History of Human Society

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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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.