^ i \/ II>3C'?|0 JflJVIES H. WEST, Publisher, Boston. COMMENTS FROM PRIVATE SCIENTIFIC SOURCES. "Ji is a book not to be lightly passed over, indicating almost a new epoch in the evolution propaganda.'''' " The book is A BOOK. It is unique. I do not believe there is any other such book, nor that there will be. It will universally take. Only a few glances at it are required, and then the expressions of astonishment and interest follow.'''' [From Herbert Spencer.] "The mode of presentation seems to me admirably adapted for popularizing Evolution views." [From John Fiske.] "I think your schedule attractive and valuable." BVOLUTION: Popular Lectures and Discussions before the Brooklyn Ethical Association. "A collection of essays, exhibiting the doctrine of Evolution as applied to religious, scientitic and social matters, l)y well-read and cultivated gentlemen. Scholarly and instructive ; we commend the book." Keiv York Sun. "Among all these papers there is not one that is weak, commonplace or un- interesting. They are all full of thought, presented in clear language, and in an "admirable spirit." llcUgio- Philosophical Journal. "Extremely entertaining and instructive, . . . the book is especially in- tended to S]^)read a knowledge of the views of the masters of the Evolution theory, making a smooth, even path for the ordinary mind to move forward on, so that the general comprehension of the subject may be made easy." lirooklyn Citizen. OlTTI.iyi'J or (JONTF.NTS : Herbert Spencer : His life, writings, and philosophy. Daniel Greenleaf Thompson. Charles Robert Darwin : His life, works, and influence. Rev. John W. Chadwick. Solar and I'lanetarv Evolution How suns and worlds come into being. Carrctt r. Serviss. Evolution of the Earth : The story of geology. Dr. Lewis G. Janes. Evolution of Vegetal Life: How life begins. William Potts. Evolution of Animal Life : Rossiter W. Raynir)nd, Ph.D. The Descent of Man : His origin, antiquity, growth. E. 1). ("<)i)e. I'li.D. Evolution of !Mind : Its nature, and development. Dr. Robert f!. Ecc'les. Evolution of Society : Families, tribes, states, classes. James A. Skilton. Evolution of Theology: Development of religious beliefs. Z. Sidney Samjjson. Evolution of Morals: Egoism, altruism, utilitarianism, etc. Dr. Lewis (;. .Janes. Proofs of Evolution : The eight main scientific argumeuts. Nelson V. Parshall. Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. Rev. John W. Chadwick. The l'hiloso])hv of Evolution : Its relation to prevailing svstems. Starr H. Nichols. The Effects of Evolution on the Coming Civilization. Rev. Minot J. Savage. Iniform icith " SOC TOLOO i." ONE VOLUME, Fine Cloth, 408 Pages. ILLUSTRATED. Complete Index. $2.00, postpaid. JflJVIES H. WEST, Publisher, Boston. EVOLUTION ESSAYS, SECOND SERIES. " Deserve the attention of readers of popular science. They include, so far, excellent lectures." Literary World. "One of the most systematic, concise, and comprehensive presentations in popular form of the foundation and theory of evolution. Excellent, . . suc- cint, . . interesting." Public Opinion. Uniform, tvith " EVOIjJJTION." SOCIOLOGY: Popular Lectures and Discussions before the Brooklyn Ethical Association. OVTLIKX: OF CONTEXTS: The Scope and Principles of the Evolution Thilosophy, Dr. Lewis G. Janes. The Relativity of Knowledge, Dr. Robert G. Eccles. Primitive Man, Z. Sidney Sampson. Growth of the Marriage Relation, C. Staniland AN'ake. Evolution of the State, John A. Taylor. Evolution of Law, Prof. Rufus Sheldon. Evolution of Medical Science, Dr. Robert G. Eccles. Evolution of Arms and Armor, Rev. John C. Kimball. Evolution of the Mechanic Arts, James A. Skilton. Evolution of the Wages System, Prof. George Gun ton. Education as a Factor in Civilization, Miss Caroline B. Le Row. Evolution and Social Reform : 1. The Theological Method, Rev. John W. Chadwick. Evolution and Social Reform : 2. The Socialistic Method, William Potts. Evolution and Social Reform : 3. The Anarchistic ^Method, Hugh O. Pentecost. Evolution and Social Reform : 4. The Scientific INIethod, Daniel Greenleaf Thompson. Asa Gray, Mrs. Mary Treat. Edward Livingston Youmans, Prof. John Fiske. ONE VOLUME, Fine Cloth, 412 Pages. With Diagram. Complete Index. $2.00, postpaid. *i)f* The above sent postpaid on receipt of price. Address, JA^ES H. WEST, Publisher, 196 Summer Street, BOSTON. specimen Press flotiees of ** Evolution." "A book which serves a double purpose : to present, succintly yet completely, the evolution philosophy; and to show its application to and influence upon all the interests of life. It is not i)ossible to spealv of this book with any degree of reserve. It is entirely admirable. It should be a matter of pride to every American that such an adecpiate presentation of a vital principle has