Introduction to the Science of Sociology Part 139

It is incredible that Strachey's _Life of Queen Victoria_ could have been written forty years ago. It is incredible that the ma.s.s of men should have been able to see the Victorian Age, as it is here presented, while they were living it.

The materials in this chapter fall under three heads: (a) the concept of progress, (b) progress and science, (c) progress and human nature.

a) _The concept of progress._--The first difficulty in the study of progress is one of definition. What are the signs and symptoms, the criteria of progress? Until we have framed some sort of a definition we cannot know. Herbert Spencer identified progress with evolution. The law of organic progress is the law of all progress. Intelligence, if we understand by that the mere acc.u.mulations of knowledge, does not represent progress. Rather it consists in "those internal modifications of which this larger knowledge is an expression." In so far, Spencer's conception is that of the eugenists. Real progress is in the breed--in the germ plasm. For men like Galton, Karl Pearson, and Madison Grant,[330] what we call civilization is merely the efflorescence of race. Civilizations may pa.s.s away, but if the racial stock is preserved, civilization will reproduce itself. In recent years, a school of political philosophy has sprung up in Europe and in the United States, which is seeking to define our social policy toward the "inner enemies,"

the dependents, the defectives, and the delinquents, and a foreign policy toward immigrant races and foreign peoples, on the general conception that the chief aim of society and the state is to preserve the germ plasm of the Nordic race.[331] For Spencer, however, the conception that all values were in the organism was modified by the conviction that all life was involved in an irreversible process called evolution which would eventually purge the race and society of the weak, the wicked, and the unfit.

In contrast, both with the views of Spencer and of the eugenists, Hobhouse, voicing a conviction that was first expressed by Huxley,[332]

believes that man is bound to intervene in the beneficent law of natural selection. He insists, in fact, that social development is something quite distinct and relatively independent of the organic changes in the individual. It is, in other words, a sociological rather than a biological product. It is an effect of the interaction of individuals and is best represented by organized society and by the social tradition in which that organization is handed on from earlier to later generations.

b) _Progress and science._--In contrast with other conceptions of progress is that of Dewey, who emphasizes science and social control, or, as he puts it, the "problem of discovering the needs and capacities of collective human nature as we find it aggregated in racial or national groups on the surface of the globe." The distinction between Hobhouse and Dewey is less in substance than in point of view. Hobhouse, looking backward, is interested in progress itself rather than in its methods and processes. Dewey, on the other hand, looking forward, is interested in a present program and in the application of scientific method to the problems of social welfare and world-organization.

Arthur James Balfour, the most intellectual of the elder statesmen of England, looking at progress through the experience of a politician, speaks in a less prophetic and authoritative tone, but with a wisdom born of long experience with men. For him, as for many other thoughtful minds, the future of the race is "encompa.s.sed with darkness," and the wise man is he who is content to act in "a sober and a cautious spirit,"

seeking to deal with problems as they arise.

c) _Progress and human nature._--Progress, which is much a matter of interpretation, is also very largely a matter of temperament. The purpose of the material upon human nature and progress is to call attention to this fact. Progress is with most people an article of faith, and men's faiths, as to their content, at least, are matters of temperament. The conservative who perhaps takes a mild interest in progress is usually "a sober and cautious" person, fairly content with the present and not very sure about the future. The radical, on the other hand, is usually a naturally hopeful and enthusiastic individual, profoundly pessimistic about the present, but with a boundless confidence in even the most impossible future.

Philosophy, like literature, is, in the final a.n.a.lysis, the expression of a temperament, more or less modified by experience. The selections from Schopenhauer and Bergson may be regarded, therefore, as the characteristic reactions of two strikingly different temperaments to the conception of progress and to life. The descriptions which they give of the cosmic process are, considered formally, not unlike. Their interpretations and the practical bearings of these interpretations are profoundly different.

It is not necessary for the students of sociology to discuss the merits of these different doctrines. We may accept them as human doc.u.ments.

They throw light, at any rate, upon the idea of progress, and upon all the other fundamental ideas in which men have sought to formulate their common hopes and guide their common life.

