles and intrigues and wars between the nations. it was a period of the expression of national selfishness which sought enlarged territory and the control of commerce and trade. taken as a whole, there is little that is inspiring in the movement of nations in this period. indeed, it is highly disappointing when we consider the materials at their hand for political advancement. the political game at home played by cliques and factions and politicians struggling for power frequently led to disgraces abroad, such as the war against the american colonies and the extension of power and domination in india. there is scarcely a war, if any, in this whole period that should not have been settled without difficulty, provided nations were honest with each other and could exercise, if not reason, common sense. the early great movements, such as the revival of learning and progress centring in italy and extending to other nations, the religious revolution which brought freedom of belief, the revolution of england and the commonwealth, the french revolution with its projections of new ideals of liberty on the horizon of political life, promised better things. also, during this period the development of literature and the arts and sciences should have been an enlightened aid to political liberty. nevertheless, the higher ideals of life and liberty which were set forth during these lucid intervals of the warring nations of the world were never lost. the seeds of liberty, once having been sown, were to spring up in future years and develop through a normal growth. _the progress of popular government found outside of the great nations_.--the rise of democracy in switzerland and the netherlands and its development in america, although {415} moving indirectly and by reaction, had a lasting influence on the powerful nations like germany, england, france, and austria. in these smaller countries the warfare against tyranny, despotism, and ignorance was waged with success. great gain was made in the overthrow of the accumulated power of traditional usage and the political monopoly of groups of people who had seized and held the power. through trial and error, success and failure, these people, not noted for their brilliant warfare but for their love of peace, succeeded in establishing within their boundaries a clear definition of human rights and recognizing the right of the people to have a better government. _reform measures in england_.--the famous bill of rights of 1689 in england has always been intact in theory. it laid the foundation for popular government in which privileges and rights of the people were guaranteed. it may have been a good expedient to have declared that no papist should sit upon the throne of england, thus declaring for protestantism, but it was far from an expression of religious toleration. the prestige of the house of lords, an old and well-established aristocratic body, built upon ancient privilege and the power of the monarchy which too frequently acknowledged constitutional rights and then proceeded to trample upon them, made the progress in popular government very slow. one great gain had been made when the nation agreed to fight its political battles in parliament and at elections. the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech gradually became established facts. among the more noted acts for the benefit of popular government was the reform bill of 1832, which enlarged the elective franchise. this was bitterly opposed by the lords, but the persistency of the commons won the day and the king signed the bill. again in 1867 the second reform bill enlarged the franchise, and more modern acts of parliament have given greater liberties to the english people. england opposed independent local government of scotland and ireland and of her colonies. ireland had been oppressed {416} by the malady of english landlordism, which had always been a bone of contention in the way of any amicable adjustment of the relations between england and ireland. throughout the whole century had waged this struggle. england at times had sought through a series of acts to relieve the country, but the conservative element in parliament had usually thwarted any rational system like that proposed by mr. gladstone. on the other hand, the irish people themselves desired absolute freedom and independence and were restive under any form of restraint. nothing short of entire independence from the english nation or the establishment of home rule on some practical basis could insure peace and contentment in ireland. nor in the past could one be assured at any time that ireland would have been contented for any length of time had she been given or acquired what she asked for. being forced to support a large population on an infertile soil where landlordism dominated was a cause of a continual source of discontent, and the lack of practice of the irish people in the art of local government always gave rise to doubts in the minds of her friends as to whether she could succeed as an independent nation or not. but the final triumph of ireland in establishing a free state with the nominal control of the british empire shows that ireland has power to govern herself under fair treatment. what a great gain it would have been if many years ago england had yielded to the desire of ireland for an independent constitutional government similar to that of canada! tremendous changes have taken place in recent years in the liberalizing movement in england. the state church still exists, but religious toleration is complete. women have been allowed the right to vote and are taking deep interest in political affairs, three women already having seats in parliament. the labor movement, which has always been strong and independent in england, by the exercise of its right at the polls finally gained control of the government and, for the first time {417} in the history of england, a leading labor-union man and a socialist became premier of england. _the final triumph of the french republic_.--on account of ignorance of the true theories of government, as well as on account of lack of practical exercise in administration, for several decades the government which the french people established after the destruction of the monarchy of louis xvi failed. the democracy of the french revolution was iconoclastic, not creative. it could tear down, but could not rebuild. there were required an increased intelligence and the slow process of thought, a meditation upon the principles for which the people had fought and bled, and an enlarged view of the principles of government, before a republic could be established in france. napoleon, catching the spirit of the times, gratified his ambition by obtaining the mastery of national affairs and leading the french people against foreign nations under the pretext of overthrowing despotism in europe. in so doing he established absolutism once more in france. he became the imperial monarch of the old type, with the exceptions that intelligence took the place of bigotry and the welfare of the people took the place of the laudation of kings. but in attempting to become the dictator of all europe, he caused other nations to combine against him, and finally he closed his great career with a waterloo. the monarchy, on its restoration, became constitutional; the government was composed of two chambers--the peers, nominated by the king, and the lower house, elected by the people. a system of responsible ministers was established, and of judges, who were not removable. much had been gained in religious and civil liberty and the freedom of the press. but monarchy began to grow again, urged by the middle class of france, until in july, 1830, another revolution broke out on account of election troubles. the charter was violated in the prohibition of the publication of newspapers and pamphlets, and the elective system arbitrarily changed so as to restrict the suffrage to the landowners. the reaction {418} from this was to gain something more for democratic government. in the meantime there had been a growth of socialism, the direct product of the revolution. the king finally abdicated in favor of his grandson, and then a provisional government was established, and finally a republic, the second republic of france. louis napoleon, who became president of the republic under the constitution, gradually absorbed all powers to himself and proclaimed himself emperor. after the close of the franco-german war, in 1871, france became a republic for the third time. a constitution was formed, under which the legislative power was exercised by two chambers--the chamber of deputies, elected by direct vote and manhood suffrage for four years, and the senate, consisting of 300 senators, 75 of whom were elected for life by the national assembly, the rest for nine years, by electoral colleges. these latter were composed of deputies, councils of the departments, and delegates of communes. the executive power was vested in a president, who was assisted by a responsible ministry. republicanism was at last secured to france. many changes have taken place in the application of the constitution to popular government since then, and much progress has been made in the practice of free government. the whole composition of the government reminds one of constitutional monarchy, with the exception that the monarch is chosen by the people for a short period of time. _democracy in america_.--the progress of democracy in america has been rapid. the first colonists were oppressed by the authority of european nations and bound by unyielding precedent. while the principle of local self-government obtained to a large extent in many of them, they partook more of aristocracies, or of governments based on class legislation, than of pure democracies. when independence from foreign countries was won by the united efforts of all the colonies, the real struggle for universal liberty began. a government was founded, so far as it was possible, on the principles of the declaration of independence, which asserted "that all men {419} are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights"; and that "for securing these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." the creation of a federal constitution and the formation of a perfect union guaranteed these rights to every citizen. yet in the various states forming a part of the union, and, indeed, in the national government itself, it took a long time to approximate, in practice, the liberty and justice which were set forth in the declaration of independence and the constitution. still, in the past century, the people have become more and more closely connected with the state, and a "government of the people, for the people, and by the people" is a certainty. the laws which have been made under the constitution increase in specific declarations of the rights of the people. justice is more nearly meted out to all classes at present than in any decade for a century. the political powers of citizens have constantly enlarged. the elective franchise has been extended to all citizens of both sexes. the requirements as to naturalization of foreigners are exceedingly lenient, and thus free government is offered to all people. of necessity the central government has been strengthened on account of the enlargement of territory and the great extension of national governmental powers. it has been necessary that the central forces which bind the separate parts of the nation together in a common union should be strengthened. the result has been a decline in the importance and power of the state governments. on the other hand, the large increase of population in the great cities has tended to enhance the power and importance of local government. the government of a single large city now becomes more difficult and of greater vital importance to the people than that of a state. the enlarged territory and increased population, and the enormous amount of legislative machinery, have tended to extend to its utmost limit the principle of representative government. congress represents the people of the whole nation, {420} but committees represent congress and subcommittees represent committees. there is a constant tendency to delegate powers to others. pure democracy has no place in the great american republic, except as it is seen in the local government unit. here the people always have a part in the caucus, in the primary or the town meeting, in the election of local officers and representatives for higher offices, in the opportunity to exercise their will and raise their voice in the affairs of the nation. to some extent the supposed greater importance of the national government has led the people to underestimate the opportunities granted them for exercising their influence as citizens within the precinct in which they live. but there is to-day a tendency to estimate justly the importance of local government as the source of all reforms and the means of the preservation of civil liberty. it has been pointed out frequently by the enemies of democracy that the practice of the people in self-government has not always been of the highest type. in many instances this criticism is true, for experience is always a dear teacher. the principles of democracy have come to people through conviction and determination, but the practices of self-government come through rough experiences, sometimes marked by a long series of blunders. the cost of a republican form of government to the people has frequently been very expensive on account of their ignorance, their apathy, and their unwillingness to take upon themselves the responsibilities of government. consider, for instance, the thousands of laws that are made and placed upon the statute-books which have been of no value, possibly of detriment, to the community--laws made through the impulse of half-informed, ill-prepared legislators. consider also the constitutions, constitutional amendments, and other important acts upon which the people express their opinion. the smallness of the vote of a people who are jealous of their own rights and privileges is frequently surprising. notice, too, how frequently popular power has voted against its {421} own rights and interests. see the clumsy manner by which people have voted away their birthrights or, failing to vote at all, have enslaved themselves to political or financial monopoly. observe, too, the expenses of the management of democratic governments, the waste on account of imperfect administration, and the failure of the laws to operate. consideration of these points brings us to the conclusion that the perfection of democracy or republican government has not been reached, and that while liberty may be an expensive affair, it is so on account of the negligence of the people in qualifying for self-government. if a democratic form of government is to prevail, if popular government is to succeed, if the freedom of the people is to be guaranteed, there must be persistent effort on the part of the people to prepare themselves for their own government; a willingness to sacrifice for liberty, for liberty will endure only so long as people are willing to pay the price it costs. they must govern themselves, or government will pass from them to others. eternal vigilance is the price of good government. _modern political reforms_.--political reform has been proceeding recently in many particular ways. perhaps the most noticeable in america is that of civil service reform. strong partisanship has been a ruling factor in american politics, often to the detriment of the financial and political interests of the country. jealous of their prerogative, the people have insisted that changes in government shall occur often, and that the ruling party shall have the privilege of appointing the officers of the government. this has made it the almost universal practice for the incoming party to remove the officers of the old administration and replace them with its own appointments. to such an extent has this prevailed that it has come to be known as the "spoils system." but there is now a general tendency for the principles of civil service to prevail in all parts of the national government, and a growing feeling that they should be instituted in the various states and municipalities of the union. the {422} federal government has made rapid progress in this line in recent years, and it is to be hoped that before long the large proportion of appointive offices will be put upon a merit basis and the persons who are best qualified to fill these places retained from administration to administration. attempts are being made in nearly all of our cities for business efficiency in government, though there is much room for improvement. the government of the united states is especially weak in administration, and is far behind many of the governments of the old world in this respect. with a thoroughly established civil service system, the effectiveness of the administration would be increased fully fifty per cent. under the present party system the waste is enormous, and as the people must ultimately pay for this waste, the burden thrown upon them is great. in the first place, the partisan system necessarily introduces large numbers of inexperienced, inefficient officers who must spend some years in actual practice before they are really fitted for the positions which they occupy. in the second place, the time spent by congressmen and other high officials in attention to applicants for office and in urging of appointments, prevents them from improving their best opportunity for real service to the people. the practice of civil service reform is being rapidly adopted in the nations of the world which have undertaken the practice of self-government, and in those nations where monarchy or imperialism still prevails, persons in high authority feel more and more impelled to appoint efficient officers to carry out the plans of administrative government. it is likely that the time will soon come when all offices requiring peculiar skill or especial training will be filled on the basis of efficiency, determined by competitive examination or other tests of ability. another important reform, which has already been begun in the united states, and which, in its latest movement, originated in australia, is ballot reform. there has been everywhere in democratic government a tendency for fraud to increase on election days. the manipulation of the votes of {423} individuals through improper methods has been the cause of fraud and a means of thwarting the will of the people. it is well that the various states and cities have observed this and set themselves to the task of making laws to guard properly the ballot-box and give free, untrammelled expression to the will of the people. though nearly all the states in the union have adopted some system of balloting (based largely upon the australian system), many of them are far from perfection in their systems. yet the progress in this line is encouraging when the gains in recent years are observed. since the decline of the old feudal times, in which our modern tax system had its origin, there has been a constant improvement in the system of taxation. yet this has been very slow and apparently has been carried on in a bungling way. the tendency has been to tax every form of property that could be observed or described. and so our own nation, like many others, has gone on, step by step, adding one tax after another, without carefully considering the fundamental principles of taxation or the burdens laid upon particular classes. to-day we have a complex system, full of irregularities and imperfections. our taxes are poorly and unjustly assessed, and the burdens fall heavily upon some, while others have an opportunity of escaping. we have just entered an era of careful study of our tax systems, and the various reports from the different states and the writings of economists are arousing great interest on these points. when once the imperfections are clearly understood and defined, there may be some hope of a remedy of present abuses. to be more specific, it may be said that the assessments of the property in counties of the same state vary between seventeen and sixty per cent of the market valuation. sometimes this discrepancy is between the assessments of adjacent counties, and so great is the variation that seldom two counties have the same standard for assessing valuation. the personal-property tax shows greater irregularity than this, especially in our large cities. the tax on imports, though {424} apparently meeting the approval of a majority of the american people, makes, upon the whole, a rather expensive system of taxation, and it is questionable whether sufficient revenue can be raised from this source properly to support the government without seriously interfering with our foreign commerce. the internal revenue has many unsatisfactory phases. the income tax has been added to an imperfect system of taxation, instead of being substituted for the antiquated personal-property tax. taxes on franchises, corporations, and inheritances are among those more recently introduced in attempts to reform the tax system. the various attempts to obtain sufficient revenue to support the government or to reform an unjust and unequal tax have led to double taxation, and hence have laid the burden upon persons holding a specific class of property. there are to-day no less than five methods in which double taxation occurs in the present system of taxation of corporations. the taxation of mortgages, because it may be shifted to the borrower, is virtually a double tax. the great question of the incidence of taxation, or the determination upon whom the tax ultimately falls, has not received sufficient care in the consideration of improved systems of taxation. until it has, and until statesmen use more care in tax legislation and the regulation of the system, and officers are more conscientious in carrying it out, we need not hope for any rapid movement in tax reform. the tendency here, as in all other reforms, especially where needed, is for some person to suggest a certain political nostrum--like the single tax--for the immediate and complete reform of the system and the entire renovation and purification of society. but scientific knowledge, clear insight, and wisdom are especially necessary for any improvement, and even then improvement will come through a long period of practice, more or less painful on account of the shifting of methods of procedure. the most appalling example of the results of modern government is to be found in the municipal management of our {425} large cities. it has become proverbial that the american cities are the worst ruled of any in the world. in european countries the evils of city government were discovered many years ago, and in most of the nations there have been begun and carried out wisely considered reforms, until many of the cities of the old world present examples of tolerably correct municipal government. in america there is now a general awakening in every city, but to such an extent have people, by their indifference or their wickedness, sold their birthrights to politicians and demagogues and the power of wealth, that it seems almost impossible to work any speedy radical reform. yet many changes are being instituted in our best cities, and the persistent effort to manage the city as a business corporation rather than as a political engine is producing many good results. the large and growing urban population has thrown the burden of government upon the city--a burden which it was entirely unprepared for--and there have sprung up sudden evils which are difficult to eradicate. only persistent effort, loyalty, sacrifice, and service, all combined with wisdom, can finally accomplish the reforms needed in cities. there is a tendency everywhere for people to get closer to the government, and to become more and more a part of it.[1] our representative system has enabled us to delegate authority to such an extent that people have felt themselves irresponsible for all government, except one day in the year, when they vote at the polls; we need, instead, a determination to govern 365 days in the year, and nothing short of this perpetual interest of the people will secure to them the rights of self-government. even then it is necessary that every citizen shall vote at every election. _republicanism in other countries_.