been made on this side of the Atlantic." lionton Times. " Devoted to concise and remarkably clear expositions of evolution as a philosophy, as relating to the physical world, to man, to society, to theology, to morals, and relig- ious thought. The* book is prefaced by two extremely interesting biographical chapters." CanihrUI'je (Mass.) Tribune. " The subjects are verv fully discussed, and the seeker for inf(jrmation can scarcely find the case of the evolutionists better stated in a popular form. This combination of thought and study in one inexpensive volume is timely and valuable." New Jiedford Mercury. "The whole field of Evolution is presented in a popular manner, in a handsomely Erinted book, . . . one of the clearest and most comprehensive on the subject that as yet appeared. It will prove most acceptable to the general reader." Cincinnati Commercial Gazette. "The writers seem to have taken pains to make their subjects plain, and to have had good success in doing so. We recommend this collection of essays to those who wish for a simple but accurate exposition of the evolutionary philosophy." Science (New York). "One of the best thoroughly popular works on the general subject that have yet appeared." Public Opinion. "An admirable contribution of thought upon this problem, one of the most complete yet made, and will be found of interest to everybody." Lawrence Am,erican'. " The subjects are all broadly treated, and, taken together, these essavs comprise a clear and concise presentation of the theory of evolution." /Jos^o/* BuiUjet. " Scholarly and instructive." New York Sun. "These essays present the doctrine of Evolution in almost every asi)ect, and a glance at the list of authors will sufficiently indicate the admirable skill and thought that have been brought to bear uj)on the subject in this edifying volume. The book merits hearty connnendation." lioslon Satnnlaij Kvenimj (luzcttr. "They are, without exception, excellent in thought, si)irit and method of treat- ment." Truth (l'ittsl)ur'jli). "It is most comprehensive, yet popular, in its mode of treating its subjects, and furnishes in compact form the last words which have yet appeared on the subjects of which it tn^ats." New Haven I'alladimn. "The value of the book cannot be overestimated, for it is representative of the foremost thought on the foremost theory of the age." Buffalo Courier. " Every essay in the work recognizes evolution as a universal law. It is made to account for all the i)henoiiiena of the universe, and to us it appears to account for them remarkably well. We confess, with sometliing of chagrin, that we can discover nothing atheistic, immoral or heterodox in their peculiar o])inions. We had buckled on our armor, and set our controversial lance in rest, in prejtaration for a tilt with this adventurous knight-errant, Evolution. Hut we decline to enter the lists; for is not the mailed warrior whom we mistook for an enemy the miglitiest champion of tnitli? . . . The book is handsomely itrinted, substantially bound, anil fully indexed." Lowell Times. "The book is one that will find a welcome among advanced thinkers." I'ldladel- jihia 'i'ime.'i. " A work of unusual interest a book to set thinkers to thinking." Wo;/ Times. "The volume is one which every man who wishes to keej) au couraid, with the latest i)has<'s of thought, but has ni)t the leistirc to master elaborate; treatises, should welcome. . . . The lectures are j)i)i)ular in the sense that they do not reijuire on the l)an; of the reader any spei'ial scientifi(! ])rei)aration, but they are not iioi>ular in the sense usually attached to the i)lir.ise, 'jxipular lectures,' that of a weak dilution of thouglit and' knowledge to meet the caj)acity of weak intelligences. . . . Eac^h lecture is followed by an alistract of the discussion which the lecture evolved, and the dissentient reader may often have the satisfaction of finding his own criticisms jiertinently stated." Il(w .fournal (Xew York). "The drift of the volume altogether is in the direction of intellectual expansion." New York Tribune. " It is a systematic, concise, and comiirehensive presentation, and should be read l)y all interested in the subject whether from a l)iological, sociological, or philosoph- ical standpoint." /'ojndar Science News. SOCIOLOGY The eye reads omens where it goes, And speaks all languages the rose ; And, striving to be man, the worm Mounts through all the spires of form. Nature, i., 7. The fossil strata show us that Nature began with rudimental forms, and rose to the more complex as fast as the earth was lit for their dwelling-place ; and that the lower perish as the higher appear. Very few of our race can be said to be yet finished men. We still carry sticking to us some remains of the preced- ing inferior