II. MATERIALS

A. THE CONCEPT OF PROGRESS

1. The Earliest Conception of Progress[333]

The word "progress," like the word "humanity," is one of the most significant. It is a Latin word, not used in its current abstract sense until after the Roman incorporation of the Mediterranean world. The first writer who expounds the notion with sufficient breadth of view and sufficiently accurate and concrete observation to provide a preliminary sketch was the great Roman poet, Lucretius.

He begins by describing a struggle for existence in which the less well-adapted creatures died off, those who wanted either the power to protect themselves or the means of adapting themselves to the purposes of man. In this stage, however, man was a hardier creature than he afterward became. He lived like the beasts of the field and was ignorant of tillage or fire or clothes or houses. He had no laws or government or marriage and, though he did not fear the dark, he feared the real danger of fiercer beasts. Men often died a miserable death, but not in mult.i.tudes on a single day as they do now by battle or shipwreck.

The next stage sees huts and skins and fire which softened their bodies, and marriage and the ties of family which softened their tempers. And tribes began to make treaties of alliance with other tribes. Speech arose from the need which all creatures feel to exercise their natural powers, just as the calf will b.u.t.t before his horns protrude. Men began to apply different sounds to denote different things, just as brute beasts will do to express different pa.s.sions, as anyone must have noticed in the cases of dogs and horses and birds. No one man set out to invent speech.

Fire was first learned from lightning and the friction of trees, and cooking from the softening and ripening of things by the sun. Then men of genius invented improved methods of life, the building of cities and private property in lands and cattle. But gold gave power to the wealthy and destroyed the sense of contentment in simple happiness. It must always be so whenever men allow themselves to become the slaves of things which should be their dependents and instruments.

They began to believe in and worship G.o.ds, because they saw in dreams shapes of preterhuman strength and beauty and deemed them immortal; and as they noted the changes of the seasons and all the wonders of the heavens they placed their G.o.ds there and feared them when they spoke in the thunder.

Metals were discovered through the burning of the woods, which caused the ores to run. Copper and bra.s.s came first and were rated above gold and silver. And then the metals took the place of hands, nails, teeth, and clubs, which had been men's earliest arms and tools. Weaving followed the discovery of the use of iron. Sowing, planting, and grafting were learned from nature herself, and gradually the cultivation of the soil was carried farther and farther up the hills.

Men learned to sing from the birds, and to blow on pipes from the whistling of the zephyr through the reeds; and those simple tunes gave as much rustic jollity as our more elaborate tunes do now.

Then, in a summary pa.s.sage at the end, Lucretius enumerates all the chief discoveries which men have made in the age-long process--ships, agriculture, walled cities, laws, roads, clothes, songs, pictures, statues, and all the pleasures of life--and adds, "These things practice and the experience of the unresting mind have taught mankind gradually as they have progressed from point to point."

It is the first definition and use of the word in literature.

2. Progress and Organization[334]

The current conception of progress is shifting and indefinite. Sometimes it comprehends little more than simple growth--as of a nation in the number of its members and the extent of territory over which it spreads.

Sometimes it has reference to quant.i.ty of material products--as when the advance of agriculture and manufactures is the topic. Sometimes the superior quality of these products is contemplated; and sometimes the new or improved appliances by which they are produced. When, again, we speak of moral or intellectual progress, we refer to states of the individual or people exhibiting it; while, when the progress of science or art is commented upon, we have in view certain abstract results of human thought and action.