--the remarkable spread of forms of republican government in the different nations of the world within the present century has been unprecedented. {426} every independent nation in south america to-day has a republican form of government. the republic of mexico has made some progress in the government of the people, and the dependencies of great britain all over the world have made rapid progress in local self-government. in australia, new zealand, and canada, we find many of the most advanced principles and practices of free government. it is true that many of these nations calling themselves republics have not yet guaranteed the rights and privileges of a people to any greater extent than they would have done had they been only constitutional monarchies; for it must be maintained at all times that it depends more upon the characteristics of the people--upon their intelligence, their social conditions and classes, their ideas of government, and their character--what the nature of their government shall be, than upon the mere form of government, whether that be aristocracy, monarchy, or democracy. many of the evils which have been attributed to monarchy ought more truly to have been attributed to the vital conditions of society. vital social and political conditions are far more important to the welfare of the people than any mere form of government. among the remarkable expressions of liberal government in modern times has been the development of the philippine islands under the protecting care of the united states, the establishment of republicanism in porto rico and hawaii, now parts of the territory of the united states, and the development of an independent and democratic government in cuba through the assistance of the united states. these expressions of an extended democracy have had far-reaching consequences on the democratic idealism of the world. _influence of democracy on monarchy_.--but the evidences of the progress of popular government are not all to be observed in republics. it would be difficult to estimate the influence of the rise of popular government in some countries upon the monarchial institutions of others. this can never be {427} properly determined, because we know not what would have taken place in these monarchies had republicanism never prevailed anywhere. when republicanism arose in france and america, monarchy was alarmed everywhere; and again, when the revolutionary wave swept over europe in 1848, monarchy trembled. wherever, indeed, the waves of democracy have swept onward they have found monarchy raising breakwaters against them. yet with all this opposition there has been a liberalizing tendency in these same monarchial governments. monarchy has been less absolute and less despotic; the people have had more constitutional rights granted them, greater privileges to enjoy; and monarchies have been more careful as to their acts, believing that the people hold in their hands the means of retribution. the reforming influence of democratic ideas has been universal and uninterrupted. the world war has been iconoclastic in breaking up old forms of government and has given freedom to the democratic spirit and in many cases has developed practical democracy. along with this, forces of radicalism have come to the front as an expression of long-pent feelings of injustice, now for the first time given opportunity to assert and express themselves. the ideal of democracy historically prevalent in europe has been the rule of the "lower classes" at the expense of the "upper classes." this theory has been enhanced by the spread of marxian socialism, which advocates the dominance and rule of the wage-earning class. the most serious attempt to put this idea in practice occurred in russia with disastrous results. subjects for further study 1. why did the french revolution fail to establish liberty? 2. what were the lasting effects of the english commonwealth? 3. what were the causes of liberal government in the netherlands? 4. the reform acts in 1832 and in 1867 in england. 5. the chief causes of trouble between england and ireland. 6. the growth of democracy in the united states. {428} 7. enumerate the most important modern political reforms. what are some needed political reforms? 8. england's influence on american law and government. 9. investigate the population in your community to determine the extent of human equality. 10. city government under the municipal manager plan; also commission plan. [1] consider the commission form of city government and the municipal manager plan. {429} chapter xxvii industrial progress _industries radiate from the land as a centre_.--in primitive civilizations industry was more or less incidental to life. the food quest, protection of the body from storm and sun by improvised habitation and the use of skins, furs, bark, and rushes for clothing, together with the idea of human association for the perpetuation of the species, are the fundamental notions regarding life. under such conditions industry was fitful and uncertain. hunting for vegetable products and for animals to sustain life, the protection of the life of individuals from the elements and, incidentally, from the predatory activities of human beings, were the objectives of primitive man. as the land is the primary source of all economic life, systematic industry has always begun in its control and cultivation. not until man settled more or less permanently with the idea of getting his sustenance from the soil did industrial activities become prominent. in the development of civilization one must recognize the ever-present fact that the method of treatment of the land is a determining factor in its fundamental characteristics, for it must needs be always that the products that we utilize come from the action of man on nature and its reaction on him. while the land is the primary source of wealth, and its cultivation a primal industry, it does not include the whole category of industrial enterprises, for tools must be made, art developed, implements provided, and machinery constructed. likewise, clothing and ornaments were manufactured, and habitations constructed, and eventually transportation begun to carry people and goods from one place to another. these all together make an enlarged group of activities, all radiating from the soil as a common centre. {430} we have already referred to the cultivation of the valleys of the euphrates and the nile by systems of irrigation and the tilling of the soil in the valleys of greece in the crude and semibarbarous methods introduced by the barbarians from the north. we have referred to the fact that the romans were the first to develop systematic agriculture, and even the teutonic people, the invaders of rome, were rude cultivators of the soil. social organization is dependent to a large extent upon the method of attachment to the soil--whether people wander over a large area in the hunter-fisher and the nomadic stages, or whether they become attached to the soil permanently. thus, the village community developed a united, neighborly community, built on the basis of mutual aid. the feudal system was built upon predatory tribal warfare, where possession was determined by might to have and to hold. in the mediaeval period the manorial system of landholding developed, whereby the lord and his retainers claimed the land by their right of occupation and the power to hold, whether this came through conquest, force of arms, or agreement. this manorial system prevailed to a large extent in england, france, and parts of germany. these early methods of landholding were brought about by people attempting to make their social adjustments, primarily in relation to survival, and subsequently in relation to the justice among individuals within the group, or in relation to the reactions between the groups themselves. after the breaking down of the roman empire, the well-established systems of landholding in the empire and the older nations of the orient in the middle ages developed into the feudal system, which forced all society into groups or classes, from the lord to the serf. subsequently there sprang up the individual system of landholding, which again readjusted the relation of society to the land system and changed the social structure. _the early mediaeval methods of industry_.--outside of the tilling of the soil, the early industries were centred in the home, which gave rise to the well-known house system of {431} culture. "housework" has primary relation to goods which are created for the needs of the household. much of the early manufacturing industry was carried on within the household. gradually this has disappeared to a large extent through the multiplication of industries outside the home, power manufacture, and the organization of labor and capital. in many instances house culture preceded that of systematic agriculture. the natural order was the house culture rising out of the pursuits of fishing, hunting, and tending flocks and herds, and the incidental hoe culture which represented the first tilling of the soil about the tent or hut. the indians of north america are good examples of the development of the house culture in the making of garments from the skins of animals or from weeds and rushes, the weaving of baskets, the making of pottery and of boats, and the tanning of hides. during all this period, agriculture was of slow growth, it being the incidental and tentative process of life, while the house culture represented the permanent industry. industries varied in different tribes, one being skilled in basket-making, another in stone implements for warfare and domestic use, another in pottery, another in boats, and still another in certain kinds of clothing--especially the ornaments made from precious stones or bone. this made it possible to spread the culture of one group to other groups, and later there developed the wandering peddler who went from tribe to tribe trading and swapping goods. this is somewhat analogous to the first wage-work system of england, where the individual went from house to house to perform services for which he received pay in goods, or, as we say, in kind. subsequently the wage-earner had his own shop, where raw material was sent to him for finishing. all through europe these customs prevailed and, indeed, in some parts of america exist to the present day. we see survivals of these customs which formerly were permanent, in the people who go from house to house performing certain types of work or bringing certain kinds of goods for sale, and, {432} indeed, in the small shop of modern times where goods are repaired or manufactured. they represent customs which now are irregular, but which formerly were permanent methods. it was a simple system, requiring no capital, no undertaker or manager, no middleman. gradually these customs were replaced by many varied methods, such as the establishment of the laborer in his individual shop, who at first only made the raw material, which people brought him, into the finished product; later he was required to provide his own raw material, taking orders for certain classes of goods. after the handcraft system was well established, there was a division between the manufacturer of goods and those who produced the raw material, a marked distinction in the division of labor. the expansion of systems of industry developed the towns and town life, and as the manor had been self-sufficient in the manufacture of goods, so now the town becomes the unit of production, and independent town economy springs up. later we find the towns beginning to trade with each other, and with this expanded industry the division of labor came about and the separation of laborers into classes. first, the merchant and the manufacturer were united. it was common for the manufacturer of goods to have his shop in his own home and, after he had made the goods, to put them on the shelf until called for by customers. later he had systems of distribution and trade with people in the immediate locality. soon weavers, spinners, bricklayers, packers, tanners, and other classes became distinctive. it was some time before manufacturers and traders, however, became separate groups, and a longer time before the manufacturer was separated from the merchant, because the manufacturer must market his own goods. industries by degrees thus became specialized, and trades became clearly defined in their scope. this led, of course, to a distinct division of occupation, and later to a division of labor within the occupation. the introduction of money after the development of town economy brought about the wage system, whereby people were paid in money rather than {433} kind. this was a great step forward in facilitating trade and industry. one of the earliest methods of developing organized industrial society was through the various guilds of the middle ages. they represented the organization of the industries of a given town, with the purpose of establishing a monopoly in trade of certain kinds of goods, and secondarily to develop fraternal organization, association, and co-operation among groups of people engaged in the same industry. perhaps it should be mentioned that the first in order of development of the guilds was known as the "guild-merchant," which was an organization of all of the inhabitants of the town engaged in trading or selling. this was a town monopoly of certain forms of industry controlled by the members of that industry. it partook of the nature of monopoly of trade, and had a vast deal to do with the social organization of the town. its power was exercised in the place of more systematic political town government. however, after the political town government became more thoroughly established, the guild-merchant declined, but following the decline of the guild-merchant, the craft guild developed, which was an organization of all of the manufacturers and traders in a given craft. this seemed to herald the coming of the trade-union after the industrial machinery of society had made a number of changes. english industrial society became finally completely dominated, as did societies in countries on the continent, by the craft guilds. all the payments in the handcraft system were at first in kind. when the laborer had finished his piece of goods, his pay consisted in taking a certain part of what he had created in the day or the week. also, when he worked by the day he received his pay in kind. this system prevailed until money became sufficiently plentiful to enable the payment of wages for piecework and by the day. the payment in kind, of course, was a very clumsy and wasteful method of carrying on industry. many methods of payment in kind prevailed for centuries, even down to recent times in america. before the great {434} flour-mills were developed, the farmer took his wheat to the mill, out of which the miller took a certain percentage for toll in payment for grinding. the farmer took the remainder home with him in the form of flour. so, too, we have in agriculture the working of land on shares, a certain percentage of the crops going to the owner and the remainder to the tiller of the soil. fruit is frequently picked on shares, which is nothing more than payment for services in kind. _the beginnings of trade_.--while these simple changes were slowly taking place in the towns and villages of europe, there were larger movements of trade being developed, not only between local towns, but between the towns of one country and those of another, which led later to international trade and commerce. formerly trade had become of world importance in the early byzantine trade with the orient and phoenicia. after the crusades, the trade of the italian cities with the orient and northwest europe was of tremendous importance.[1] in connection with this, the establishment of the hanseatic league, of which hamburg was a centre, developed trade between the east and the west and the south. these three great mediaeval trade movements represent powerful agencies in the development of europe. they carried with them an exchange of goods and an exchange of ideas as well. this interchange stimulated thought and industrial activity throughout europe. _expansion of trade and transportation_.--the great discoveries in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had a vast deal to do with the expansion of trade. the discovery of america, the establishment of routes to the philippines around south america and to india around south africa opened up wide vistas, not only for exploration but for the exchange of goods. also, this brought about national trade, and with it national competition. from this time on the struggle for the supremacy of the sea was as important as the struggle of the various nations for extended territory. portugal, the {435} netherlands, england, and spain were competing especially for the trade routes of the world. france and england were drawn into sharp competition because of the expansion of english trade and commerce. portugal became a great emporium for the distribution of oriental goods after she became a maritime power, with a commercial supremacy in india and china. subsequently she declined and was forced to unite with spain, and even after she obtained her freedom, in the seventeenth century, her war with the netherlands caused her to lose commercial supremacy. the rise of the dutch put the netherlands to the front and antwerp and amsterdam became the centres of trade for the orient. dutch trade continued to lead the world until the formation of the english east and west india companies, which, with their powerful monopoly on trade, brought england to the front. under the monopolies of these great companies and other private monopolies, england forged ahead in trade and commerce. but the private monopolies became so powerful that cromwell, by the celebrated navigation acts of 1651, made a gigantic trade monopoly of the english nation. the development of agricultural products and manufactures in england, together with her immense carrying trade, made her mistress of the seas. the results of this trade development were to bring the products of every clime in exchange for the manufactured goods of europe, and to bring about a change of ideas which stimulated thought and life, not only in material lines but along educational and spiritual lines as well. _invention and discoveries_.--one of the most remarkable eras of progress in the whole range of modern civilization appeared at the close of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, especially in england. the expanded trade and commerce of england had made such a demand for economic goods that it stimulated invention of new processes of production. the spinning of yarn became an important industry. it was a slow process, and could not supply the {436} weavers so that they could keep their looms in operation. moreover, kay introduced what is known as the drop-box and flying shuttle in 1738, which favored weaving to the detriment of spinning, making the trouble worse. in the extremity of trade the royal society offered a prize to any person who would invent a machine to spin a number of threads at the same time. as a result of this demand, james hargreaves in 1764 invented the spinning-jenny, which was followed by arkwright's invention of spinning by rollers, which was patented in 1769. combining arkwright's and hargreaves's inventions, crompton in 1779 invented the spinning-"mule." this quickened the process of spinning and greatly increased the production of the weavers. but one necessity satisfied leads to another in invention, and cartwright's powerloom, which was introduced in 1784, came into general use at the beginning of the nineteenth century. during this period america had become a producer of cotton, and eli whitney's cotton-gin, invented in 1792, which separated the seeds from the cotton fibre in the boll, greatly stimulated the production of cotton in the united states. in the meanwhile the steam-engine, which had been perfected in 1769, was applied to power manufacture in 1785 by james watt. this was the final stroke that completed the power manufacture of cotton and woollen goods. other changes were brought about by the new method of smelting ore by means of coal, charcoal having been hitherto used for the process, and the invention of the blast-furnace in 1760 by roebuck, which brought the larger use of metals into the manufactures of the world. to aid in the carrying trade, the building of canals between the large manufacturing towns in england to the ocean, and the building of highways over england, facilitated transportation and otherwise quickened industry. thus we have in a period of less than forty years the most remarkable and unprecedented change in industry, which has never been exceeded in importance even by the introduction of the gasoline-engine and electrical power. {437} _the change of handcraft to power manufacture_.--prior to the development of the mechanical contrivances for spinning and weaving and the application of steam-power to manufacturing, nearly everything in europe was made by hand. all clothing, carpets, draperies, tools, implements, furniture--everything was hand-made. in this process no large capital was needed, no great factories, no great assemblage of laborers, no great organization of industry. the work was done in homes and small shops by individual enterprise, mainly, or in combinations of laborers and masters. power manufacture and the inventions named above changed the whole structure of industrial society. _the industrial revolution_.--the period from 1760 to about 1830 is generally given as that of the industrial revolution, because this period is marked by tremendous changes in the industrial order. it might be well to remark, however, that if the industrial revolution began about 1760, it has really never ended, for new inventions and new discoveries have continually come--a larger use of steam-power, the introduction of transportation by railroads and steamship-lines, the modern processes of agriculture, the large use of electricity, with many inventions, have constantly increased power manufacture and drawn the line more clearly between the laborers on one side and the capitalists or managers on the other. in the first place, because the home and the small shop could not contain the necessary machinery, large factories equipped with great power-machines became necessary, and into the factories flocked the laborers, who formerly were independent handcraft manufacturers or merchants. it was necessary to have people to organize this labor and to oversee its work--that is, "bosses" were necessary. under these circumstances the capitalistic managers were using labor with as little consideration or, indeed, less than they used raw material in the manufacture of goods. the laborers must seek employment in the great factories. the managers forced them down to the lowest rate of wage, caused them to live in {438} ill-ventilated factories in danger of life and health from the machinery, and to work long hours. they employed women and children, who suffered untold miseries. the production of goods demanded more and more coal, and women went into the coal-mines and worked fourteen to sixteen hours a day. society was not ready for the great and sudden change and could not easily adjust itself to new conditions. capital was necessary, and must have its reward. factories were necessary to give the laborers a chance to labor. labor was necessary, but it did not seem necessary to give any consideration to the justice of the laborer nor to his suffering. the wage system and the capitalistic system developed--systems that the socialists have been fighting against for more than a century. labor, pressed down and suffering, arose in its own defense and organized. it was successively denied the right to assemble, to organize, to strike, but in each separate case the law prevailed in its favor. all through the development of european history the ordinary laborer never received full consideration regarding his value and his rights. it is true at times that he was happy and contented without improvement, but upon the whole the history of europe has been the history of kings, queens, princes, and nobility, and wars for national aggrandizement, increased territory, or the gratification of the whims of the dominant classes. the laborer has endured the toil, fought the battles, and paid the taxes. here we find the introduction of machinery, which in the long run will make the world more prosperous, happier, and advance it in civilization, yet the poor laborer must be the burden-bearer. gradually, however, partly by his own demands, partly by the growing humanity of capitalistic employers, and partly because of the interest of outside philanthropic statesmen, labor has been protected by laws. in the first place, all trades are organized, and nearly all organizations are co-operating sympathetically with one another. labor has been able thus to demand things and to obtain them, not only by the persistency {439} of demand, but by the force of the strike which compels people to yield. to-day the laborer has eight hours a day of work in a factory well ventilated and well lighted, protected from danger and accident, insured by law, better wages than he has ever had, better opportunities for life and the pursuit of happiness, better fed, better clothed, and better housed than ever before in the history of the world. yet the whole problem is far from being settled, because it is not easy to define the rights, privileges, and duties of organized labor. some things we know, and one is that the right to strike does not carry with it the right to destroy, or the right to organize the right to oppress others. but let us make the lesson universal and apply the same to capitalistic organizations and the employers' associations. and while we make the latter responsible for their deeds, let us make the organization of the former also responsible, and let the larger community called the state determine justice between groups and insure freedom and protection to all. _modern industrial development_.