quadruped organization. . . The age of the quadruped is to go out, the age of the brain and of the heart is to come in. And if one shall read the future of the race hinted in the organic effort of Nature to mount and melior- ate, and the corresponding impulse to the Better in the human being, we shall dare affirm that there is nothing he will not overcome and convert, until at last culture shall absorb the chaos and gehenna. He will convert the Furies into Muses and the hells into benefit. Culture. Ralph Waldo Ejiebsox. SOCIOLOGY tv. Popular Lectures axd Discussions before the Brooklyn Ethical Association. BOSTON : JAMES H. WEST, Publishek 196 Summer Stkeet 1890 Copyright by JAMES H. WEST, 1890. PREFACE. Sociology : a new word for a new generation : the name of a new science the science of social evolution. To Auguste Comte we owe the name, and some pregnant suggestions as to the char- acter of the new science. To Herbert Spencer, more than to any other thinker, Ave owe the formulation of its laws, and the collec- tion and classification of the facts on which they are based. A growing multitude of other writers, however, have ably contrib- uted to the numerous departments of sociological research, bring- ing to this new field of study a wealth of patience in scientific investigation, and thoughtful consideration for social phenomena. Sociology is a science yet in the making. It is not an exact science, like miathematics. It formulates no dogmas. It lecog- nizes the relativity of societary forms, customs and institutions. It has no authoritative priesthood. It presents no panaceas for the reformation of social ills. It clearly indicates, however, the natural trend of societary evolution, and thus affords wise sug- gestions for our guidance in practical affairs. Its word is one of salutary caution rather than of definite and formal instruction concerning the duties of the hour. Sociology is based on Evolution. The present interest in its problems, and their supreme importance to human well-being, rendered it the natural topic for the consideration of the Brook- lyn Ethical Association, following the general discussion of the doctrine of Evolution in the previous volume of these lectures. Sociology recognizes that the method of Nature in society is identical with its method in the development of suns and plan- etary systems, of vegetal and animal life, and of the body and mind of individual man. This method is the method of natural growth as contra-distinguished from supernatural creation or artificial manufacture. It involves that element of spontaneity which is inherent in all processes of organic growth, and which in the mind of man appears under the form of self-conscious freedom. Societary growth is regular, orderly, in accordance with its own inherent laws: but these laws are not mechanically imposed conditions. They are the spontaneous expressions of progressive tendencies resident in society itself, or in the individuals of which it is composed, the operation of (V) vi Preface. which, though orderly, is infinitely varied, and adaptable to an infinite variety of social conditions. It follows, therefore, that the a priori scheme of the social reformer can never be made to exactly fit the actual conditions of any given society. It may serve to stimulate thought, to promote altruistic endeavor, to educate the individual: it cannot become a practicable panacea for social ills. Abundant are the schemes of this sort which are presented to-day for our consideration: Nation- alism, the Single-tax, Socialism, Anarchism, Free-trade, Protec- tion, Prohibition, and what-not? Evil will be the day when we legislate any one of them into being, expecting thereby the abolition of poverty and crime, or the speedy renovation of society. Evolution Sociology points to the safer and wiser way of individual enlightenment and moral education. It studies care- fully the past history of man, that it may act wisely for the amelioration of his present condition. It aims directly at the improvement of individual character. It seeks not so much to antagonize the schemes of social reformers as to subject them all to the operation of the principle of Natural Selection: wisely to choose what is instructive and good in each; wisely to take such forward steps as are practicable and may be securely held; to substitute the method of evolution for that of violent and spasmodic change, and thus to promote, surely if slowly, the permanent welfare of societies and individuals. If this book the thoughtful contribution of free individuals working with no selfi.sh aims or conscious dogmatic or partisan bias shall be of some slight service in forwarding this most worthy and desirable end, in promoting scientific thought and wise action on the pressing problems