Not only, however, is the current conception of progress more or less vague, but it is in great measure erroneous. It takes in not so much the reality of progress as its accompaniments--not so much the substance as the shadow. That progress in intelligence seen during the growth of the child into the man, or the savage into the philosopher, is commonly regarded as consisting in the greater number of facts known and laws understood; whereas the actual progress consists in those internal modifications of which this larger knowledge is the expression. Social progress is supposed to consist in the making of a greater quant.i.ty and variety of the articles required for satisfying men's wants; in the increasing security of person and property; in widening freedom of action; whereas, rightly understood, social progress consists in those changes of structure in the social organism which have entailed these consequences. The current conception is a ideological one. The phenomena are contemplated solely as bearing on human happiness. Only those changes are held to const.i.tute progress which directly or indirectly tend to heighten human happiness; and they are thought to const.i.tute progress simply because they tend to heighten human happiness. But rightly to understand progress, we must learn the nature of these changes, considered apart from our interests. Ceasing, for example, to regard the successive geological modifications that have taken place in the earth as modifications that have gradually fitted it for the habitation of man, and as therefore const.i.tuting geological progress, we must ascertain the character common to these modifications--the law to which they all conform. And similarly in every other case. Leaving out of sight concomitants and beneficial consequences, let us ask what progress is in itself.

In respect to that progress which individual organisms display in the course of their evolution, this question has been answered by the Germans. The investigations of Wolff, Goethe, and von Baer have established the truth that the series of changes gone through during the development of a seed into a tree, or an ovum into an animal, const.i.tute an advance from h.o.m.ogeneity of structure to heterogeneity of structure.

In its primary stage, every germ consists of a substance that is uniform throughout, both in texture and chemical composition. The first step is the appearance of a difference between two parts of this substance; or, as the phenomenon is called in physiological language, a differentiation. Each of these differentiated divisions presently begins itself to exhibit some contrast of parts; and by and by these secondary differentiations become as definite as the original one. This process is continuously repeated--is simultaneously going on in all parts of the growing embryo; and by endless differentiations of this sort there is finally produced that complex combination of tissues and organs const.i.tuting the adult animal or plant. This is the history of all organisms whatever. It is settled beyond dispute that organic progress consists in a change from the h.o.m.ogeneous to the heterogeneous.

Now, we propose to show that this law of organic progress is the law of all progress. Whether it be in the development of the earth, in the development of life upon its surface, in the development of society, of government, of manufactures, of commerce, of language, literature, science, art--this same evolution of the simple into the complex, through successive differentiations, holds throughout. From the earliest traceable cosmic changes down to the latest results of civilization, we shall find that the transformation of the h.o.m.ogeneous into the heterogeneous is that in which progress essentially consists.

3. The Stages of Progress[335]

If we regard the course of human development from the highest scientific point of view, we shall perceive that it consists in educing more and more the characteristic faculties of humanity, in comparison with those of animality; and especially with those which man has in common with the whole organic kingdom. It is in this philosophical sense that the most eminent civilization must be p.r.o.nounced to be fully accordant with nature, since it is, in fact, only a more marked manifestation of the chief properties of our species, properties which, latent at first, can come into play only in that advanced state of social life for which they are exclusively destined. The whole system of biological philosophy indicates the natural progression. We have seen how, in the brute kingdom, the superiority of each race is determined by the degree of preponderance of the animal life over the organic. In like manner we see that our social evolution is only the final term of a progression which has continued from the simplest vegetables and most insignificant animals, up through the higher reptiles to the birds and the mammifers, and still on to the carnivorous animals and monkeys, the organic characteristics retiring and the animal prevailing more and more, till the intellectual and moral tend toward the ascendancy which can never be fully obtained, even in the highest state of human perfection that we can conceive of. This comparative estimate affords us the scientific view of human progression, connected, as we see it is, with the whole course of animal advancement, of which it is itself the highest degree.

The a.n.a.lysis of our social progress proves indeed that, while the radical dispositions of our nature are necessarily invariable, the highest of them are in a continuous state of relative development, by which they rise to be preponderant powers of human existence, though the inversion of the primitive economy can never be absolutely complete. We have seen that this is the essential character of the social organism in a statical view; but it becomes much more marked when we study its variations in their gradual succession.

4. Progress and the Historical Process[336]

The conclusion which these reflections suggest is that the uncritical application of biological principles to social progress results in an insuperable contradiction. The factors which determine the survival of physical organism, if applied as rules for the furtherance of social progress, appear to conflict with all that social progress means. A sense of this conflict is no doubt responsible for the further reconstruction which the biological view has in recent years undergone.