--it was stated above that the industrial revolution is still going on. one need only to glance at the transformation caused by the introduction of railway transportation and steam navigation in the nineteenth century, to the uses of the telegraph, the telephone, the gasoline-engine, and later the radio and the airplane, to see that the introduction of these great factors in civilization must continue to make changes in the social order. they have brought about quantity transportation, rapidity of manufacture, and rapidity of trade, and stimulated the activities of life everywhere. this stimulation, which has brought more things for material improvement, has caused people to want paved streets, electric lights, and modern buildings, which have added to the cost of living through increased taxation. the whole movement has been characterized by the accumulated stress of life, which demands greater activity, more goods consumed, new desires awakened, and greater efforts to satisfy them. the quickening process goes on unabated. {440} in order to carry out these great enterprises, the industrial organization is complex in the extreme and tremendous in its magnitude. great corporations capitalized by millions, great masses of laborers assembled which are organized from the highest to the lowest in the great industrial army, represent the spectacular display. and to be mentioned above all is the great steam-press that sends the daily paper to every home and the great public-school system that puts the book in every hand. _scientific agriculture_.--it has often been repeated that man's wealth comes originally from the soil, and that therefore the condition of agriculture is an index of the opportunity offered for progress. what has been done in recent years, especially in england and america, in the development of a higher grade stock, so different from the old scrub stock of the colonial period; in the introduction of new grains, new fertilizers, improved soils, and the adaptability of the crop to the soil in accordance with the nature of both; the development of new fruits and flowers by scientific culture--all have brought to the door of man an increased food-supply of great variety and of improved quality. this is conducive to the health and longevity of the race, as well as to the happiness and comfort of everybody. moreover, the introduction of agricultural machinery has changed the slow, plodding life of the farmer to that of the master of the steam-tractor, thresher, and automobile, changed the demand from a slow, inactive mind to the keenest, most alert, best-educated man of the nation, who must study the highest arts of production, the greatest economy, and the best methods of marketing. truly, the industrial revolution applies not to factories alone. _the building of the city_.--the modern industrial development has forced upon the landscape the great city. no one particularly wanted it. no one called it into being--it just came at the behest of the conditions of rapid transportation, necessity of centralization of factories where cheap distribution could be had, not only for the raw material but for the {441} finished product, and where labor could be furnished with little trouble--all of these things have developed a city into which rush the great products of raw material, and out of which pour the millions of manufactured articles and machinery; into which pours the great food-supply to keep the laborers from starving. into the city flows much of the best blood of the country, which seeks opportunity for achievement. the great city is inevitable so long as great society insists on gigantic production and as great consumption, but the city idea is overwrought beyond its natural condition. if some power could equalize the transportation question, so that a factory might be built in a smaller town, where raw material could be furnished as cheaply as in the large city, and the distribution of goods be as convenient, there is no reason why the population might not be more evenly distributed, to its own great improvement. _industry and civilization_.--but what does this mean so far as human progress is concerned? we have increased the material production of wealth and added to the material comfort of the inhabitants of the world. we have extended the area of wealth to the dark places of the world, giving means of improvement and enlightenment. we have quickened the intellect of man until all he needs to do is to direct the machinery of his own invention. steam, electricity, and water-power have worked for him. it has given people leisure to study, investigate, and develop scientific discoveries for the improvement of the race, protecting them from danger and disease and adding to their comfort. it has given opportunity for the development of the higher spiritual power in art, music, architecture, religion, and science. industrial progress is something more than the means of heaping up wealth. it has to do with the well-being of humanity. it is true we have not yet been able to carry out our ideals in this matter, but slowly and surely industrial liberty and justice are following in the wake of the freedom of the mind to think, the freedom of religious belief, and the {442} political freedom of self-government. we are to-day in the fourth great period of modern development, the development of justice in industrial relations. moreover, all of this quickening of industry has brought people together from all over the world. london is nearer new york than was philadelphia in revolutionary times. not only has it brought people closer together in industry, but in thought and sympathy. there have been developed a world ethics, a world trade, and a world interchange of science and improved ideas of life. it has given an increased opportunity for material comforts and an increased opportunity for the achievement of the ordinary man who seeks to develop all the capacities and powers granted him by nature. subjects for further study 1. show that land is the foundation of all industry. 2. compare condition of laborers now with conditions before the industrial revolution. 3. are great organizations of business necessary to progress? 4. do railroads create wealth? 5. does the introduction of machinery benefit the wage-earner? 6. how does rapid ocean-steamship transportation help the united states? 7. if england should decline in wealth and commerce, would the united states be benefited thereby? 8. how does the use of electricity benefit industry? 9. to what extent do you think the government should control or manage industry? 10. is industrial democracy possible? 11. cutting and hammering two processes of primitive civilization. what mechanical inventions take the place of the stone hammer and the stone knife? [1] see chapter xxi. {443} chapter xxvii social evolution _the evolutionary processes of society_.--social activity is primarily group activity. consequently the kind and nature of the group, the methods which brought its members together, its organization and purpose, indicate the type of civilization and the possibility of achievement. as group activity means mutual aid of members, and involves processes of co-operation in achievement, the type of society is symbolic of the status of progress. the function of the group is to establish social order of its members, protect them from external foes, as well as internal maladies, and to bring into existence a new force by which greater achievement is possible than when individuals are working separately. _the social individual_.--while society is made of physio-psychic individuals, as a matter of fact the social individual is made by interactions and reactions arising from human association. society on one hand and the social individual on the other are both developed at the same time through the process of living together in co-operation and mutual aid. society once created, no matter how imperfect, begins its work for the good of all its members. it begins to provide against cold and hunger and to protect from wild animals and wild men. it becomes a feeling, thinking, willing group seeking the best for all. it is in the fully developed society that the social process appears of providing a water-supply, sanitation through sewer systems, preventative medicine and health measures, public education, means of establishing its members in rights, duties, and privileges, and protecting them in the pursuit of industry. _the ethnic society_.--just at what period society became well established is not known, but there are indications that some forms of primitive family life and social activities were {444} in existence among the men of the old stone age, and certainly in the neolithic period. after races had reached a stage of permanent historical records, or had even handed down traditions from generation to generation, there are evidences of family life and tribal or national achievements. though there are evidences of religious group activities prior to formal tribal life, it may be stated in general that the first permanent organization was on a family or ethnic basis. blood relationship was the central idea of cohesion, which was early aided by religious superstition and belief. following this idea, all of the ancient monarchies and empires were based on the ethnic group or race. all of this indicates that society was based on natural law, and from that were gradually evolved the general and political elements which foreshadowed the enlarged functions of the more complex society of modern times. _the territorial group_.--before the early tribal groups had settled down to permanent habitations, they had developed many social activities, but when they became permanently settled they passed from the ethnic to the demographic form of social order--that is, they developed a territorial group that performed all of its functions within a given boundary which they called their own. from this time on population increased and occupied territory expanded, and the group became self-sufficient and independent in character. then it could co-operate with other groups and differentiate functions within. industrial, religious, and political groups, sacred orders, and voluntary associations became prominent, all under the protection of the general social order. _the national group founded on race expansion_.--through conquest, amalgamation, and assimilation, various independent groups were united in national life. all of the interior forces united in the perpetuation of the nation, which became strong and domineering in its attitude toward others. this led to warfare, conquest, or plunder, the union of the conquered with the conquerors, and imperialism came into being. growth of wealth and population led to the demand for more territory {445} and the continuation of strife and warfare. the rise and fall of nations, the formation and dissolving of empires under the constant shadow of war continued through the ages. while some progress was made, it was in the face of conspicuous waste of life and energy, and the process of national protection of humanity has been of doubtful utility. yet the development of hereditary leadership, the dominance of privileged classes, and the formation of traditions, laws, and forms of government went on unabated, during which the division of industrial and social functions within, causing numerous classes to continually differentiate, took place. _the functions of new groups_.--in all social groupings the function always precedes the form or structure of the social order. society follows the method of organic evolution in growing by differentiation. new organs or parts are formed, which in time become strengthened and developed. the organs or parts become more closely articulated with each other and with the whole social body, and finally over all is the great society, which defends, shields, protects, and fights for all. the individual may report for life service in many departments, through which his relation to great society must be manifested. he no longer can go alone in his relation to the whole mass. he may co-operate in a general way, it is true, with all, but must have a particularly active co-operation in the smaller groups on which his life service and life sustenance depend. the multiplication of functions leads to increased division of service and to increased co-operation. in the industrial life the division of labor and formation of special groups are more clearly manifested. _great society and the social order_.--this is manifested chiefly in the modern state and the powerful expression of public opinion. no matter how traditional, autocratic, and arbitrary the centralized government becomes, there is continually arising modifying power from local conditions. there are things that the czar or the king does not do if he wishes to continue in permanent authority. from the masses of the {446} people there arises opposition to arbitrary power, through expressed discontent, public opinion, or revolution. the whole social field of europe has been a seething turmoil of action and reaction, of autocracy and the demand for human rights. thirst for national aggrandizement and power and the lust of the privileged classes have been modified by the distressing cry of the suffering people. what a slow process is social evolution and what a long struggle has been waged for human rights! _great society protects voluntary organizations_.--freedom of assembly, debate, and organization is one of the important traits of social organization. with the ideal of democracy comes also freedom of speech and the press. voluntary organizations for the good of the members or for a distinctive agency for general good may be made and receive protection in society at large through law, the courts, and public opinion; but the right to organize does not carry with it the right to destroy, and all such organizations must conform to the general good as expressed in the laws of the land. sometimes organizations interested in their own institutions have been detrimental to the general good. even though they have law and public opinion with them, in their zeal for propaganda they have overstepped the rules of progress. but such conditions cannot last; progress will cause them to change their attitude or they meet a social death. _the widening service of the church_.--the importance of the religious life in the progress of humanity is acknowledged by all careful scholars. sometimes, it is true, this religious belief has been detrimental to the highest interests of social welfare. religion itself is necessarily conservative, and when overcome by superstition, tradition, and dogmatism, it may stifle the intellect and retard progress. the history of the world records many instances of this. the modern religious life, however, has taken upon it, as a part of its legitimate function, the ethical relations of mankind. ethics has been prominent in the doctrine and service of the church. when the church turned its attention to the {447} future life, with undue neglect of the present, it became non-progressive and worked against the best interests of social progress. when it based its operation entirely upon faith, at the expense of reason and judgment, it tended to enslave the intellect and to rob mankind of much of its best service. but when it turned its attention to sweetening and purifying the present, holding to the future by faith, that man might have a larger and better life, it opened the way for social progress. its motto has been, in recent years, the salvation of this life that the future may be assured. its aim is to seize the best that this life furnishes and to utilize it for the elevation of man, individually and socially. its endeavor is to save this life as the best and holiest reality yet offered to man. faith properly exercised leads to invention, discovery, social activity, and general culture. it gives an impulse not only to religious life, but to all forms of social activity. but it must work with the full sanction of intelligence and allow a continual widening activity of reason and judgment. the church has shown a determination to take hold of all classes of human society and all means of reform and regeneration. it has evinced a tendency to seize all the products of culture, all the improvements of science, all the revelations of truth, and turn them to account in the upbuilding of mankind on earth, in perfecting character and relieving mankind, in developing the individual and improving social conditions. the church has thus entered the educational world, the missionary field, the substratum of society, the political life, and the field of social order, everywhere becoming a true servant of the people. _growth of religious toleration_.--there is no greater evidence of the progress of human society than the growth of religious toleration. in the first hundred years of the reformation, religious toleration was practically unknown. indeed, the last fifty years has seen a more rapid growth in this respect than in the previous three hundred. luther and his followers could not tolerate calvinists any more than they could {448} catholics, and calvinists, on the other hand, could tolerate no other religious opinion. the slow evolution of religious toleration in england is one of the most remarkable things in history. henry viii, "defender of the faith," was opposed to religious liberty. queen mary persecuted all except catholics. elizabeth completed the establishment of the anglican church, though, forced by political reasons, she gave more or less toleration to all parties. but cromwell advocated unrelenting puritanism by legislation and by the sword. james i, though a protestant wedded to imperialism in government, permitted oppression. the bill of rights, which secured to the english people the privileges of constitutional government, insisted that no person who should profess the "popish" religion or marry a "papist" should be qualified to wear the crown of england. at the close of the sixteenth century it was a common principle of belief that any person who adhered to heterodox opinions in religion should be burned alive or otherwise put to death. each church adhered to this sentiment, though, it is true, many persons believed differently, and at the close of the seventeenth century bossuet, the great french ecclesiastic, maintained with close argument that the right of the civil magistrate to punish religious errors was a point on which nearly all churches agreed, and asserted that only two bodies of christians, the socinians and the anabaptists, denied it. in 1673 all persons holding office under the government of england were compelled to take the oath of supremacy and of allegiance, to declare against transubstantiation, and to take the sacrament according to the ritual of the established church. in 1689 the toleration act was passed, exempting dissenters from the church of england from the penalties of non-attendance on the service of the established church. this was followed by a bill abolishing episcopacy in scotland. in 1703 severe laws were passed in ireland against those who professed the roman catholic religion. the test act was not repealed until 1828, when the oath was taken "on the true {449} faith of a christian," which was substituted for the sacrament test. from this time on protestant dissenters might hold office. in the year following, the catholic relief act extended toleration to the catholics, permitting them to hold any offices except those of regent, lord chancellor of england or ireland, and of viceroy of ireland. in 1858, by act of parliament, jews were for the first time admitted to that body. in 1868 the irish church was disestablished and disendowed, and a portion of its funds devoted to education. but it was not until 1871 that persons could lecture in the universities of oxford and cambridge without taking the sacrament of the established church and adhering to its principles. the growth of toleration in america has been evinced in the struggle of the different denominations for power. the church and the state, though more or less closely connected in the colonies of america, have been entirely separated under the constitution, and therefore the struggle for liberal views has been between the different denominations themselves. in europe and in america one of the few great events of the century has been the entire separation of church and state. it has gone so far in america that most of the states have ceased to aid any private or denominational institutions. there is a tendency, also, not to support indian schools carried on by religious denominations, or else to have them under the especial control of the united states government. there has been, too, a liberalizing tendency among the different denominations themselves. in some rural districts, and among ignorant classes, bigotry and intolerance, of course, break out occasionally, but upon the whole there is a closer union of the various denominations upon a co-operative basis of redeeming men from error, and a growing tendency to tolerate differing beliefs. _altruism and democracy_.--the law of evolution that involves the survival of the fittest of organic life when applied to humanity was modified by social action. but as man must {450} always figure as an individual and his development is caused by intrinsic and extrinsic stimuli, he has never been free from the exercise of the individual struggle for existence, no matter how highly society is developed nor to what extent group activity prevails. the same law continues in relation to the survival of the group along with other groups, and as individual self-interest, the normal function of the individual, may pass into selfishness, so group interest may pass into group selfishness, and the dominant idea of the group may be its own survival. this develops institutionalism, which has been evidenced in every changing phase of social organization. along with this have grown altruistic principles based on the law of love, which in its essentials is antagonistic to the law of the survival of the fittest. it has been developed from two sources--one which originally was founded on race morality, that is, the protection of individuals for the good of the order, and the other that of sympathy with suffering of the weak and unprotected. in the progress of modern society the application of christian principles to life has kept pace with the application of democratic principles in establishing the rights of man. gradually the duty of society to protect and care for the weak has become generally recognized. this idea has been entirely overemphasized in many cases, on the misapplication of the theory that one individual is as good as another and entitled to equality of treatment by all. at least it is possible for the normal progress of society to be retarded if the strong become weakened by excessive care of the weak. the law of love must be so exercised that it will not increase weakness on the part of those being helped, nor lessen the opportunities of the strong to survive and manifest their strength. the history of the english poor law is an account of the systematic care of pauperism to the extent that paupers were multiplied so that those who were bearing the burden of taxation for their support found it easier and, indeed, sometimes necessary to join the pauper ranks in order to live at all. {451} many are alarmed to-day at the multiplication of the number of insane, weak-minded, imbeciles, and paupers who must be supported by the taxation of the people and helped in a thousand ways by the altruism of individuals and groups. unless along with this excessive altruistic care, scientific principles of breeding, of prevention, and of care can be introduced, the dependent, defective, and delinquent classes of the world will eventually become a burden to civilization. society cannot shirk its duty to care for these groups, but it would be a misfortune if they reach a status where they can demand support and protection of society. it is a question whether we have not already approached in a measure this condition. fortunately there is enough knowledge in the world of science regarding man and society to prevent any such catastrophe, if it could only be applied. hence, since one of the great ideals of life is to develop a perfect society built upon rational principles, the study of social pathology has become important. the care of the weak and the broken-down classes of humanity has something more than altruism as a foundation. upon it rest the preservation of the individual and the perpetuation of a healthy social organism. the care of the insane, of imbeciles, of criminals, and of paupers is exercised more nearly on a scientific basis each succeeding year. prevention and reform are the fundamental ideas in connection with the management of these classes. altruism may be an initial motive power, prompting people to care for the needy and the suffering, but necessity for the preservation of society is more powerful in its final influences. to care for paupers without increasing pauperism is a great question, and is rapidly putting all charity upon a scientific basis. to care for imbeciles without increasing imbecility, and to care for criminals on the basis of the prevention and decrease of crime, are among the most vital questions of modern social life. as the conditions of human misery become more clearly revealed to humanity, and their evil effects on the social system become more apparent, greater efforts will be {452} put forward--greater than ever before--in the care of dependents, defectives, and delinquents. not only must the pathology of the individual be studied, for the preservation of his physical system, but the pathology of human society must receive scientific investigation in order to perpetuate the social organism. _modern society a machine of great complexity_.