of social life, the labors which have brought it into being will be abundantly rei)aid. CONTENTS. Preface, v The Scope and Principles of the Eyolutiox Phi- losophy, 3 Wallace on Darwinism; evolution a universal method; agnosticism what is it? the nature and limitations of knowledge; the relations of the evolution philosophy to materialism and idealism; to the doctrines and methods of the Christian church; its relations to sociology; its attitude toward the practical problems of social life. By Dr. Lewis G. Janes. The Relativity of Knowledge, 29 The nature of sense-perception ; sight, sound, taste, smell, feeling; the doctrine of the Unknowable; the relative nature of matter, motion, form, weight, extension; the relativity of ethical and social theories; the truth of def- inite relations; tlie doctrine of relativity assures charity and mental freedom. By Robert G. Eccles, M.D. Primitive Man, 45 Man as revealed by archaeological studies; evidences of man's antiquity; geological periods; man's appearance in the pliocene; palajolithic and neolithic races; the ages of bronze and iron; cave-men and lake-dwellers; dolmen- and mound-builders; primitive implements and tools; proofs of man's natural evolution. By Z. Sidney Sampson. Growth of the Marriage Relation, .... 69 Marriage a primitive institution; its earlier forms; no evidence of original promiscuity ; exogamy and endogamy; group-marriage; polygyny, polyandry and monogamy; marriage by capture; monogamy the highest form of the relation; divorce and divorce-laws; marriage a contract; its regulation by the State. By C. Staniland Wake. Evolution of the State, 91 The growth of political institutions; the patriarchal family; the tribe and clan; the ancient city; monarchical and (vii) viii Contents. representative governments; constitutions written and unwritten; the American Republic its success and its dangers; evils of municipal government; what final form will the State assume ? By John A. Taylor. Evolution of Law, Ill How law begins; statute law and judge-made law; the con- version of customs into law; religious sanctions; legal fictions; the development of equity jurisprudence; the common law; legislation; the codification of laws; laws for the collection of debts; personal rights under the law. By Prof. Rufus Sheldon. Evolution' of Medical Science, 133 Supernatural ideas of disease; fetishism in medicine; the beginnings of medical science; Pythagoras and Hippoc- rates, Celsus and Galen; Christianity and medical science; the Mohammedan influence; homeopathy and allopathy; foods and poisons; the development of surgery, anatomy, physiology, chemistry and pharmacy; bacteriology; the growth of sanitary science. By Robert G. Eccles, M.D. Evolution of Arms and Armor, 159 Tlie necessity for arms and armor under the struggle for existence; Nature's two methods among animals, plants, men, nations; how arms and armor have led to the indus- trial arts; to a higher manhood; to co-operative effort; to individualism; the weapons of thought; our National policy as regards defenses; the two methods in religion, morals, law, social safety; on this rude stalk the flower at last of universal peace. By Rev. John C. Kimball. Evolution of the Mechanic Arts, 191 Development of the human hand; the earliest use of imple- ments and tools; man's mechanical structure and adap- tation for work; the psychology of the mechanic arts; the relation of mechanics to mental evolution; the genesis of invention; patents and patent-laws; inventions in agricul- ture and manufactures; have they benefited the laboring classes ? By Jaaies a. Skilton. Evolution of the Wages System, 217 The definition of wages; economic characteristics of the wages system; wages the outgrowth of slavery; origin and development of the wages system; its relation to Contents. ix material improvement, social freedom, and a progressive civilization; to the welfare and progress of the laboring classes; the factory-system; importance of stipulated incomes; the wages system compared with Nationalism and Socialism; its relation to social reform. By PiiOF. George Gunton. Education as a Factor in Civilization, . . . 235 TJie beginnings of education; early methods in Egypt, Persia, China, Greece and Kome ; early Christian ideas of education; Catholic and Protestant views; the common- school system; influence of Comenius, Pestalozzi and Froebel; the kindergarten; manual training; education and crime; the university ; classical and scientific studies; the higher education of women; co-education; the future of our educational system. By Miss Caroline B. Le Row. Evolution and Social Eeform : /. The Theological Method, 257 Eeligion the formative principle of social growth ; its rela- tion to Socialism; theological morality; influence of Clu-is- tianity on social development; New Testament ideas of marriage and wealth; early Christian Socialism; monasti- cism; influence of the Jews and Mohammedans; the church and industrialism; usury or interest; the church and slavery; alms-giving and pauperism; the effect of preaching on character; repentance, conversion and atone- ment; the religious method the method of personal char- acter. By Rev. John W. Chadwick. Evolution and Social Eeform : //, The Socialistic Method, . 