Biologists now begin to inquire seriously whether "natural" selection may not be replaced by a rational selection in which "fitness for survival" would at length achieve its legitimate meaning, and the development of the race might be guided by reasoned conceptions of social value. This is a fundamental change of att.i.tude, and the new doctrine of eugenics to which it has given rise requires careful examination. Before proceeding to this examination, however, it will be well to inquire into the causes of the contrast on which we have insisted between biological evolution and social progress. Faced by this contradiction, we ask ourselves whether social development may not be something quite distinct from the organic changes known to biology, and whether the life of society may not depend upon forces which never appear in the individual when he is examined merely as an individual or merely as a member of a race.

Take the latter point first. It is easily seen in the arguments of biologists that they conceive social progress as consisting essentially in an improvement of the stock to which individuals belong. This is a way of looking at the matter intelligible enough in itself. Society consists of so many thousand or so many million individuals, and if, comparing any given generation with its ancestors, we could establish an average improvement in physical, mental, or moral faculty, we should certainly have cause to rejoice. There is progress so far. But there is another point of view which we may take up. Society consists of individual persons and nothing but individual persons, just as the body consists of cells and the product of cells. But though the body may consist exclusively of cells, we should never understand its life by examining the lives of each of its cells as a separate unit. We must equally take into account that organic interconnection whereby the living processes of each separate cell co-operate together to maintain the health of the organism which contains them all. So, again, to understand the social order we have to take into account not only the individuals with their capabilities and achievements but the social organization in virtue of which these individuals act upon one another and jointly produce what we call social results; and whatever may be true of the physical organism, we can see that in society it is possible that individuals of the very same potentialities may, with good organization, produce good results, and, with bad organization, results which are greatly inferior.

The social phenomenon, in short, is not something which occurs in one individual, or even in several individuals taken severally. It is essentially an interaction of individuals, and as the capabilities of any given individual are extraordinarily various and are only called out, each by appropriate circ.u.mstances, it will be readily seen that the nature of the interaction may itself bring forth new and perhaps unexpected capacities, and elicit from the individuals contributing to it forces which, but for this particular opportunity, might possibly remain forever dormant. If this is so, sociology as a science is not the same thing as either biology or psychology. It deals neither with the physical capacities of individuals as such nor with their psychological capacities as such. It deals rather with results produced by the play of these forces upon one another, by the interaction of individuals under the conditions imposed by their physical environment. The nature of the forces and the point of these distinctions may be made clear by a very simple instance.

The interplay of human motives and the interaction of human beings is the fundamental fact of social life, and the permanent results which this interaction achieves and the influence which it exercises upon the individuals who take part in it const.i.tute the fundamental fact of social evolution. These results are embodied in what may be called, generically, tradition. So understood, tradition--its growth and establishment, its reaction upon the very individuals who contribute to building it up, and its modifications by subsequent interactions--const.i.tutes the main subject of sociological inquiry.

Tradition is, in the development of society, what heredity is in the physical growth of the stock. It is the link between past and future, it is that in which the effects of the past are consolidated and on the basis of which subsequent modifications are built up. We might push the a.n.a.logy a little further, for the ideas and customs which it maintains and furnishes to each new generation as guides for their behavior in life are a.n.a.logous to the determinate methods of reaction, the inherited impulses, reflexes, and instincts with which heredity furnishes the individual. The tradition of the elders is, as it were, the instinct of society. It furnishes the prescribed rule for dealing with the ordinary occasions of life, which is for the most part accepted without inquiry and applied without reflection. It furnishes the appropriate inst.i.tution for providing for each cla.s.s of social needs, for meeting common dangers, for satisfying social wants, for regulating social relations.

It const.i.tutes, in short, the framework of society's life which to each new generation is a part of its hereditary outfit.