--while the family remains as the most persistent primary unit of social organization out of which differentiated the great social functions of to-day, it now expresses but a very small part of the social complex. it is true it is still a conserving, co-operating, propagating group of individuals, in which appear many of the elemental functions of society. while it represents a group based on blood relationship, as in the old dominant family drawn together by psychical influences and preserved on account of the protection of the different members of the group and the various complex relations between them, still within its precincts are found the elementary practices of economic life, the rights of property, and the beginnings of education and religion. outside of this family nucleus there have been influences of common nationality and common ancestry or race, which are natural foundations of an expanded society. along with this are the secondary influences, the memories and associations of a common birthplace or a common territorial community, and by local habitation of village, town, city, or country. but the differentiation of industrial functions or activities has been most potent in developing social complexity. the multiplication of activities, the choice of occupation, and the division of labor have multiplied the economic groups by the thousand. following this, natural voluntary social groups spring up on every hand. again, partly by choice and partly by environment, we find society drawn together in other groups, more or less influenced by those just enumerated. from the earliest forms of social existence we find men are grouped together on the basis of wealth. the interests of the rich are common, as are also the {453} interests of the poor and those of the well-to-do. nor is it alone a matter of interest, but in part of choice, that these groupings occur. this community of interests brings about social coherence. again, the trades, professions, and occupations of men draw them together in associated groups. it is not infrequent that men engaged in the same profession are thrown together in daily contact, have the same interests, sentiments, and thought, and form in this way a group which stands almost aloof from other groups in social life; tradesmen dealing in a certain line of goods are thrown together in the same way. but the lines in these groupings must not be too firmly drawn, for groups formed on the basis of friendship may cover a field partaking in part of all these different groups. again, we shall find that the school lays the foundation of early associations, and continues to have an influence in creating social aggregates. fraternal societies and political parties in the same way form associated groups. the church at large forms a great organizing centre, the influence of which in political and social life enlarges every day. the church body arranges itself in different groups on the basis of the different sects and denominations, and within the individual church organization there are small groups or societies, which again segregate religious social life. but over and above all these various social groups and classes is the state, binding and making all cohere in a common unity. the tendency of this social life is to differentiate into more and more groups, positive in character, which renders our social existence complex and difficult to analyze. the social groups overlap one another, and are interdependent in all their relations. in one way the individual becomes more and more self-constituted and independent in his activity; in another way he is dependent on all his fellows for room or opportunity for action. this complexity of social life renders it difficult to estimate the real progress of society; yet, taking any one of these {454} individual groups, it will be found to be improving continually. school life and school associations show a marked improvement; family life, notwithstanding the various evidences of the divorce courts, shows likewise an improved state as intelligence increases; the social life of the church becomes larger and broader. the spread of literature and learning, the increase of education, renders each social group more self-sustaining and brings about a higher life, with a better code of morals. even political groups have their reactions, in which, notwithstanding the great room for improvement, they stand for morality and justice. the relations of man to man are becoming better understood every day. his fickleness and selfishness are more readily observed in recent than in former times, and as a result the evils of the present are magnified, because they are better understood; in reality, social conditions are improving, and the fact that social conditions are understood and evils clearly observed promises a great improvement for the future. _interrelation of different parts of society_.--the various social aggregates are closely interrelated and mutually dependent upon one another. the state itself, though expressing the unity of society, is a highly complex organization, consisting of forms of local and central government. these parts, having independent functions, are co-ordinated to the general whole. voluntary organizations have their specific relation to the state, which fosters and protects them on an independent basis. the school, likewise, has its relation to the social life, having an independent function, yet touching all parts of the social life. we find the closest interdependence of individuals in the economic life. each man performs a certain service which he exchanges for the services of others. the wealth which he creates with his own hand, limited in kind, must be exchanged for all the other commodities which he would have. more than this, all people are ranged in economic groups, each group dependent upon all the others--the farmers dependent upon {455} the manufacturers of implements and goods, upon bankers, lawyers, ministers, and teachers; the manufacturers dependent upon the farmers and all the other classes; and so with every class. this interdependent relation renders it impossible to improve one group without improving the others, or to work a great detriment to one group without injuring the others. if civilization is to be perpetuated and improved, the banker must be interested in the welfare of the farmer, the farmer in the welfare of the banker, both in the prosperity of manufacturers, and all in the welfare of the common laborer. the tendency for this mutual interest to increase is evinced in all human social relations, and speaks well for the future of civilization. _the progress of the race based on social opportunities_.--anthropologists tell us that no great change in the physical capacity of man has taken place for many centuries. the maximum brain capacity has probably not exceeded that of the crã´-magnon race in the paleolithic period of european culture. undoubtedly, however, there has been some change in the quality of the brain, increasing its storage batteries of power and through education the utilization of that power. we would scarcely expect, however, with all of our education and scientific development, to increase the stature of man or to enlarge his brain. much is being done, however, in getting the effective service of the brain not only through natural selective processes, but through education. the improvement of human society has been brought about largely by training and the increased knowledge which it has brought to us through invention and discovery, and their application to the practical and theoretical arts. all these would have been buried had it not been for the protection of co-operative society and the increased power derived therefrom. even though we exercise the selective power of humanity under the direction of our best intelligence, the individual must find his future opportunity in the better {456} conditions furnished by society. granted that individual and racial powers are essential through hereditary development, progress can only be obtained by the expression of these powers through social activity. for it is only through social co-operation that a new power is brought into existence, namely, achievement by mutual aid. this assertion does not ignore the fact that the mutations of progress arise from the brain centres of geniuses, and that by following up these mutations by social action they may become productive and furnish opportunity for progress. _the central idea of modern civilization_.--the object of life is not to build a perfect social mechanism. it is only a means to a greater end, namely, that the individual shall have opportunity to develop and exercise the powers which nature has given him. this involves an opportunity for the expression of his whole nature, physical and mental, for the satisfaction of his normal desires for home, happiness, prosperity, and achievement. it involves, too, the question of individual rights, privileges, and duties. the history of man reveals to us somewhat of his progress. there is ever before us the journey which he has taken in reaching his present status. the road has been very long, very rough, very crooked. what he has accomplished has been at fearful expense. thousands have perished, millions have been swept away, that a single idea for the elevation and culture of the race might remain. deplore it as we may, the end could be reached only thus. the suffering of humanity is gradually lessening, and destruction and waste being stayed, yet we must recognize, in looking to the future, that all means of improvement will be retarded by the imperfection of human life and human conditions. the central principle, however, the great nucleus of civilization, becomes more clearly defined, in turn revealing that man's happiness on earth, based upon duty and service, is the end of progress. if the achievements of science, the vast accumulations of wealth, the perfection of social organization, {457} the increased power of individual life--if all these do not yield better social conditions, if they do not give to humanity at large greater contentment, greater happiness, a larger number of things to know and enjoy, they must fail in their service. but they will not fail. man is now a larger creature in every way than ever before. he has better religion; a greater god in the heavens, ruling with beneficence and wisdom; a larger number of means for improvement everywhere; and the desire and determination to master these things and turn them to his own benefit. the pursuit of truth reveals man to himself and god to him. the promotion of justice and righteousness makes his social life more complete and happy. the investigations of science and the advances of invention and discovery increase his material resources, furnishing him means with which to work; and with increasing intelligence he will understand more clearly his destiny--the highest culture of mind and body and the keenest enjoyment of the soul. subjects for further study 1. what were the chief causes of aggregation of people? 2. are there evidences of groups without the beginning of social organization? 3. what is the relation of the individual to society? 4. the basis of national groups. 5. factors in the progress of the human race. 6. growth of religious toleration in the world. 7. name ten "american institutions" that should be perpetuated. 8. race and democracy. 9. what per cent of the voters of your town take a vital interest in government? 10. the growth of democratic ideas in europe. in asia. 11. study the welfare organizations in your town, comparing objects and results. 12. the trend of population from country to city and its influence on social organization. 13. explain why people follow the fashions. {458} chapter xxix the evolution of science _science is an attitude of mind toward life_.--as usually defined, science represents a classified body of knowledge logically arranged with the purpose of arriving at definite principles or truths by processes of investigation and comparison. but the largest part of science is found in its method of approaching the truth as compared with religion, philosophy, or disconnected knowledge obtained by casual observation. in many ways it is in strong contrast with speculative philosophy and with dogmatic theology, both of which lack sufficient data for scientific development. the former has a tendency to interpret what is assumed to have already been established. with the latter the laboratory of investigation of truth has been closed. the laboratory of science is always open. while scientists work with hypotheses, use the imagination, and even become dogmatic in their assertions, the degree of certainty is always tested in the laboratory. if a truth is discovered to-day, it must be verified in the laboratory or shown to be incorrect or only a partial truth. science has been built up on the basis of the inquiry into nature's processes. it is all the time inquiring: "what do we find under the microscope, through the telescope, in the chemical and physical reactions, in the examination of the earth and its products, in the observation of the functions of animals and plants, or in the structure of the brain of man and the laws of his mental functioning?" if it establishes an hypothesis as a means of procedure, it must be determined true or abandoned. if the imagination ventures to be far-seeing, observation, experimentation, and the discovery of fact must all come to its support before it can be called scientific. _scientific methods_.--we have already referred to the turning of the minds of the greeks from the power of the gods to {459} a look into nature's processes. we have seen how they lacked a scientific method and also scientific data sufficient to verify their assumptions. we have observed how, while they took a great step forward, their conclusions were lost in the dark ages and in the early mediaeval period, and how they were brought to light in the later medieval period and helped to form the scholastic philosophy and to stimulate free inquiry, and how the weakness of all systems was manifested in all these periods of human life by failure to use the simple process of observing the facts of nature, getting them and classifying them so as to demonstrate truth. it will not be possible to recount in this chapter a full description of the development of science and scientific thought. not more can be done than to mention the turning-points in its development and expansion. though other influences of minor importance might be mentioned, it is well to note that roger bacon (1214-1294) stands out prominently as the first philosopher of the mediaeval period who turned his attitude of mind earnestly toward nature. it is true that he was not free from the taint of dogmatic theology and scholastic philosophy which were so strongly prevailing at the time, but he advocated the discovery of truth by observation and experiment, which was a bold assumption at that time. he established as one of his main principles that experimental science "investigates the secrets of nature by its own competency and out of its own qualities, irrespective of any connection with the other sciences." thus he did not universalize his method as applicable to all sciences. doubtless roger bacon received his inspiration from the greek and arabian scientists with whom he was familiar. it is interesting that, following the lines of observation and discovery in a very primitive way, he let his imagination run on into the future, predicting many things that have happened already. thus he says: "machines for navigation are possible without rowers, like great ships suited to river or ocean, going with greater velocity than if they were full of rowers; likewise {460} wagons may be moved _cum impetu inaestimabili_, as we deem the chariots of antiquity to have been. and there may be flying-machines, so made that a man may sit in the middle of the machine and direct it by some device; and again, machines for raising great weights."[1] in continuity with the ideas of roger bacon, francis bacon (1561-1626) gave a classification of human learning and laid the real foundation on which the superstructure of science has been built. between the two lives much had been done by copernicus, who taught that the earth was not the centre of the universe, and that it revolved on its axis from west to east. this gave the traditions of fourteen centuries a severe jolt, and laid the foundation for the development of the heliocentric system of astronomy. bacon's classification of all knowledge showed the relationship of the branches to a comprehensive whole. his fundamental theory was that nature was controlled and modified by man. he recognized the influence of natural philosophy, but insisted that the "history mechanical" was a strong support to it. his usefulness seems to have been in the presentation of a wide range of knowledge distinctly connected, the demonstration of the utility of knowledge, and the suggestion of unsolved problems which should be investigated by observation and experiment. without giving his complete classification of human learning, it may be well to state his most interesting classification of physical science to show the middle ground which he occupied between mediaeval thought and our modern conception of science. this classification is as follows: 1. celestial phenomena. 2. atmosphere. 3. globe. 4. substance of earth, air, fire, and water. 5. genera, species, etc.[2] {461} descartes, following bacon, had much to do with the establishment of method, although he laid more stress upon deduction than upon induction. with bacon he believed that there was need of a better method of finding out the truth than that of logic. he was strong in his refusal to recognize anything as true that he did not understand, and had no faith in the mere assumption of truth, insisting upon absolute proof derived through an intelligent order. perhaps, too, his idea was to establish universal mathematics, for he recognized measurements and lines everywhere in the universe, and recognized the universality of all natural phenomena, laying great stress on the solution of problems by measurement. he was a fore runner of newton and many other scientists, and as such represents an epoch-making period in scientific development. the trend of thought by a few leaders having been directed to the observation of nature and the experimentation with natural phenomena, the way was open for the shifting of the centre of thought of the entire world. it only remained now for each scientist to work out in his own way his own experiments. the differentiation of knowledge brought about many phases of thought and built up separate divisions of science. while each one has had an evolution of its own, all together they have worked out a larger progress of the whole. thus gilbert (1540-1603) carried on practical experiments and observations with the lodestone, or magnet, and thus made a faint beginning of the study of electrical phenomena which in recent years has played such an important part in the progress of the world. harvey (1578-1657) by his careful study of the blood determined its circulation through the heart by means of the arterial and venous systems. this was an important step in leading to anatomical studies and set the world far ahead of the medical studies of the arabians. galileo (1564-1642), in his study of the heavenly bodies and the universe, carried out the suggestion of copernicus a century before of the revolution of the earth on its axis, to {462} take the place of the old theory that the sun revolved around the earth. indeed, this was such a disturbing factor among churchmen, theologians, and pseudo-philosophers that galileo was forced to recant his statements. in 1632 he published at florence his _dialogue on the ptolemaic and copernican systems of the world_. for this he was cited to rome, his book ordered to be burned, and he was sentenced to be imprisoned, to make a recantation of his errors, and by way of penance to recite the seven penitential psalms once a week. it seems very strange that a man who could make a telescope to study the heavenly bodies and carry on experiments with such skill that he has been called the founder of experimental science could be forced to recant the things which he was convinced by experiment and observation to be true. however, it must be remembered that the mediaeval doctrine of authority had taken possession of the minds of the world of thinkers to such an extent that to oppose it openly seemed not only sacrilege but the tearing down of the walls of faith and destroying the permanent structure of society. moreover, the minds of all thinkers were trying to hold on to the old while they developed the new, and not one could think of destroying the faith of the church. but the church did not so view this, and took every opportunity to suppress everything new as being destructive of the church. no one could contemplate the tremendous changes that might have been made in the history of the world if the church could have abandoned its theological dogmas far enough to welcome all new truth that was discovered in god's workshop. to us in the twentieth century who have such freedom of expressing both truth and untruth, it is difficult to realize to what extent the authorities of the middle ages tried to seal the fountains of truth. picture a man kneeling before the authorities at rome and stating: "with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith i abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies. i swear that for the future i will never say nor assert anything verbally or in writing which may give rise to a {463} similar suspicion against me."[3] thus he was compelled to recant and deny his theory that the earth moves around the sun. _measurement in scientific research_.--all scientific research involves the recounting of recurring phenomena within a given time and within a given space. in order, therefore, to carry on systematic research, methods of measuring are necessary. we can thus see how mathematics, although developed largely through the study of astronomy, has been necessary to all investigation. ticho brahe and kepler may be said to have accentuated the phase of accurate measurement in investigation. they specialized in chemistry and astronomy, all measurements being applied to the heavenly bodies. their main service was found in accurate records of data. kepler maintained "that every planet moved in an ellipse of which the sun occupied one focus." he also held "that the square of the periodic time of any planet is proportional to the cube of its mean distance from the sun," and "that the area swept by the radius vector from the planet to the sun is proportional to the time."[4] he was much aided in his measurements by the use of a system of logarithms invented by john napier (1614). many measurements were established regarding heat, pressure of air, and the relation of solids and liquids. isaac newton, by connecting up a single phenomenon of a body falling a distance of a few feet on the earth with all similar phenomena, through the law of gravitation discovered the unity of the universe. though newton carried on important investigations in astronomy, studied the refraction of light through optic glasses, was president of the royal society, his chief contribution to the sciences was the tying together of the sun, the planets, and the moons of the solar system by the attraction of gravitation. newton was able to carry along with his scientific investigations a profound reverence for christianity. that he was not attacked shows that there had {464} been considerable progress made in toleration of new ideas. with all of his greatness of vision, he had the humbleness of a true scientist. a short time before his death he said: "i know not what i may appear to the world; but to myself i seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble, or a prettier shell, than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." _science develops from centres_.