277 Communism, Socialism and Nationalism; the metliods defined; origin of their modern phases; tendencies of Socialism to militantism; State-socialism; the doctrine of equality of earnings; equality rs. liberty; Mr. Bellamy's theory criticized; Henry George and the "single tax"; the injustice of land-confiscation; relation of land- values to the value of improvements; socialistic schemes arti- ficial, not organic; profit-sharing and voluntary co-op- eration; opportunism. By William Potts. Evolution and Social Reform : III. The Anarch- istic Method, 803 Anarchy regarded as a science; its opposition to government by physical force; its methods not revolutionary but X Contents. evolutionary; anarchism in social customs ; its economic principles; involuntary poverty, its causes and cure; injustice of rent, interest and profits; social parasites; anarchism and the ballot; its method that of education and peaceful propagandism ; its ideal that of mutualism between free individuals. By Hugh O. Pentecost. Evolution and Social Keform : IV. The Scientific Method, 321 The scientific method based on the uniformity of Nature ; the polarity of Individualism and Socialism; the psycho- logical argument; necessity for governmental limitation; the scientific method as distinguished from the theolog- ical, the socialistic and the anarchistic; it advocates the golden mean; it cultivates individual independence; its relation to education and ethical culture. By Daniel Greenleaf Thompson. Asa Gray : His Life and Work, 339 His birth and youth; his indebtedness to Amos Eaton; his relations with Dr. John Torrey; his works on botany ; the " North American Flora " ; his contributions to the doc- trine of Evolution; his correspondence with Darwin; his personal characteristics; his genius recognized by other botanists; his great industry; his unobtrusive modesty; causes of his unfinished work. By Mrs. Mary Treat. Edward Livingston Youmans : The Man and His Work, 365 His birth and ancestry; his education; his early interest in natural science; his blindness; his interest in reforms; his contributions to chemistry; his career as a scientific lec- turer; his acceptance of the doctrine of Evolution; his introduction of Herbert Spencer to America; his estab- lishment of the "International Scientific Series" and the Popular Science Monthly ; his visits to England ; his bi-oad, democratic spirit and unselfish personal character. By Pbof. John Fiske. Index, 393 THE SCOPE AND PRINCIPLES OF THE EVOLUTION PHILOSOPHY BY LEWIS G. JANES Author of "A Study of Primitive Christianity," "The Evolution of THE Earth," "Evolution of Morals," etc., etc. COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. Spencer's "First Principles," " Principles of Psychology," and " Principles of Sociology;" Fiske's " Cosmic Philosophy " ; Wal- lace's "Darwinism" ; Thompson's "A System of Psychology" ; Huxley and Wace's "Christianity and Agnosticism"; Abbot's "Scientific Theism," and " The Philosophy of Free Religion," in The New Ideal; Case's "Physical Realism" ; Carus's "Fun- damental Problems" ; W. B. Carpenter's "Nature and Man." (2) THE SCOPE AND PRINCIPLES OF THE EVOLUTION PHILOSOPHY.* Since the interesting biological lectures of our last year's course were delivered, a noteworthy contribution has been made to that department of evolutionary thought, by the publication of Alfred Russel Wallace's " Darwinism : An Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection, with some of its Applications." A co-discoverer with Charles Darwin of the law of Natural Selection, Mr. Wallace re- sembles him as a writer in the simplicity and lucidity of his style ; and the wealth of facts with which he has illus- trated his discussion of the subject, indicating the utmost patience and thoroughness of research, is nowhere equaled save in those epoch-making books which indicated Darwin as the foremost naturalist of his own, or, perhaps it would not be too much to say, of any time. Writing thirty years after the publication of "The Origin of Species," and in the light of all the objections which have been brought against the theory of Natural Selection, Mr. Wallace declares that Darwin " did his work so well that ' descent with modification ' is now universally accepted in the organic world ; and the rising genera- tion of