[03] Between the development of society and the
development of species there is a close analogy. In the
lowest forms of animal life there is little difference of
parts; both wants and powers are few and simple; movement
seems automatic; and instincts are scarcely
distinguishable from those of the vegetable. So
homogeneous are some of these living things, that if cut
in pieces, each piece still lives. But as life rises into
higher manifestations, simplicity gives way to
complexity, the parts develop into organs having separate
functions and reciprocal relations, new wants and powers
arise, and a greater and greater degree of intelligence
is needed to secure food and avoid danger. Did fish, bird
or beast possess no higher intelligence than the polyp,
nature could bring them forth only to die.
[04] This law — that the increasing complexity
and delicacy of organization which give higher capacity
and increased power are accompanied by increased wants
and dangers, and require, therefore, increased
intelligence — runs through nature. In the
ascending scale of life at last comes man, the most
highly and delicately organized of animals. Yet not only
do his higher powers require for their use a higher
intelligence than exists in other animals, but without
higher intelligence he could not live. His skin is too
thin; his nails too brittle; he is too poorly adapted for
running, climbing, swimming or burrowing. Were he not
gifted with intelligence greater than that of any beast,
he would perish from cold, starve from inability to get
food, or be exterminated by animals better equipped for
the struggle in which brute instinct suffices.
[05] In man, however, the intelligence which increases
all through nature's rising scale passes at one bound
into an intelligence so superior, that the difference
seems of kind rather than degree. In him, that narrow and
seemingly unconscious intelligence that we call instinct
becomes conscious reason, and the godlike power of
adaptation and invention makes feeble man nature's
king.
[06] But with man the ascending line stops. Animal
life assumes no higher form; nor can we affirm that, in
all his generations, man, as an animal, has a whit
improved. But progression in another line begins. Where
the development of species ends, social development
commences, and that advance of society that we call
civilization so increases human powers, that between
savage and civilized man there is a gulf so vast as to
suggest the gulf between the highly organized animal and
the oyster glued to the rocks. And with every advance
upon this line new vistas open. When we try to think what
knowledge and power progressive civilization may give to
the men of the future, imagination fails.
[14] And that the rapid changes now going on are
bringing up problems that demand most earnest attention
may be seen on every hand. Symptoms of danger,
premonitions of violence, are appearing all over the
civilized world. Creeds are dying, beliefs are changing;
the old forces of conservatism are melting away.
Political institutions are failing, as clearly in
democratic America as in monarchical Europe. There is
growing unrest and bitterness among the masses, whatever
be the form of government, a blind groping for escape
from conditions becoming intolerable. To attribute all
this to the teachings of demagogues is like attributing
the fever to the quickened pulse. It is the new wine
beginning to ferment in old bottles. To put into a
sailing-ship the powerful engines of a first-class ocean
steamer would be to tear her to pieces with their play.
So the new powers rapidly changing all the relations of
society must shatter social and political organizations
not adapted to meet their strain.
[16] These dangers, which menace not one country
alone, but modern civilization itself, do but show that a
higher civilization is struggling to be born — that
the needs and the aspirations of men have outgrown
conditions and institutions that before sufficed.
[17] A civilization which tends to concentrate wealth
and power in the hands of a fortunate few, and to make of
others mere human machines, must inevitably evolve
anarchy and bring destruction. But a civilization is
possible in which the poorest could have all the comforts
and conveniences now enjoyed by the rich; in which
prisons and almshouses would be needless, and charitable
societies unthought of. Such a civilization waits only
for the social intelligence that will adapt means to
ends. Powers that might give plenty to all are already in
our hands. Though there is poverty and want, there is,
yet, seeming embarrassment from the very excess of
wealth-producing forces. "Give us but a market," say
manufacturers, "and we will supply goods without end!"
"Give us but work!" cry idle men.
[18] The evils that begin to appear spring from the
fact that the application of intelligence to social
affairs has not kept pace with the application of
intelligence to individual needs and material ends.
Natural science strides forward, but political science
lags. With all our progress in the arts which produce
wealth, we have made no progress in securing its
equitable distribution. Knowledge has vastly increased;
industry and commerce have been revolutionized; but
whether free trade or protection is best for a nation we
are not yet agreed. We have brought machinery to a pitch
of perfection that, fifty years ago, could not have been
imagined; but, in the presence of political corruption,
we seem as helpless as idiots. The East River bridge is a
crowning triumph of mechanical skill; but to get it built
a leading citizen of Brooklyn had to carry to New York
sixty thousand dollars in a carpet bag to bribe New York
aldermen. The human soul that thought out the great
bridge is prisoned in a crazed and broken body that lies
bedfast, and could watch it grow only by peering through
a telescope. Nevertheless, the weight of the immense mass
is estimated and adjusted for every inch. But the skill
of the engineer could not prevent condemned wire being
smuggled into the cable.
[19] The progress of civilization requires that more
and more intelligence be devoted to social affairs, and
this not the intelligence of the few, but that of the
many. We cannot safely leave politics to politicians, or
political economy to college professors. The people
themselves must think, because the people alone can
act.
[20] In a "journal of civilization" a professed
teacher declares the saving word for society to be that
each shall mind his own business. This is the gospel of
selfishness, soothing as soft flutes to those who, having
fared well themselves, think everybody should be
satisfied. But the salvation of society, the hope for the
free, full development of humanity, is in the gospel of
brotherhood — the gospel of Christ. Social progress
makes the well-being of all more and more the business of
each; it binds all closer and closer together in bonds
from which none can escape. He who observes the law and
the proprieties, and cares for his family, yet takes no
interest in the general weal, and gives no thought to
those who are trodden under foot, save now and then to
bestow aims, is not a true Christian. Nor is he a good
citizen. The duty of the citizen is more and harder than
this.
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