--bodies of truth in the world are all related one to another. hence, when a scientist investigates and experiments along a particular line, he must come in contact more or less with other lines. and while there is a great differentiation in the discovery of knowledge by investigation, no single truth can ever be established without more or less relation to all other truths. likewise, scientists, although working from different centres, are each contributing in his own way to the establishment of universal truth. even in the sixteenth century scientists began to co-operate and interchange views, and as soon as their works were published, each fed upon the others as he needed in advancing his own particular branch of knowledge. it is said that bacon in his _new atlantis_ gave such a magnificent dream of an opportunity for the development of science and learning that it was the means of forming the royal society in england. that association was the means of disseminating scientific truth and encouraging investigation and publication of results. it was a tremendous advancement of the cause of science, and has been a type for the formation of hundreds of other organizations for the promotion of scientific truth. _science and democracy_.--while seeking to extend knowledge to all classes of people, science paves the way for recognition of equal rights and privileges. science is working all the time to be free from the slavery of nature, and the result of its operations is to cause mankind to be free from the slavery of man. therefore, liberty and science go hand in hand in {465} their development. it is interesting to note in this connection that so many scientists have come from groups forming the ordinary occupations of life rather than, as we might expect, from the privileged classes who have had leisure and opportunity for development. thus, "pasteur was the son of a tanner, priestley of a cloth-maker, dalton of a weaver, lambert of a tailor, kant of a saddler, watt of a ship-builder, smith of a farmer, and john ray was, like faraday, the son of a blacksmith. joule was a brewer. davy, scheele, dumas, balard, liebig, wã¶hler, and a number of other distinguished chemists were apothecaries' apprentices."[5] science also is a great leveller because all scientists are bowing down to the same truth discovered by experimentation or observation, and, moreover, scientists are at work in the laboratories and cannot be dogmatic for any length of time. but scientists arise from all classes of people, so far as religious or political belief is concerned. many of the foremost scientists have been distributed among the roman catholics, anglicans, calvinists, quakers, unitarians, and agnostics. the only test act that science knows is that of the recognition of truth. benjamin franklin was a printer whose scientific investigations were closely intermingled with the problems of human rights. his experiments in science were subordinate to the experiments of human society. his great contribution to science was the identification of lightning and the spark from a leyden jar. for the identification and control of lightning he received a medal from the royal society. the discussion of liberty and the part he took in the independence of the colonies of america represent his greatest contribution to the world. to us he is important, for he embodied in one mind the expression of scientific and political truth, showing that science makes for democracy and democracy for science. in each case it is the choice of the liberalized mind. _the study of the biological and physical sciences_.--the last century is marked by scientific development along several {466} rather distinct lines as follows: the study of the earth, or geology; animal and vegetable life, or biology; atomic analysis, or chemistry; biochemistry; physics, especially that part relating to electricity and radioactivity; and more recently it might be stated that investigations are carried on in psychology and sociology, while mathematics and astronomy have made progress. the main generalized point of research, if it could be so stated, is the discovery of law and order. this has been demonstrated in the development of chemistry under the atomic theory; physics in the molecular theory; the law of electrons in electricity, and the evolutionary theory in the study of biology. great advance has been made in the medical sciences, including the knowledge of the nature and prevention of disease. though a great many new discoveries and, out of new discoveries, new inventions have appeared along specific lines and various sciences have advanced with accuracy and precision, perhaps the evolutionary theory has changed the thought of the world more than any other. it has connected man with the rest of the universe and made him a definite part of it. _the evolutionary theory_.--the geography of the earth as presented by lyell, the theory of population of malthus, and the _origin of the species_ and the _descent of man_ by darwin changed the preconceived notions of the creation of man. slowly and without ostentation science everywhere had been forcing all nature into unity controlled by universal laws. traditional belief was not prepared for the bold statement of darwin that man was part of the slow development of animal life through the ages. for 2,000 years or more the philosophic world had been wedded to the idea of a special creation of man entirely independent of the creation of the rest of the universe. all conceptions of god, man, and his destiny rested upon the recognition of a separate creation. to deny this meant a reconstruction of much of the religious philosophy of the world. persons {467} were needlessly alarmed and began to attack the doctrine on the assumption that anything interfering with the long-recognized interpretation of the relation of man to creation was wrong and was instituted for the purpose of tearing down the ancient landmarks. darwin accepted in general the lamarckian doctrine that each succeeding generation would have new characters added to it by the modification of environmental factors and by the use and disuse of organs and functions. thus gradually under such selection the species would be improved. but darwin emphasized selection through hereditary traits. subsequently, weismann and others reinterpreted darwin's theory and strengthened its main propositions, abandoning the lamarckian theory of use and disuse. mendel, de vries, and other biologists have added to the darwinian theory by careful investigations into the heredity of plants and animals, but because darwin was the first to give clear expression to the theory of evolution, "darwinism" is used to express the general theory. cosmic evolution, or the development of the universe, has been generally acknowledged by the acceptance of the results of the studies of geology, astronomy, and physics. history of plant and animal life is permanently written in the rocks, and their evolutionary process so completely demonstrated in the laboratory that few dare to question it. modern controversy hinges upon the assumption that man as an animal is not subjected to the natural laws of other animals and of plants, but that he had a special creation. the maintenance of this belief has led to many crude and unscientific notions of the origin of man and the meaning of evolution. evolution is very simple in its general traits, but very complex in its details. it is a theory of process and not a theory of creation. it is continuous, progressive change, brought about by natural forces and in accordance with natural laws. the evolutionist studies these changes and records the results obtained thereby. the scientist thus discovers new truths, {468} establishes the relation of one truth to another, enlarges the boundary of knowledge, extends the horizon of the unknown, and leaves the mystery of the beginning of life unsolved. his laboratory is always open to retest and clarify his work and to add new knowledge as fast as it is acquired. evolution as a working theory for science has correlated truths, unified methods, and furnished a key to modern thought. as a co-operative science it has had a stimulating influence on all lines of research, not only in scientific study of physical nature, but also in the study of man, for there are natural laws as well as man-made laws to be observed in the development of human society. some evolutionary scientists will be dogmatic at times, but they return to their laboratories and proceed to reinterpret what they have assumed, so that their dogmatism is of short duration. theological dogmatists are not so fortunate, because of persistence of religious tradition which has not yet been put fully to the laboratory test. some of them are continuously and hopelessly dogmatic. they still adhere to belief founded on the emotions which they refuse to put to scientific test. science makes no attempt to undermine religion, but is unconsciously laying a broader foundation on which religion may stand. theologians who are beginning to realize this are forced to re-examine the bible and reinterpret it according to the knowledge and enlightenment of the time. thus science becomes a force to advance christianity, not to destroy it. on the other hand, science becomes less dogmatic as it applies its own methods to religion and humanity and recognizes that there is a great world of spiritual truth which cannot be determined by experiments in the physical laboratory. it can be estimated only in the laboratory of human action. faith, love, virtue, and spiritual vision cannot be explained by physical and chemical reactions. if in the past science has rightly pursued its course of investigation regardless of spiritual truth, the future is full of promise that religion and human reactions and science will eventually work together in the pursuit of {469} truth in god's great workshop. the unity of truth will be thus realized. the area of knowledge will be enlarged while the horizon of the unknown will be extended. the mystery of life still remains unsolved. galton followed along in the study of the development of race and culture, and brought in a new study of human life. pasteur and lister worked out their great factors of preventive medicine and health. madame curie developed the radioactivity as a great contribution to the evolution of science. all of this represents the slow evolution of science, each new discovery quickening the thought of the age in which it occurred, changing the attitude of the mind toward nature and life, and contributing to human comfort and human welfare. but the greatest accomplishment always in the development of science is its effect on the mental processes of humanity, stimulating thought and changing the attitude of mind toward life. _science and war_.--it is a travesty on human progress, a social paradox, that war and science go hand in hand. on one side are all of the machines of destruction, the battleships, bombing-planes, huge guns, high explosives, and poisonous gases, products of scientific experiment and inventive genius, and on the other ambulances, hospitals, medical and surgical care, with the uses of all medical discoveries. the one seeks destruction, the other seeks to allay suffering; one force destroys life, the other saves it. and yet they march forth under the same flag to conquer the enemy. it is like the conquest of the american indians by the spaniards, in which the warrior bore in one hand a banner of the cross of christ and in the other the drawn sword. war has achieved much in forcing people into national unity, in giving freedom to the oppressed and protecting otherwise helpless people, but in the light of our ideals of peace it has never been more than a cruel necessity, and, more frequently, a grim, horrible monster. chemistry and physics and their discoveries underlying the vast material prosperity of moderns have contributed much to the mechanical and {470} industrial arts and increased the welfare and happiness of mankind. but when war is let loose, these same beneficent sciences are worked day and night for the rapid destruction of man. all the wealth built up in the passing years is destroyed along with the lives of millions of people. out of the gloom of the picture proceeds one ray of beneficent light, that of the service rendered by the discoveries of medical science and surgical art. the discoveries arising from the study of anatomy, physiology, bacteriology, and neurology, with the use of anaesthetics and antiseptics in connection with surgery, have made war less horrible and suffering more endurable. scientists like pasteur, lister, koch, morton, and many others brought forth from their laboratories the results of their study for the alleviation of suffering. yet it seems almost incredible that with all of the horrid experiences of war, an enterprise that no one desires, and which the great majority of the world deplore, should so long continue. nothing but the discovery and rise of a serum that will destroy the germs of national selfishness and avarice will prevent war. possibly it stimulates activity in invention, discovery, trade and commerce, but of what avail is it if the cycle returns again from peace to war and these products of increased activity are turned to the destruction of civilization? does not the world need a baptism of common sense? some gain is being made in the changing attitude of mind toward the warrior in favor of the great scientists of the world. but nothing will be assured until the hero-worship of the soldier gives way to the respect for the scholar, and ideals of truth and right become mightier than the sword. _scientific progress is cumulative_.--one discovery leads to another, one invention to others. it is a law of science. science benefits the common man more than does politics or religion. it is through science that he has means of use and enjoyment of nature's progress. it is true this is on the side of materialistic culture, and it does not provide all that is needed for the completed life. even though the scientific {471} experiments and discoveries are fundamentally more essential, the common man cannot get along without social order, politics, or religion. perhaps we can get the largest expression of the value of science to man through a consideration of the inventions and discoveries which he may use in every-day life.[6] prior to the nineteenth century we have to record the following important inventions: alphabetic writing, arabic numbers, mariner's compass, printing, the telescope, the barometer and thermometer, and the steam-engine. in the nineteenth century we have to record: railroads, steam navigation, the telegraph, the telephone, friction matches, gas lighting, electrical lighting, photography, the phonograph, electrical transmission of power, rã¶ntgen rays, spectrum analysis, anaesthetics, antiseptic surgery, the airplane, gasoline-engine, transmission of news by radio, and transportation by automobile. also we shall find in the nineteenth century thirteen important theoretical discoveries as compared with seven in all previous centuries. it is interesting to note what may have taken place also in the last generation. a man who was born in the middle of the last century might reflect on a good many things that have taken place. scientifically he has lived to see the development of electricity from a mere academic pursuit to a tremendous force of civilization. chemistry, although supposed to have been a completed science, was scarcely begun. herbert spencer's _synthetic philosophy_ and darwin's _origin of the species_ had not yet been published. huxley and tyndall, the great experimental scientists, had not published their great works. transportation with a few slow steam-propelled vessels crossing the ocean preceded the era of the great floating palaces. the era of railroad-building had only just started in america. horseless carriages propelled by gas or electricity were in a state of conjecture. politically in america the civil war had not been fought or the constitution really completed. the great wealth and stupendous business organization of {472} to-day were unknown in 1850. in europe there was no german empire, only a german federation. the hapsburgs were still holding forth in austria and the hohenzollerns in prussia and the romanoffs in russia. the monarchial power of the old rã©gime was the rule of the day. these are institutions of the past. civilization in america, although it had invaded the mississippi valley, had not spread over the great western plains nor to the pacific coast. tremendous changes in art and industries, in inventions and discoveries have been going on in this generation. the flying-machine, the radio, the automobile, the dirigible balloon, and, more than all, the tremendous business organization of the factories and industries of the age have given us altogether a complete revolution. _research foundations_.--all modern universities carry on through instructors and advanced students many departments of scientific research. the lines of research extend through a wide range of subjects--chemistry, biology, physics, anatomy, physiology, medicine, geology, agriculture, history, sociology, and other departments of learning. these investigations have led to the discovery of new knowledge and the extension of learning to mankind. outside of colleges and universities there have been established many foundations of research and many industrial laboratories. prominent among those in the united states are the carnegie corporation and the rockefeller foundation, which are devoting hundreds of millions of dollars to the service of research, for the purpose of advancing science and directly benefiting humankind. the results play an important part in the protection and daily welfare of mankind. the mellon institute contributes much to the solution of problems of applied chemistry.[7] it is interesting to note how the investigation carried on by these and other foundations is contributing directly to human welfare by mastering disease. the elimination of the hookworm disease, the fight to control malaria, the {473} mastery of yellow fever, the promotion of public health, and the study of medicine, the courageous attack on tuberculosis, and the suppression of typhoid fever, all are for the benefit of the public. the war on disease and the promotion of public health by preventive measures have lowered the death-rate and lengthened the period of life. _the trend of scientific investigations_.--while research is carried on in many lines, with many different objectives, it may be stated that intense study is devoted to the nature of matter and the direct connection of it with elemental forces. the theories of the molecule and the atom are still working hypotheses, but the investigator has gone further and disintegrated the atom, showing it to be a complex of corpuscles or particles. scientists talk of electrons and protons as the two elemental forces and of the mechanics of the atom. in chemistry, investigation follows the problems of applied chemistry, while organic chemistry or biochemistry opens continually new fields of research. it appears that biology and chemistry are becoming more closely allied as researches continue and likewise physics and chemistry. in the field of surgery the x-ray is in daily use, and radium and radioactivity may yet be great aids to medicine. in medical investigation much is dependent upon the discoveries in neurology. this also will throw light upon the studies in psychology, for the relation of nerve functions to mind functions may be more clearly defined. explorations of the earth and of the heavens continually add new knowledge of the extent and creation of the universe. the study of anthropology and archaeology throw new light upon the origin and early history of man. experimental study of animals, food, soils, and crops adds increased means of sustenance for the race. recent investigations of scientific education, along with psychology, are throwing much light on mental conditions and progress. and more recently serious inquiry into social life through the study of the social sciences is revealing the great problems of life. all of knowledge, all of science, and all of human invention which add to material {474} comforts will be of no avail unless men can learn to live together harmoniously and justly. but the truths discovered in each department of investigation are all closely related. truly there is but one science with many divisions, one universe with many parts, and though man is a small particle of the great cosmos, it is his life and welfare that are at the centres of all achievements. subjects for further study 1. in what ways has science contributed to the growth of democracy? 2. how has the study of science changed the attitude of the mind toward life? 3. how is every-day life of the ordinary man affected by science? 4. is science antagonistic to true christianity? 5. what is the good influence of science on religious belief and practice? 6. what are the great discoveries of the last twenty-five years in astronomy? chemistry? physics? biology? medicine? electricity? 7. what recent inventions are dependent upon science? 8. relation between investigation in the laboratory and the modern automobile. 9. how does scientific knowledge tend to banish fear? 10. give a brief history of the development of the automobile. the flying-machine. 11. would a law forbidding the teaching of science in schools advance the cause of christianity? [1] taylor, _the mediaeval mind_, vol. ii, p. 508. [2] libby, _history of science_, p. 63. [3] copernicus's view was not published until thirty-six years after its discovery. a copy of his book was brought to him at his death-bed, but he refused to look at it. [4] libby, p. 91. [5] libby, _history of science_, p. 280. [6] libby, _introduction to the history of science_. [7] the newly created department at johns hopkins university for the study of international relations may assist in the abolition of war. {475} chapter xxx universal education and democracy _universal public education is a modern institution_.--the greeks valued education and encouraged it, but only those could avail themselves of its privileges who were able to pay for it. the training by the mother in the home was followed by a private tutor. this system conformed to the idea of leadership and was valuable in the establishment of an educated class. however, at the festivals and the theatres there were opportunities for the masses to learn much of oratory, music, and civic virtues. the education of athens conformed to the class basis of society. sparta as an exception trained all citizens for the service of state, making them subordinate to its welfare. the state took charge of children at the age of seven, put them in barracks, and subjected them to the most severe discipline. but there was no free education, no free development of the ordinary mind. it was in the nature of civic slavery for the preservation of the state in conflict with other states. during the middle ages charlemagne established the only public schools for civic training, the first being established at paris, although he planned to extend them throughout the empire. the collapse of his great empire made the schools merely a tradition. but they were a faint sign of the needs of a strong empire and an enlightened community. the educational institutions of the middle ages were monasteries, and cathedral schools for the purpose of training men for the service of the church and for the propagating of religious doctrine. they were all institutional in nature and far from the idea of public instruction for the enlightenment of the people. _the mediaeval university permitted some freedom of choice_.--there was exhibited in some of them especially a desire to discover the truth through traditional knowledge. they were {476} composed of groups of students and masters who met for free discussion, which led to the verification of established traditions. but this was a step forward, and scholars arose who departed from dogma into new fields of learning. while the universities of the middle ages were a step in advance, full freedom of the mind had not yet manifested itself, nor had the idea of universal education appeared. opportunity came to a comparatively small number; moreover, nearly all scientific and educational improvement came from impulses outside of the centres of tradition. _the english and german universities_.