But of course in speaking of tradition as a kind of inheritance we conceive of it as propagated by quite other than biological methods. In a sense its propagation is psychological, it is handed on from mind to mind, and even though social inst.i.tutions may in a sense be actually incorporated in material things, in buildings, in books, in coronation robes, or in flags, still it need not be said that these things are nothing but for the continuity of thought which maintains and develops their significance. Yet the forces at work in tradition are not purely psychological; at least they are not to be understood in terms of individual psychology alone. What is handed on is not merely a set of ideas but the whole social environment; not merely certain ways of thinking or of acting but the conditions which prescribe to individuals the necessity for thinking or acting in certain specific ways if they are to achieve their own desires. The point is worth dwelling on, because some writers have thought to simplify the working of tradition by reducing it to some apparently simple psychological phenomenon like that of imitation. In this there is more than one element of fallacy.

Now the growth of tradition will in a sense gravely modify the individual members of the society which maintains it. To any given set of inst.i.tutions a certain a.s.semblage of qualities, mental and physical, will be most appropriate, and these may differ as much as the qualities necessary for war differ from those of peaceful industry. Any tradition will obviously call forth from human beings the qualities appropriate to it, and it will in a sense select the individuals in which those qualities are the best developed and will tend to bring them to the top of the social fabric, but this is not to say that it will a.s.sert the same modification upon the stock that would be accomplished by the working of heredity. The hereditary qualities of the race may remain the same, though the traditions have changed and though by them one set of qualities are kept permanently in abeyance, while the other are continually brought by exercise to the highest point of efficiency.

We are not to conclude that physical heredity is of no importance to the social order; it must be obvious that the better the qualities of the individuals const.i.tuting a race, the more easily they will fit themselves into good social traditions, the more readily they will advance those traditions to a still higher point of excellence, and the more stoutly they would resist deterioration. The qualities upon which the social fabric calls must be there, and the more readily they are forthcoming, the more easily the social machine will work. Hence social progress necessarily implies a certain level of racial development, and its advance may always be checked by the limitations of the racial type.

Nevertheless, if we look at human history as a whole, we are impressed with the stability of the great fundamental characteristics of human nature and the relatively sweeping character and often rapid development of social change.

In view of this contrast we must hesitate to attribute any substantial share in human development to biological factors, and our hesitation is increased when we consider the factors on which social change depends.

It is in the department of knowledge and industry that advance is most rapid and certain, and the reason is perfectly clear. It is that on this side each generation can build on the work of its predecessors. A man of very moderate mathematical capacity today can solve problems which puzzled Newton, because he has available the work of Newton and of many another since Newton's time. In the department of ethics the case is different. Each man's character has to be formed anew, and though teaching goes for much, it is not everything. The individual in the end works out his own salvation. Where there is true ethical progress is in the advance of ethical conceptions and principles which can be handed on; of laws and inst.i.tutions which can be built up, maintained, and improved. That is to say, there is progress just where the factor of social tradition comes into play and just so far as its influence extends. If the tradition is broken, the race begins again where it stood before the tradition was formed. We may infer that, while the race has been relatively stagnant, society has rapidly developed, and we must conclude that, whether for good or for evil, social changes are mainly determined, not by alterations of racial type, but by modifications of tradition due to the interactions of social causes. Progress is not racial but social.

B. PROGRESS AND SCIENCE

1. Progress and Happiness[337]

Human progress may be properly defined as that which secures the _increase of human happiness_. Unless it do this, no matter how great a civilization may be, it is not progressive. If a nation rise, and extend its sway over a vast territory, astonishing the world with its power, its culture, and its wealth, this alone does not const.i.tute progress. It must first be shown that its people are happier than they would otherwise have been. If a people be seized with a rage for art, and, in obedience to their impulses or to national decrees, the wealth of that people be laid out in the cultivation of the fine arts, the employment of master artists, the decoration of temples, public and private buildings, and the embellishment of streets and grounds, no matter to what degree of perfection this purpose be carried out, it is not to progress unless greater satisfaction be derived therefrom than was sacrificed in the deprivations which such a course must occasion. To be progressive in the true sense, it must work an increase in the sum total of human enjoyment. When we survey the history of civilization, we should keep this truth in view, and not allow ourselves to be dazzled by the splendor of pageantry, the glory of heraldry, or the beauty of art, literature, philosophy, or religion, but should a.s.sign to each its true place as measured by this standard.