History of Human Society
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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 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 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.
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 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 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 STUDY1. 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?
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 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 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 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 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 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 faith of a Christian," which was substituted for the sacrament test.