--the english universities, particularly oxford and cambridge, gave a broader culture in mathematics, philosophy, and literature, which was conducive to liberality in thought, but even they represented the education of a selected class. the german universities, especially in the nineteenth century, emphasized the practical or applied side of education. by establishing laboratories, they were prepared to apply all truths discovered, and by experimentation carry forward learning, especially in the chemical and other physical sciences. the spirit of research was strongly invoked for new scientific discoveries. while england was developing a few noted secondary schools, like harrow and eton, germany was providing universal real _schule_, and _gymnasia_, as preparatory for university study and for the general education of the masses. as a final outcome the prussian system was developed, which had great influence on education in the united states in the latter part of the nineteenth century. _early education in the united states_.--the first colleges and universities in the united states were patterned after the english universities and the academies and high schools of england. these schools were of a selected class to prepare for the ministry, law, statesmanship, and letters. the growth of the american university was rapid, because it continually broadened its curriculum. from the study of philosophy, classical languages, mathematics, literature, it successively {477} embraced modern languages, physical sciences, natural science, history, and economics, psychology, law, medicine, engineering, and commerce. in the present-day universities there is a wide differentiation of subjects. the subjects have been multiplied to meet the demand of scientific development and also to fit students for the ever-increasing number of occupations which the modern complex society demands. the result of all this expansion is democratic. the college class is no longer an exclusive selection. the plane of educational selection continually lowers until the college draws its students from all classes and prepares them for all occupations. in the traditional college certain classes were selected to prepare for positions of learning. there was developed a small educated class. in the modern way there is no distinctive educated class. university education has become democratic. _the common, or public, schools_.--in the colonial and early national period of the united states, education was given by a method of tutors, or by a select pay school taught by a regularly employed teacher under private contract. finally the sympathy for those who were not able to pay caused the establishing of "common schools." this was the real beginning of universal education, for the practice expanded and the idea finally prevailed of providing schools by taxation "common" to all, and free to all who wish to attend. later, for civic purposes, primary education has become compulsory in most states. following the development of the primary grades, a complete system of secondary schools has been provided. beyond these are the state schools of higher education, universities, agricultural and mechanical schools, normal schools and industrial schools, so that a highway of learning is provided for the child, leading from the kindergarten through successive stages to the university. _knowledge, intelligence, and training necessary in a democracy_.--washington, after experimenting with the new nation for eight years, having had opportunity to observe the defects {478} and virtues of the republic, said in his farewell address: "promote, then, as an object of primary importance institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. in proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened."[1] again and again have the leaders of the nation who have had at heart the present welfare and future destiny of their country urged public education as a necessity. and right well have the people responded to these sentiments. they have poured out their hard-earned money in taxation to provide adequate education for the youth of the land. james bryce, after studying in detail american institutions, declared that "the chief business of america is education." this observation was made nearly forty years ago. if it was true then, how much more evident is it now with wonderful advance of higher education in colleges and universities, and in the magnificent system of secondary education that has been built up in the interval. the swarming of students in high school and college is evidence that they appreciate the opportunities furnished by the millions of wealth, largely in the form of taxes, given for the support of schools. _education has been universalized_.--having made education universal, educators are devoting their energies to fit the education to the needs of the student and to assist the student in choosing the course of instruction which will best fit him for his chosen life-work. the victory has been won to give every boy and girl an educational chance. to give him what he actually needs and see that he uses it for a definite purpose is the present problem of the educator. this means a careful inquiry into mental capacity and mental traits, into temperament, taste, ambition, and choice of vocation. it means further provision of the special education that will best prepare him for his chosen work, and, indeed, it means sympathetic co-operation of the teacher and student in determining the course to be pursued. {479} _research an educational process_.--increased knowledge comes from observation or systematic investigation in the laboratory. every child has by nature the primary element of research, a curiosity to know things. too often this is suppressed by conventional education instead of continued into systematic investigation. one of the great defects of the public school is the failure to keep alive, on the part of the student, the desire to know things. undue emphasis on instruction, a mere imparting of knowledge, causes the student to shift the responsibility of his education upon the teacher, who, after all, can do no more than help the student to select the line of study, and direct him in methods of acquiring. together teacher and student can select the trail, and the teacher, because he has been over it, can direct the student over its rough ways, saving him time and energy. perhaps the greatest weakness in popular government to-day is indifference of citizens to civic affairs. this leads to a shifting of responsibility of public affairs frequently to those least competent to conduct them. perhaps a training in individual responsibility in the schools and more vital instruction in citizenship would prepare the coming generation to make democracy efficient and safe to the world. the results of research are of great practical benefit to the so-called common man in the ordinary pursuits of life. the scientist in the laboratory, spending days and nights in research, finally discovers a new process which becomes a life-saver or a time-saver to general mankind. yet the people usually accept this as a matter of fact as something that just happened. they forget the man in the laboratory and exploit the results of his labor for their own personal gain. how often the human mind is in error, and unobserving, not to see that the discovery of truth and its adaptation to ordinary life is one of the fundamental causes of the progress of the race. man has advanced in proportion as he has become possessed of the secrets of nature and has adapted them to his service. the number of ways he touches nature and forces {480} her to yield her treasures, adapting them to his use, determines the possibility of progress. the so-called "common man," the universal type of our democracy, is worthy of our admiration. he has his life of toil and his round of duties alternating with pleasure, bearing the burdens of life cheerfully, with human touch with his fellows; amid sorrow and joy, duty and pleasure, storm and sunshine, he lives a normal existence and passes on the torch of life to others. but the man who shuts himself in his laboratory, lives like a monk, losing for a time the human touch, spends long days of toil and "nights devoid of ease" until he discovers a truth or makes an invention that makes millions glad, is entitled to our highest reverence. the ordinary man and the investigator are complementary factors of progress and both essential to democracy. _the diffusion of knowledge necessary to democracy_.--always in progress is a deflecting tendency, separating the educated class from the uneducated. this is not on account of the aristocracy of learning, but because of group activity, the educated man following a pursuit different from the man of practical affairs. hence the effort to broadcast knowledge through lectures, university extension, and the radio is essential to the progress of the whole community. one phase of enlightenment is much neglected, that of making clear that the object of the scholar and the object of the man of practical affairs should be the same--that of establishing higher ideals of life and providing means for approximating these ideals. it frequently occurs that the individual who has centred his life on the accumulation of wealth ignores the educator and has a contempt for the impractical scholar, as he terms him. not infrequently state legislatures, when considering appropriations for education, have shown more interest in hogs and cattle than in the welfare of children. it would be well if the psychology of the common mind would change so as to grasp the importance of education and scientific investigation to every-day life. does it occur to the {481} man who seats himself in his car to whisk away across the country in the pursuit of ordinary business, to pause to inquire who discovered gasoline or who invented the gasoline-engine? does he realize that some patient investigator in the laboratory has made it possible for even a child to thus utilize the forces of nature and thus shorten time and ignore space? whence comes the improvement of live-stock in this country? compare the cattle of early new england with those on modern farms. was the little scrubby stock of our forefathers replaced by large, sleek, well-bred cattle through accident? no, it was by the discovery of investigators and its practical adaptation by breeders. compare the vineyards and the orchards of the early history of the nation, the grains and the grasses, or the fruits and the flowers with those of present cultivation. what else but investigation, discovery, and adaptation wrought the change? my common neighbor, when your child's poor body is racked with pain and likely to die, and the skilled surgeon places the child on the operating-table, administers the anaesthetic to make him insensible to pain, and with knowledge gained by investigation operates with such skill as to save the child's life and restore him to health, are you not ready to say that scientific investigation is a blessing to all mankind? whence comes this power to restore health? is it a dispensation from heaven? yes, a dispensation brought about through the patient toil and sacrifice of those zealous for the discovery of truth. what of the knowledge that leads to the mastery of the yellow-fever bacillus, of the typhoid germ, to the fight against tuberculosis and other enemies of mankind? again, it is the man in the laboratory who is the first great cause that makes it possible for humanity to protect itself from disease. could our methods of transportation by steamship, railroad, or air, our great manufacturing processes, our vast machinery, or our scientific agriculture exist without scientific research? nothing touches ordinary life with such potent force as the results of the investigation in the laboratory. clearly it is {482} understood by the thoughtful that education in all of its phases is a democratic process, and a democratic need, for its results are for everybody. knowledge is thus humanized, and the educated and the non-educated must co-operate to keep the human touch. educational progress.--one of the landmarks of the present century of progress will be the perfecting of educational systems. education is no longer for the exclusive few, developing an aristocracy of learning for the elevation of a single class; it has become universal. the large number of universities throughout the world, well endowed and well equipped, the multitudes of secondary schools, and the universality of the primary schools, now render it possible for every individual to become intelligent and enlightened. but these conditions are comparatively recent, so that millions of individuals to-day, even in the midst of great educational systems, remain entirely unlettered. nevertheless, the persistent effort on the part of people everywhere to have good schools, with the best methods of instruction, certainly must have its effect in bringing the masses of unlearned into the realm of letters. the practical tendency of modern education, by which discipline and culture may be given while at the same time preparing the student for the active duties of life, makes education more necessary for all persons and classes. the great changes that have taken place in methods of instruction and in the materials of scientific investigation, and the tendency to develop the man as well as to furnish him with information, evince the masterly progress of educational systems, and demonstrate their great worth. _the importance of state education_.--so necessary has education become to the perpetuation of free government that the states of the world have deemed it advisable to provide on their own account a sufficient means of education. perpetuation of liberty can be secured only on the basis of intellectual progress. from the time of the foundation of the universities of europe, kings and princes and state authorities have {483} encouraged and developed education, but it remained for america to begin a complete and universal free-school system. in the united states educators persistently urge upon the people the necessity of popular education and intelligence as the only means of securing to the people the benefits of a free government, and other statesmen from time to time have insisted upon the same principle. the private institutions of america did a vast work for the education of the youth, but proved entirely inadequate to meet the immediate demands of universal education, and the public-school system sprang up as a necessary means of preparation for citizenship. it found its earliest, largest, and best scope in the north and west, and has more recently been established in the south, and now is universal. the grant by the united states government at the time of the formation of the ohio territory of lands for the support of universities led to the provision in the act of formation of each state and territory in the union for the establishment of a university. each state, since the admission of ohio, has provided for a state university, and the act of 1862, which granted lands to each state in the union for the establishment of agricultural and mechanical colleges, has also given a great impulse to state education. in the organizing acts of some of the newer states these two grants have been joined in one for the upbuilding of a university combining the ideas of the two kinds of schools. the support insured to these state institutions promises their perpetuity. the amount of work which they have done for the education of the masses in higher learning has been prodigious, and they stand to-day as the greatest and most perfect monument of the culture and learning of the western states. the tremendous growth of state education has increased the burden of taxation to the extent that the question has arisen as to whether there is not a limit to the amount people are willing to pay for public education. if it can be shown that they receive a direct benefit in the education of their children there {484} will be no limit within their means to the support of both secondary schools and universities. but there must be evidence that the expenditure is economically and wisely administered. the princely endowments of magnificent universities like the leland stanford junior university, the university of chicago, johns hopkins university, harvard, yale, and others, have not interfered with the growth and development of state education, for it rests upon the permanent foundation of a popular demand for institutions supported by the contributions of the whole people for the benefit of the state at large. state institutions based upon permanent foundations have been zealous in obtaining the best quality of instruction, and the result is that a youth in the rural districts may receive as good undergraduate instruction as he can obtain in one of the older and more wealthy private institutions, and at very little expense. _the printing-press and its products_.--perhaps of all of the inventions that occurred prior to the eighteenth century, printing has the most power in modern civilization. no other one has so continued to expand its achievements. becoming a necessary adjunct of modern education, it continually extends its influence in the direct aid of every other art, industry, or other form of human achievement. the dissemination of knowledge through books, periodicals, and the newspaper press has made it possible to keep alive the spirit of learning among the people and to assure that degree of intelligence necessary for a self-governed people. the freedom of the press is one of the cardinal principles of progress, for it brings into fulness the fundamental fact of freedom of discussion advocated by the early greeks, which was the line of demarcation between despotism and dogmatism and the freedom of the mind and will. in common with all human institutions, its power has sometimes been abused. but its defect cannot be remedied by repression or by force, but by the elevation of the thought, judgment, intelligence, and good-will of a people by an education which causes them to {485} demand better things. the press in recent years has been too susceptible to commercial dominance--a power, by the way, which has seriously affected all of our institutions. here, as in all other phases of progress, wealth should be a means rather than an end of civilization. _public opinion_.--universal education in school and out, freedom of discussion, freedom of thought and will to do are necessary to social progress. public opinion is an expression of the combined judgments of many minds working in conscious or unconscious co-operation. laws, government, standards of right action, and the type of social order are dependent upon it. the attempt to form a league of nations or a court of international justice depends upon the support of an intelligent public opinion. war cannot be ended by force of arms, for that makes more war, but by the force of mutually acquired opinion of all nations based on good-will. every year in the united states there are examples of the failure of the attempt to enforce laws which are not well supported by public opinion. such laws are made effective by a gradual education of those for whom they are made to the standard expressed in the laws, or they become obsolete. subjects for further study 1. show from observations in your own neighborhood the influence of education on social progress. 2. imperfections of public schools and the difficulties confronting educators. 3. should all children in the united states be compelled to attend the public schools? 4. what part do newspapers and periodicals play in education? 5. relation of education to public opinion. 6. should people who cannot read and write be permitted to vote? 7. study athletics in your school and town to determine their educational value. 8. show by investigation the educational value of motion-pictures and their misuse. 9. in what ways may social inequality be diminished? 10. would a law compelling the reading of the bible in public schools make people more religious? [1] richardson, _messages and papers of the presidents_, i, 220. {486} chapter xxxi world economics and politics _commerce and communication_.--the nations of the world have been drawn together in thought and involuntary co-operation by the stimulating power of trade. the exchange of goods always leads to the exchange of ideas. by commerce each nation may profit by the products of all others, and thus all may enjoy the material comforts of the world. at times some countries are deficient in the food-supply, but there has been in recent years a sufficient world supply for all, when properly distributed through commerce. some countries produce goods that cannot be produced by others, but by exchange all may receive the benefits of everything discovered, produced, or manufactured. rapid and complete transportation facilities are necessary to accomplish this. both trade and transportation are dependent upon rapid communication, hence the telegraph, the cable, and the wireless have become prime necessities. the more voluminous reports of trade relations found in printed documents, papers, and books, though they represent a slower method of communication, are essential to world trade, but the results of trade are found in the unity of thought, the development of a world mind, and growing similarity of customs, habits, usages, and ideals. slowly there is developing a world attitude toward life. _exchange of ideas modifies political organization_.--the desire for liberty of action is universal among all people who have been assembled in mass under co-operation. the arbitrary control by the self-constituted authority of kings and governments without the consent of the governed is opposed by all human associations, whether tribal, territorial, or national. since the world settled down to the idea of monarchy as a necessary form of government, men have been trying to {487} substitute other forms of government. the spread of democratic ideas has been slowly winning the world to new methods of government. the american revolution was the most epoch-making event of modern times. while the french revolution was about to burst forth, the example of the american colonies was fuel to the flames. in turn, after the united states had won their freedom and were well on their way in developing a republican government, the influence of the radical democracy was seen in the laws and constitutions of the states, particularly in the first half of the nineteenth century. the spanish-american war led to the development of democracy, not only in cuba and porto rico but in the philippine islands. but the planting of democracy in the philippines had a world influence, manifested especially in southeastern asia, china, japan, and india. _spread of political ideas_.--the socialism of karl marx has been one of the most universal and powerful appeals to humanity for industrial freedom. his economic system is characterized by the enormous emphasis placed upon labor as a factor in production. starting from the hypothesis that all wealth is created by labor, and limiting all labor to the wage-earner, there is no other conclusion, if the premise be admitted, than that the product of industry belongs to labor exclusively. his theories gained more or less credence in germany and to a less extent in other countries, but they were never fully tested until the russian revolution in connection with the great war. after the downfall of czarism, leaders of the revolution attacked and overthrew capitalism, and instituted the soviet government. the proletariat came to the top, while the capitalists, nobility, and middle classes went to the bottom. this was brought about by sudden revolution through rapid and wild propaganda. strenuous efforts to propagate the soviet doctrine and the war against capitalism in other countries have taken place, without working a revolution similar to that in russia. but the international is slowly developing a world idea among {488} laborers, with the ultimate end of destroying the capitalistic system and making it possible for organized wage-earners to rule the world. it is not possible here to discuss the marxian doctrine of socialism nor to recount what its practical application did to russia. suffice it to say that the doctrine has a fatal fallacy in supposing that wage-earners are the only class of laborers necessary to rational economic production. _the world war breaks down the barriers of thought_.--the great war brought to light many things that had been at least partially hidden to ordinary thinking people. it revealed the national selfishness which was manifested in the struggle for the control of trade, the extension of territory, and the possession of the natural resources of the world. this selfishness was even more clearly revealed when, in the treaty of versailles and the formation of the league of nations, each nation was unwilling to make necessary sacrifice for the purpose of establishing universal peace. they all appeared to feel the need of some international agreement which should be permanent and each favored it, could it first get what it wanted. such was the power of tradition regarding the sanctity of national life and the sacredness of national territory and, moreover, of national prerogatives! nevertheless, the interchange of ideas connecting with the gruelling of war caused change of ideas about government and developed, if not an international mind, new modes of national thinking. the war brought new visions of peace, and developed to a certain extent a recognition of the rights of nations and an interest in one another's welfare. there was an advance in the theory at least of international justice. also the world was shocked with the terror of war as well as its futility and terrible waste. while national selfishness was not eradicated, it was in a measure subdued, and a feeling of co-operation started which eventually will result in unity of feeling, thought, and action. the war brought into being a sentiment among the national peoples that they will not in the future be forced into war without their consent. {489} _attempt to form a league for permanent peace_.--led by the united states, a league of nations was proposed which should settle all disputes arising between nations without going to war. the united states having suggested the plan and having helped to form the league, finally refused to become a party to it, owing in part to the tradition of exclusiveness from european politics--a tradition that has existed since the foundation of the nation. yet the united states was suggesting a plan that it had long believed in, and a policy which it had exercised for a hundred years with most nations. it took a prominent part in the first peace conference called by the czar of russia in 1899. the attempt to establish a permanent international tribunal ended in forming a permanent court of arbitration, which was nothing more than an intelligence office with a body of arbitrators composed of not more than four men from each nation, from whom nations that had chosen to arbitrate a dispute might choose arbitrators. the conference adjourned with the understanding that another would be called within a few years. the boxer trouble in china and the war between japan and russia delayed the meeting. through the initiation of theodore roosevelt, of the united states, a second hague conference met in 1907. largely through the influence of elihu root a permanent court was established, with the exception that a plan for electing delegates could not be agreed upon. it was agreed to hold another conference in 1915 to finish the work. thus it is seen that the league of nations advocated by president wilson was born of ideas already fructifying on american soil. mckinley, roosevelt, john hay, elihu root, joseph h. choate, james brown scott, and other statesmen had favored an international tribunal. the league of nations provided in its constitution among other things for a world court of nations. in the first draft of the constitution of the league no mention was made of a world court. but through a cablegram of elihu root to colonel e. m. house, the latter was able to place articles 13 {490} and 14, which provided that the league should take measures for forming a court of international justice. subsequently the court was formed by the league, but national selfishness came to the front and crippled the court. article 34 originally read: "between states which are members of the league of nations, the court shall have jurisdiction, and this without any convention giving it jurisdiction to hear and determine cases of legal nature." it was changed to read; "the jurisdiction of the court comprises all cases which the parties refer to it and all matters specially provided for in treaties and conventions in force." it is to be observed that in the original statement, either party to a dispute could bring a case into court without the consent of the other, thus making it a real court of justice, and in the modified law both parties must agree to bring the case in court, thus making it a mere tribunal of arbitration. the great powers--england, france, italy, and japan--were opposed to the original draft, evidently being unwilling to trust their disputes to a court, while the smaller nations favored the court as provided in the original resolution. however, it was provided that such nations who desired could sign an agreement to submit all cases of dispute to the court with all others who similarly signed. nearly all of the smaller nations have so signed, and president harding urged the united states, though not a member of the league, to sign. the judges of the court, eleven in all, are nominated by the old arbitration court of the hague tribunal, and elected by the league of nations, the council and assembly voting separately. only one judge may be chosen from a nation, and of course every nation may not have a judge. in cases where a dispute involves a nation which has no member in the court, an extra judge may be appointed. the first court was chosen from the following nations: great britain, france, italy, united states, cuba, switzerland, netherlands, denmark, japan, and brazil. so the court of international justice is functioning in an incomplete way, born of the spirit of {491} america, and the united states, though not a member of the league of nations, has a member in the court sitting in judgment on the disputes of the nations of the world. so likewise the league of nations, which the united states would not join, is functioning in an incomplete way. _international agreement and progress_.--but who shall say that the spirit of international justice has not grown more rapidly than appears from the workings of the machinery that carries it out? beneath the selfish interests of nations is the international consciousness that some way must be devised and held to for the settlement of disputes without war; that justice between nations may be established similar to that practised within the boundaries of a single nation. no progress comes out of war itself, though it may force other lines of conduct. progress comes from other sources than war. besides, it brings its burdens of crime, cripples, and paupers, and its discontent and distrust. it may hasten production and stimulate invention of destruction, but it is not constructive and always it develops an army of plunderers who prey upon the suffering and toil of others. these home pirates are more destructive of civilization than poison gases or high explosives. _the mutual aid of nations_.--in a previous chapter it was shown that mutual aid of individuals was the beginning of society. it now is evident that the mutual aid of nations is their salvation. as the establishment of justice between individuals through their reactions does not destroy their freedom nor their personalities, so the establishment of justice among nations does not destroy their autonomy nor infringe upon their rights. it merely insists that brutal national selfishness shall give way to a friendly co-operation in the interest and welfare of all nations. "a nation, like an individual, will become greater as it cherishes a high ideal and does service and helpful acts to its neighbors, whether great or small, and as it co-operates with them in working toward a common end."[1] {492} truly "righteousness exalteth a nation," and it will become strong and noble as it seeks to develop justice among all nations and to exercise toward them fair dealing and friendly relations that make for peace. _reorganization of international law_.--the public opinion of the nations of the world is the only durable support of international law. the law represents a body of principles, usages, and rules of action regarding the rights of nations in peace and in war. as a rule nations have a wholesome respect for international law, because they do not wish to incur the unfriendliness and possible hatred of their fellow nations nor the contempt and criticism of the world. this fear of open censure has in a measure led to the baneful secret treaties, such an important factor in european diplomacy, whose results have been suspicion, distrust, and war. germany is the only modern nation that felt strong enough to defy world opinion, the laws of nations, and to assume an entirely independent attitude. but not for long. this attitude ended in a disastrous war, in which she lost the friendship and respect of the world--lost treasure and trade, lives and property. it is unfortunate that modern international law is built upon the basis of war rather than upon the basis of peace. in this respect there has not been much advance since the time of grotius, the father of modern international law. however, there has been a remarkable advance among most nations in settling their difficulties by arbitration. this has been accompanied by a strong desire to avoid war when possible, and a longing for its entire abandonment. slowly but surely public opinion realizes not only the desire but the necessity of abandoning great armaments and preparation for war. but the nations cannot go to a peace basis without concerted action. this will be brought about by growth in national righteousness and a modification of crude patriotism and national selfishness. it is now time to codify and revise international law on a peace basis, and new measures adopted in accordance to the progress nations have made in recent {493} years toward permanent peace. such a move would lead to a better understanding and furnish a ready guide to the court of international justice and all other means whereby nations seek to establish justice among themselves. _the outlook for a world state_.--if it be understood that a world state means the abandonment of all national governments and their absorption in a world government, then it may be asserted truly that such is an impossibility within the range of the vision of man. nor would it be desirable. if by world state is meant a political league which unites all in a co-operative group for fair dealing in regard to trade, commerce, territory, and the command of national resources, and in addition a world court to decide disputes between nations, such a state is possible and desirable. great society is a community of groups, each with its own life to live, its own independence to maintain, and its own service to perform. to absorb these groups would be to disorganize society and leave the individual helpless before the mass. for it is only within group activity that the individual can function. so with nations, whose life and organization must be maintained or the individual would be left helpless before the world. but nations need each other and should co-operate for mutual advantage. they are drawn closer each year in finance, in trade and commerce, in principles of government and in life. a serious injury to one is an injury to all. the future progress of the world will not be assured until they cease their squabbles over territory, trade, and the natural resources of the world--not until they abandon corroding selfishness, jealousy, and suspicion, and covenant with each other openly to keep the peace. to accomplish this, as mr. walter hines page said: "was there ever a greater need than there is now for first-class minds unselfishly working on world problems? the ablest ruling minds are engaged on domestic tasks. there is no world-girdling intelligence at work on government. the present order must change. it holds the old world still. it keeps all {494} parts of the world apart, in spite of the friendly cohesive forces of trade and travel. it keeps back self-government of men." these evils cannot be overcome by law, by formula, by resolution or rule of thumb, but rather by long, patient study, research, and work of many master-minds in co-operative leadership, who will create a sound international public opinion. the international mind needs entire regeneration, not dominance of the powers. the recent war was but a stupendous breaking with the past. it furnished opportunity for human society to move forward in a new adjustment on a larger and broader plan of life. whether it will or not depends upon the use made of the opportunity. the smashing process was stupendous, horrible in its moment. whether society will adapt itself to the new conditions remains to be seen. peace, a highly desirable objective, is not the only consideration. there are even more important phases of human adjustment. subjects for further study 1. what were the results of the first (1899) and the second (1907) hague conference? 2. what is meant by "freedom of the seas"? 3. should a commission of nations attempt to equalize the ownership and distribution of the natural products and raw materials, such as oil, coal, copper, etc.? 4. how did the world war make opportunity for democracy? 5. believing that war should be abolished, how may it be done? 6. what are the dangers of extreme radicalism regarding government and social order? 7. the status of the league of nations and the court of international justice. 8. national selfishness and the league of nations. 9. the consolidation or co-operation of churches in your town. 10. the union of social agencies to improve social welfare. 11. freedom of the press; freedom of speech. 12. public opinion. [1] cosmos, _the basis of durable peace_. {495} chapter xxxii the trend of civilization in the united states _the economic outlook_.--the natural resources of forest, mines, and agriculture are gradually being depleted. the rapidity of movement in the economic world, the creation of wealth by vast machinery, and the organization of labor and industry are drawing more and more from the wealth stored by nature in her treasure-houses. there is a strong agitation for the conservation of these resources, but little has been accomplished. the great business organizations are exploiting the resources, for the making of the finished products, not with the prime motive of adding to the material comforts and welfare of mankind, but to make colossal fortunes under private control. while the progress of man is marked by mastery of nature, it should also be marked by co-operation with nature on a continued utility basis. exploitation of natural resources leads to conspicuous waste which may lead to want and future deterioration. the development of scientific agriculture largely through the influence of the agricultural department at washington and the numerous agricultural colleges and experiment stations has done something to preserve and increase the productivity of the soil. scientific study and practical experiment have given improved quality of seed, a better grade of stock, and better quality of fruits and vegetables. they have also given improved methods of cultivation and adaptability of crops to the land, and thus have increased the yield per acre. the increased use of selected fertilizers has worked to the same end. the use of a large variety of labor-saving machines has conduced to increase the amount of the product. but all of this improvement is small, considering the amount that needs to be done. the population is increasing rapidly from {496} the native stock and by immigration. there is need for wise conservation in the use of land to prevent economic waste and to provide for future generations. the greedy consumers, with increasing desire for more and better things, urge, indirectly to be sure, for larger production and greater variety of finished products. _the economics of labor_.--in complex society there are many divisions or groups of laborers--laborers of body and laborers of mind. every one who is performing a legitimate service, which is sought for and remunerative to the laborer and serviceable to the public, is a laborer. at the base of all industry and social activity are the industrial wage-earners, who by their toil work the mines, the factories, the great steel and iron industries, the railroads, the electric-power plants and other industries. since the beginning of the industrial revolution in the latter part of the eighteenth century, labor has been working its way out of slavery into freedom. as a result laborers have better wages, better conditions of life, more of material comforts, and a higher degree of intelligence than ever before. yet there is much improvement needed. while the hours of labor have been reduced in general to eight per day, the irregularity of employment leads to unrest and frequently to great distress. there is a growing tendency to make laborers partners in the process of production. this does not mean that they shall take over the direction of industry, but co-operate with the managers regarding output, quality of goods, income, and wages, so as to give a solidarity to productive processes and eliminate waste of time, material, and loss by strikes. the domestic peace in industry is as important as the world peace of nations in the economy of the world's progress. a direct interest of the wage-earner in the management of production and in the general income would have a tendency to equalize incomes and prevent laborers from believing that the product of industry as well as its management should be under their direct control. public opinion usually favors the {497} laborer and, while it advocates the freedom and dignity of labor, does not favor the right of labor to exploit industry nor concede the right to destroy. but it believes that labor organizations should be put on the same basis as productive corporations, with equal degree of rights, privileges, duties, and responsibilities. _public and corporate industries_.--the independent system of organized industry so long dominant in america, known by the socialists as capitalistic production, has become so thoroughly established that there is no great tendency to communistic production and distribution. there is, however, a strong tendency to limit the power of exploitation and to control larger industries in the interest of the public. especially is this true in regard to what are known as public utilities, such as transportation, lighting, telephone, and telegraph companies, and, in fact, all companies that provide necessaries common to the public, that must be carried on as monopolies. public opinion demands that such corporations, conducting their operations as special privileges granted by the people, shall be amenable to the public so far as conduct and income are concerned. they must be public service companies and not public exploitation companies. the great productive industries are supposed to conduct their business on a competitive basis, which will determine price and income. as a matter of fact, this is done only in a general way, and the incomes are frequently out of proportion to the power of the consuming public to purchase. great industries have the power to determine the income which they think they ought to have, and, not receiving it, may cease to carry on their industry and may invest their capital in non-taxable securities. while under our present system there is no way of preventing this, it would be a great boon to the public, and a new factor in progress, if they were willing to be content with a smaller margin of profit and a slower accumulation of wealth. at least some change must take place or the people of small incomes will be obliged to give up many {498} of the comforts of life of which our boasted civilization is proud, and gradually be reduced to the most sparing economy, if not to poverty. the same principle might be applied to the great institutions of trade. _the political outlook_.--in our earlier history the struggle for liberty of action was the vital phase of our democracy. to-day the struggle is to make our ideal democracy practical. in theory ours is a self-governed people; in practice this is not wholly true. we have the power and the opportunity for self-government, but we are not practising it as we might. there is a real danger that the people will fail to assume the responsibility of self-government, until the affairs of government are handed over to an official class of exploiters. for instance, the free ballot is the vital factor in our government, but there are many evidences that it is not fully exercised for the political welfare of the country. it frequently occurs that men are sent to congress on a small percentage of voters. other elective offices meet the same fate. certainly, more interest must be taken in selecting the right kind of men to rule over them or the people will barter away their liberties by indifference. officials should be brought to realize that they are to serve the public and it is largely a missionary job they are seeking rather than an opportunity to exploit the office for personal gain. the expansive process of political society makes a larger number of officers necessary. the people are demanding the right to do more things by themselves, which leads to increased expenses in the cost of administration, great bonded indebtedness, and higher taxation. it will be necessary to curb expansion and reduce overhead charges upon the government. this may call for the reorganization of the machinery of government on the basis of efficiency. at least it must be shown to the people that they have a full return for the money paid by taxation. it is possible only by study, care, civic responsibility, and interest in government affairs, as well as by increased intelligence, that our democratic idealism may be put {499} into practice. laboratory methods in self-government are a prime necessity. _the equalization of opportunity_.--popular education is the greatest democratic factor in existence. it is the one great institution which recognizes that equal opportunities should be granted to everybody. yet it has its limits in establishing equal opportunities in the accepted meaning of the term. there is a false idea of equality which asserts that one man is as good as another before he has proved himself to be so. true equality means justice to all. it does not guarantee that equality of power, of intellect, of wealth, and social standing shall obtain. it seeks to harmonize individual development with social development, and to insure the individual the right to achieve according to his capacity and industry. "the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is a household word, but the right to _pursue_ does not insure success. the excessive altruism of the times has led to the protecting care of all classes. in its extreme processes it has made the weak more helpless. what is needed is the cultivation of individual responsibility. society is so great, so well organized, and does so much that there is a tendency of the individual to shift his responsibility to it. society is composed of individuals, and its quality will be determined by the character and quality of the individual working especially for himself and generally for the good of all. a little more of the law of the survival of the fittest would temper our altruism to more effective service. the world is full of voluntary altruistic and social betterment societies, making drives for funds. they should re-examine their motives and processes and carefully estimate what they are really accomplishing. is the institution they are supporting merely serving itself, or has it a working power and a margin of profit in actual service? _the influence of scientific thought on progress_.--the effect of scientific discovery on material welfare has been referred to elsewhere. it remains to determine how scientific thought changes the attitude of the mind toward life. the laboratory {500} method continually tests everything, and what he finds to be true the scientist believes. he gradually ignores tradition and adheres to those things that are shown to be true by experimentation or recorded observation. it is true that he uses hypotheses and works the imagination. but his whole tendency is to depart from the realm of instinct and emotions and lay a foundation for reflective thinking. the scientific attitude of mind influences all philosophy and all religion. "let us examine the facts in the case" is the attitude of scientific thought. the study of anthropology and sociology has, on the one hand, discovered the natural history of man and, on the other, shown his normal social relations. both of these studies have co-operated with biology to show that man has come out of the past through a process of evolution; that all that he is individually and socially has been attained through long ages of development. even science, philosophy, and religion, as well as all forms of society, have had a slow, painful evolution. this fact causes people to re-examine their traditional belief to see how far it corresponds to new knowledge. it has helped men to realize on their philosophy of life and to test it out in the light of new truth and experience. this has led the church to a broader conception of the truth and to a more direct devotion to service. it is becoming an agency for visualizing truth rather than an institution of dogmatic belief. the religious traditionalists yield slowly to the new religious liberalism. but the influence of scientific thought has caused the church to realize on the investment which it has been preaching these many centuries. _the relation of material comfort to spiritual progress_.--the material comforts which have been multiplying in recent centuries do not insure the highest spiritual activity. the nations that have achieved have been forced into activity by distressing conditions. in following the history of any nation along any line of achievement, it will be noticed that in its darkest, most uncomfortable days, when progress seemed least {501} in evidence, forces were in action which prepared for great advancement. it has been so in literature, in science, in liberty, in social order; it is so in the sum-total of the world's achievements. granting that the increase of material comforts, in fact, of wealth, is a great achievement of the age, the whole story is not told until the use of the wealth is determined. if it leads to luxurious living, immorality, injustice, and loss of sense of duty, as in some of the ancient nations, it will prove the downfall of western civilization. if the leisure and strength it offers are utilized in raising the standard of living, of establishing higher ideals, and creating a will to approximate them, then they will prove a blessing and an impulse to progress. likewise, the freedom of the mind and freedom in governmental action furnish great opportunities for progress, but the final result will be determined by use of such opportunities in the creation of a higher type of mind characterized by a well-balanced social attitude. _the balance of social forces_.--there are two sources of the origin of social life, one arising out of the attitude of the individual toward society, and the other arising out of the attitude of society toward the individual. these two attitudes seem, at first view, paradoxical in many instances, for both individual and society must survive. but in the long run they are not antagonistic, for the good of one must be the good of the other. the perfect balancing of the two forces would make a perfect society. the modern social problem is to determine how much choice shall be left to individual initiative and how much shall be undertaken by the group. in recent years the people have been doing more and more for themselves through group action. the result has been a multiplication of laws, many of them useless; the creation of a vast administrative force increasing overhead charges, community control or operation of industries, and the vast amount of public, especially municipal, improvements. all of these have been of advantage to the people in common, but have {502} greatly increased taxation until it is felt to be a burden. were it not for the great war debts that hang heavily on the world, probably the increased taxation for legitimate expenses would not have been seriously felt. but it seems certain that a halt in excessive public expenditures will be called until a social stock-taking ensues. at any rate, people will demand that useless expenditures shall cease and that an ample return for the increased taxation shall be shown in a margin of profit for social betterment. a balance between social enterprise and individual effort must be secured. _restlessness versus happiness_.--happiness is an active principle arising from the satisfaction of individual desires. it does not consist in the possession of an abundance of material things. it may consist in the harmony of desires with the means of satisfying them. perhaps the "right to achieve" and the successful process of achievement are the essential factors in true happiness. realizing how wealth will furnish opportunities for achievement, and how it will furnish the luxuries of life as well as furnish an outlet for restless activity, great energy is spent in acquiring it. indeed, the attitude of mind has been centred so strongly on the possession of the dollar that this seems to be the end of pursuit rather than a means to higher states of life. it is this wrong attitude of life that brings about so much restlessness and so little real happiness. only the utilization of material wealth to develop a higher spiritual life of man and society will insure continuous progress. the vast accumulations of material wealth in the united states and the wonderful provisions for material comfort are apt to obscure the vision of real progress. great as are the possible blessings of material progress, it is possible that eventually they may prove a menace. other great civilizations have fallen because they stressed the importance of the material life and lost sight of the great adventure of the spirit. will the spiritual wealth rise superior, strong, and dominant to overcome the downward drag of material prosperity and {503} thus be able to support the burdens of material civilization that must be borne? _summary of progress_.--if one were to review the previous pages from the beginnings of human society to the present time, he would observe that mind is the ruling force of all human endeavor. its freedom of action, its inventive power, and its will to achieve underlie every material and social product of civilization. its evolution through action and reaction, from primitive instincts and emotions to the dominance of rational planning and reflective thinking, marks the trail of man's ascendancy over nature and the establishing of ideals of social order. has man individual traits, physical and mental, sufficiently strong to stand the strain of a highly complex social order? it will depend upon the strength of his moral character, mental traits, and physical resistance, and whether justice among men shall prevail, manifested in humane and sound social action. future progress will depend upon a clearness of vision, a unity of thought, the standardization of the objectives of social achievement, and, moreover, an elevation of human conduct. truly, "without vision the people perish." subjects for further study 1. what measures are being taken to conserve the natural resources? 2. what plan would you suggest for settling the labor problem so as to avoid strikes? 3. how shall we determine what people shall do in group activity and what shall be left to private initiative? 4. how may our ideals of democracy be put to effective practice? 5. to what extent does future progress of the race depend upon science? 6. is there any limit to the amount of money that may be wisely expended for education? 7. public measures for the promotion of health. 8. what is meant by the statement that "without vision the people perish"? 9. equalization of opportunity. {504} bibliography abbott, frank frost: history and description of roman political institutions. adams, george burton: civilization during the middle ages. amicis, edmondo de: spain and the spaniards. aristotle's politics: translation by 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(translated by paul b. thomas.) deniker, j.: the races of men. dewey, john: human nature and conduct. draper, john w.: history of the intellectual development of europe. duncan, robert k.: the chemistry of commerce. the new knowledge. duruy, victor: history of france. history of the middle ages. history of rome. edman, erwin: human traits. elliot, g. f. scott: prehistoric man and his story. ely, richard t.: evolution of industrial society. emerton, ephraim: introduction to the middle ages. mediaeval europe. fisher, george p.: history of the christian church. fowler, ward: the city state of the greeks and romans. gardiner, samuel r.: the puritan revolution. gibbon, edward: decline and fall of the roman empire. goldenweiser, alexander a.: early civilization. gordon, childe: the dawn of european civilization. green, john richard: a short history of the english people. green, william chase: the achievement of greece. guizot, f.: history of civilization. hadley, james: introduction to roman law. hayes, carlton j. h.: a brief history of the great war. a political and social history of modern europe. henderson, ernest f.: history of germany in the middle ages. hobson, j. a.: the problems of the new world. hodgkin, thomas: italy and her invaders. holm, adolph: history of greece. hudson, j. w.: the college and new america. {506} ihne, w. h.: early rome. inge, w. r.: the idea of progress. irving, washington: the conquest of granada. james, e. o.: an introduction to anthropology. kelsey, carl: the physical basis of society. keynes, j. m.: the economic consequences of the peace. king, l. w.: a history of babylon. a history of sumer and akkad. kirkup, thomas: the history of socialism. kitchen, g. w.: history of france. kroeber, a. l.: anthropology. lawrence, i. j.: the society of nations. libby, walter: an introduction to the history of science. lipton, walter: drift and mastery. liberty and the news. lowell, a. lawrence: public opinion and popular government. lowie, robert h.: culture and ethnology. primitive society. mahaffy, j. p.: the story of alexander's empire. mason, otis tufton: the origins of inventions. mason, wm. a.: the history of the art of writing. may, thos. e.: democracy in europe. mccarthy, justin: the epoch of reform. mcgiffert, arthur c.: the rise of modern religious ideas. meyers, j. l.: the dawn of history. mills, john: within the atom. monroe, dana carlton: the middle ages. monroe, paul: history of education. morris, charles: civilization: an historical review of its elements. morris, william o'connor: the french revolution and the first empire. murray, gilbert: ancient greece. o'leary, de lacy: arabic thought and its place in history. osborn, henry fairfield: men of the old stone age. peet, stephen: the cliff dwellers. plato's republic: translation by jowett. powell, i. w.: the pueblo indians. preston and dodge: the private life of the romans. ragozin, z. a.: the story of chaldea. rawlinson, george: ancient monarchies. the story of egypt. {507} robinson, james harvey: the mind in the making. sayre, francis b.: experiments in international administration. scott, j. b. (editor): president wilson's foreign policy: messages, addresses, and papers. sedgwick, w. j., and tyler, h. w.: a short history of science. seebohm, frederick: the era of the protestant revolt. semple, ellen c.: influences of geographic environment. sloane, w. m.: the powers and aims of western democracy. slosson, edwin e.: creative chemistry. smith, j. russell: the world and its food resources. smith, walter r.: educational sociology. spinden, h. j.: ancient civilization of mexico. stubbs, william: the early plantagenets. symonds, john addington: the renaissance in italy. taylor, edward b.: researches into the early history of mankind. the development of civilization. thwing, charles f. and carrie f.: the family. todd, arthur james: theories of social progress. turner, f. j.: the rise of the new west. tyler, john m.: the new stone age of northern europe. van hook, la rue: greek life and thought. walker, francis a.: the making of a nation. wallas, graham: great society. principles of western civilization. weber, alfred, and r. b. perry: history of philosophy. weigall, arthur: the story of the pharaohs. white, andrew d.: the french revolution and the first empire. whitney, wm. dwight: the life and growth of language. wilder, h. h.: man's prehistoric past. wissler, clark: the american indian. man and culture. {508} index abelard, 354. aegean culture, 207. ages of culture, stone, bronze, 36. agriculture, beginning of, 93; modern, 440. akkadians, religion of, 155, 156. alexander, conquests of, 246. allia, battle of the, 387. altruism and democracy, 449-462. america, peopling of, 185. american indians, culture of, 200; contributions to civilization, 201. anaxagoras, 218. anaximander, 217. anaximenes, 217. ancient society, morgan, 4, 49, animals, domestication of, 92. anselm, 354. antiquity of man shown by race development, 69. arabian empire, 305; science and art, 307. arab-moors in spain, 305; cultures, 308-315; science and art, 307-310; discoveries, 312; language and literature, 313; architecture, 315; achievement, 316; decline, 317. arab-moors, religious zeal of, 308. aristotle, 223. arkwright, richard, spinning by rollers, 436. art, development of, 37; as a language of aesthetic ideas, 130; representative, 131; and architecture, 368. aryans, coming of the, 167. athens, government of, 233; character of democracy, 240; decline of, 241. aztecs, culture of, 190. babylon, 146. bacon, francis, 355, 460. bacon, roger, 459. barbarians, 281. beautiful, the love of, develops slowly, 135-136; a permanent social force, 137. bill of rights, 397, 413. boccaccio, 366. books, 128. bow and arrow, 87. brahe, ticho, 463. bryce, james, 380. bunyan, john, 398. burial mounds, 76. cabrillo, 116. calvin, john, and the genevan system, 386. canuleius, 255. cassius, spurius, agrarian laws, 254. catholic church, the, 384. catlin, north american indians, 134. caves, 71. chaldea, early civilization of, 153-156. charlemagne, 349. chemistry, 308. china, 166. christian influence on roman legislation, 273. christian religion, social contacts of, 268. christianity and the social life, 271; service of, 279; opposes pagan literature, 357; competition with graeco-roman schools, 357. christians come into conflict with civil authority, 273. church, the wealth of, 275; development of hierarchy, 270; control of temporal power, 277; service of, 278; retrogressive attitude, 350; in france, 402; widening influences of, 446; organizing centre, 453. cities, rise of free, 330-332; modern, 440. civilization, material evidences of, 4; fundamentals of, 10-14; possibilities of, 15; can be estimated, 16; modern, 456. cleisthenes, reforms of, 237. cliff dwellers, 194. clothing, manufacture of, 97. cnossos, 207. colonization, greek, 246; phoenician, 161. commerce and communication, 486. commerce, hastens progress, 362. common schools, 477. constitutional liberty in england, 393. copernicus, 461. crete, island of, 207. crã´-magnon, earliest ancestral type, 28; cultures of, 72. crompton, samuel, spinning "mule," 436. crusades, causes of, 319, 320, 321; results of, 322-323; effect on monarchy, 324; intellectual development, 325; impulse to commerce, 326; social effect, 327. cultures, evidence of primitive, 28; mental development and, 32; early european, 32. curie, madame, 469. custom, 112, 288, 295. dance, the, as dramatic expression, 133; economic, religious, and social functions of, 134. darius i, founded persian empire, 168. darwin, charles, 467. democracy, 342, 392, 449. democracy in america, 418; characteristics of, 419-421; modern political reforms of, 421-425. descartes, renã©, 461. diogenes, 218. discovery and invention, 362. duruy, victor, 363. economic life, 170-180, 290, 429. economic outlook, 495. education and democracy, 477-482. education, universal, 475, 478; in the united states, 476. educational progress, 482. egypt, 145, 146; centre of civilization, 157-160; compared with babylon, 162; pyramids, 160; religion, 172; economic life, 178; science, 182. england, beginnings of constitutional liberty in, 345. environment, physical, determines the character of civilization, 141; quality of soil, 144; climate and progress, 146; social order, 149. equalization of opportunities, 499. euphrates valley, seat of early civilization, 152. evidences of man's antiquity, 69; localities of, 71-78; knowledge of, develops reflective thinking, 77. evolution, 467-469. family, the early, 109-112; greek and roman, 212-213; german, 286. feudalism, nature of, 294-299; sources of, 294, based on land tenure, 296; social classification under, 298; conditions of society under, 300; individual development under, 302; influence on world progress, 303. fire and its economy, 88. florence, 336. food supply, determines progress, 83-85; increased by discovery and invention, 86. france, free cities of, 330; rise of popular assemblies, 338; rural communes, 338; place in modern civilization, 399; philosophers of, 403; return to monarchy, 417; character of constitutional monarchy, 418. france, in modern civilization, 399; philosophers of, 403. franklin, benjamin, 465. freedom of the press, 484. freeman, e. a., 233. french republic, triumph of, 417. french revolution, 405-407; results of, 407. galileo, 461. gabon, francis, 469. geography, 312. germans, social life of, 283; classes of society, 285; home life, 286; political organization, 287; social customs, 288; contribution to law, 291; judicial system, 292. gilbert, william, 461. glacial epoch, 62. greece, 148, 205, 210. greece and rome compared, 250. greek equality and liberty, 229. greek federation, 245. greek government, an expanded family, 229; diversity of, 231; admits free discussion, 231; local self-government, 232; independent community life, 231; group selfishness, 232; city state, 239. greek influence on rome, 261. greek life, early, 205; influence of, 213. greek philosophy, observation and inquiry, 215; ionian philosophy, 216; weakness of, 219; eleatic philosophy, 220; sophists, 221; epicureans, 224; influence of, 225. greek social life, 241, 243. greeks, origin of, 209; early social life of, 208; character of primitive, 209; family life of, 212; religion of, 212. guizot, 399. hargreaves, james, invents the spinning jenny, 436. harvey, william, 461. hebrew influence, 164. henry viii and the papacy, 387; defender of the faith, 396. heraclitus, 218. hierarchy, development of, 276. history, 312. holy roman empire, 414. human chronology, 59. humanism, 349, 364, 366; relation of language and literature to, 367; effect on social manners, 371; relation to science and philosophy, 372; advances the study of the classics, 373; general influence on life, 373. huss, john, 378, 379. huxley, thomas h., 471. ice ages, the, 62, 64. incas, culture of, 187. india, 148, 166. individual culture and social order, 150. industrial development, 429-433, 439; revolution, 437. industries, radiate from land as a centre, 429; early mediaeval, 430; public, 497; corporate, 497. industry and civilization, 441. international law, reorganization of, 492. invention, 86, 362, 436. iroquois, social organization of, 198. italian art and architecture, 368. italian cities, 332; popular government of, 333. jesuits, the, 385. justinian code, 260. kepler, 463. knowledge, diffusion of, 480. koch, 470. koran, the, 304, 310. labor, social economics of, 496. lake dwellings, 78. lamarck, j. p., 467. land, use of, determines social life, 145. language, origin of, 121; a social function, 123; development of, 126-129; an instrument of culture, 129. latin language and literature, 261. league for permanent peace, 489-492 licinian laws, 256. lister, 469, 470. locke, john, 398. lombard league, 337. louis xiv, the divine right of kings, 400. luther, martin, and the german reformation, 382-385. lycurgus, reforms of, 244. lysander, 241. magdalenian cultures, 72. man, origin of, 57; primitive home of, 66, antiquity of, 73-70; and nature, 141; not a slave to environment, 149. manorial system, 430. manuscripts, discovery of, 364. marxian socialism in russia, 427. maya race, 192. medicine, 308. medontidae, 234. men of genius, 33. mesopotamia, 154. metals, discovery and use of, 100. metaphysics, 310. mexico, 146. michael angelo, 370. milton, john, 398. minoan civilization, 207. monarchy, a stage of progress in europe, 344. monarchy versus democracy, 392. mongolian race, 167. montesquieu, 404. morgan, lewis h., beginning of civilization, 4; classification of social development, 49. morton, william, t. g., 470. mound builders, 197. music, as language, 131; as a socializing factor, 133, 137. mutual aid, 120; of nations, 491. napier, john, 463. napoleon bonaparte, 417. nationality and race, 444. nature, aspects of, determine types of social life, 147. neanderthal man, 29, 65. newton, sir isaac, 463. nile, valley, seat of early civilization, 152. nobility, the french, 400. occam, william of, 379. oriental civilization, character of, 170; war for conquest and plunder, 171; religious belief, 171-174; social condition, 175; social organization, 176-178; economic life, 178-180; writing, 181; science, 182; contribution to world progress, 184. parliament, rebukes king james i, 396; declaration of, 397. pasteur, louis, 469, 470. peloponnesian war, 241. people, the condition of, in france, 401. pericles, age of, 247. petrarch, 365, 366. philosophy, ionian, 216; eleatic, 220; sophist, 221; stoic, 225; sceptic, 225; influence of greek on civilization, 226, 228. phoenicians, the, become great navigators, 161; colonization by, 161. physical needs, efforts to satisfy, 82-85. picture writing, 126. pithecanthropus erectus, 29. plato, 222. political ideas, spread of, 486-488. political liberty in xviii century. [transcriber's note: no page number in source] polygenesis, monogenesis, 66. popular government, expense of, 328, 414. power manufacture, 437. pre-historic human types, 63, 65, 66. pre-historic man, types of, 28, pre-historic time, 60-61. primitive man, social life of, 31, 32; brain capacity of, 29. progress and individual development, 23; and race development, 22; influence of heredity on, 24; influence of environment on, 25; race interactions and, 26; early cultural evidence of, 32; mutations in, 33; data of, 34; increased by the implements used, 35; revival of, throughout europe, 348; and revival of learning, 372-373. progress, evidence of, 456. public opinion, 485. pueblo indians, culture of, 194; social life, 195; secret societies, 196. pythagoras, 219. race and language, 124. races, cause of decline, 201, 202. racial characters, 70. recounting human progress, methods of 37-52; economic development, 39-40. reform measures in england, 415. reformation, the, character of, 375; events leading to, 376-380; causes of, 380-382; far-reaching results of, 388-391. religion and social order, 113-116. religious toleration, growth of, 447. renaissance, the, 349, 370. republicanism, spread of, 425. research, foundations of, 472; educational process of, 479. revival of learning, 364. river and glacial drift, 74. roebuck, john, the blast furnace, 436. roman civil organization, 258. roman empire, and its decline, 264. roman government, 258; law, 259; imperialism, 267. roman social life, 264. rome a dominant city, 257; development of government, 258. rome, political organization, 252; struggle for liberty, 243; social conditions, 255; invasion of the gauls, 255; agrarian laws, 254, 256; plebeians and patricians, 256; optimates, 256; influence on world civilization, 266. rousseau, 404. savonarola, 380. scholastic philosophy, 353. schools, cathedral and monastic, 356; graeco-roman, 357. science, in egypt, 182; in spain, 306; nature of, 307, 458; and democracy, 464, 465. scientific classification, 460; men, 465; progress, 470; investigation, trend of, 473. scientific methods, 459. scientific research, 463. semites, 160. shakespeare, 398. shell mounds, 73. shelters, primitive, 99. social conditions at the beginning of the christian era, 269. social contacts of the christian religion, 268. social development, 13, 23, 49, 104, 114, 347, 443. social evolution, depends on variation, 347; character of, 443. social forces, balance of, 501. social groups, interrelation of, 454. social life, 31, 133, 145, 147, 171, 178-180, 208, 241, 243, 247, 255, 258, 283, 285, 289, 298, 300, 327, 371. social life of primitive man, 31, 32; development of social order, 41-45; intellectual character of, 47; religious and moral condition of, 46, 47; character of, 108; moral status of, 117. social opportunities, 455. social order, 8, 41, 122, 149, 150, 176-178, 193, 196, 444, 445. social organization, 145, 176-178, 210, 250-252, 432, 433, 444. social unrest, 502. society, 5, 175, 205, 255, 256, 268-273, 285, 301, 316, 443, 445, 446, 450, 451, 452. society, complexity of modern, 452. socrates, 221. solon, constitution of, 235. spain, attempts at popular government in, 341. sparta, domination of, 241; character of spartan state, 242. spencer, herbert, 471. spiritual progress and material comfort, 500. state education, 482. states-general, 341. struggle for existence develops the individual and the race, 106. summary of progress, 503. switzerland, democracy in cantons, 342. symonds, j. a., 366. teutonic liberty, 281; influence of, 282, 291, 292; laws, 291. theodosian code, 260. toltecs, 192. towns, in the middle ages, 329. trade,434. trade and its social influence, 104. transportation, 102. tylor, e. b., primitive culture, 114. tyndall, john, 471. unity of the human race, 66. universities, mediaeval, 475; english, 476; german, 476; american, 476; endowed, 484. universities, rise of, 360; nature of, 361; failure in scientific methods, 361. venice, 335. village community, 44. village sites, 77. voltaire, 404. waldenses, 378. warfare and social progress, 119. watt, james, power manufacture, 436. weissman, a., 467. western civilisation, important factors in its foundation, 268. whitney, ely, the cotton gin, 436. wissler, clark, culture areas, 26; trade, 104. world state, 493. world war, breaks the barriers of thought, 488. world war, iconoclastic effects of, 427. writing, 181. wyclif, john, and the english reformation, 378, 386. zeno, 220. zenophanes, 220. zwingli and the reformation in switzerland, 385. transcriber's notes: in the table of contents, the "part iii" division precedes chapter vii, but in the body of the book it precedes chapter viii. page numbers in this book are enclosed in curly braces. for its index, a page number has been placed only at the start of that section. in the html version of this book, page numbers are placed in the left margin. footnote numbers are enclosed in square brackets. each chapter's footnotes have been renumbered sequentially and moved to the end of that chapter.