naturalists can hardly realize the novelty of this idea, or that their fathers considered it a scientific heresy to be condemned rather than seriously discussed." In the defense of "Natural Selection" as the fundamental law of biological evolution, Mr. Wallace is even more of a Dar- winian than Darwin himself showing, it would seem con- clusively, that many of those variations which Darwin attributed to sexual selection, can be explained by natural selection, including nearly all those brilliant colors in the ornamentation of male birds and animals which Darwin assigned to the choice or preference of the female. Mr. Wallace also trenchantly criticises the supposed law of use and disuse as affecting biological evolution, the so- called " Lamarckian factor," the importance of which * CoPYKiGiiT, 1889, by JaUues H. West. 4 The Scope and JPrmcljjles was explicitly admitted by Darwin, though that fact is often ignored by his critics, and has been emphasized by Mr. Spencer in his " Factors of Organic Evolution," as well as by Prof. Cope, Dr. Eaymond, and the American School of Evolutionists generally. " There is now much reason," Mr. Wallace declares, "to believe that the sup- posed inheritance of acquired modifications that is, of the effects of use and disuse, or of the direct influence of the environment is not a fact, and if so, the very foun- dation is taken away from the whole class of objections on which such stress is now laid." Such effects, for exam- ple, as the diminished jaw in civilized man, and the dimi- nution of the muscles used in closing the jaw in case of pet dogs which are fed on soft food, are wholly accounted for by the simple fact of the withdrawal of natural selec- tion in keeping up the parts in question to their full dimensions, in connection with Mr, Galton's law of "Re- gression toward Mediocrity," whereby, it has been been proved experimentally, there is a tendency of organs which have been increased by natural selection, to revert to a mean or average size, whenever the stress of circumstances which compelled the operation of this law is removed. Investigating the supposed effects of use and disuse in wild animals, Mr. Wallace notes the circumstance that " the very fact of use, in a wild state, implies utilitij, and utility is the constant subject for the action of natviral .selection; while among domestic animals those parts which are exceptionally used are so used in the service of man, and thus become the subjects of artificial selection." " There are no cases among wild animals," he says, " which may not be better explained by variation and natural selec- tion," than by the law of use or disuse. He quotes Gal- ton, and Prof. Weismann in his recently published " Essays on Heredity," two of the most careful students of tliis subject, in support of the non-heredity of acquired variations ; and on the whole makes an exceedingly strong argument in favor of natural selection as the great and controlling factor in organic evolution. Prof. Cope and the American evolutionists, he says, "have introduced theoret- ical conceptions which have not yet been tested by experi- ments or facts, as well as metaphysical conceptions which are incapable of proof. And when they come to illustrate these views by an appeal J;o palaeontology or morphology. of the Evolution Philosophy. 5 we find that a far simpler and more complete explanation of the facts is afforded by the established principles of vari- ation and natural selection." Mr, Wallace's general conclu- sion is that all other laws and factors in organic evolution "must have operated in entire subordination to the law of natural selection," a conclusion which he supports by logical argument from such a wealth of accumulated facts, that it will be extremely difficult for his opponents success- fully to combat his views. While asserting the continuity of man's progress from the brute, and of the higher animals from the protoplasmic cell, Mr. Wallace believes that at three definite stages in the progress of organic evolution there has been an in- troduction of new causes, not involved in nor evolved from the forces previously operating. These are, 1st., the change from inorganic to organic life, otherwise involved in the conception of spontaneous generation ; 2ud, the in- troduction of sensation or consciousness, which "is still more marvelous, still more completely beyond all possi- bility of explanation by matter, its laws and forces " ; and, 3rd, the development of certain noble characteristics and faculties in man, as, for example, his moral and intellectual nature, and the mathematical, artistic and musical facul- ties, which differentiate him from the brute animals, indi- cate the reality of a spiritual universe, and prophetically assure an immortal life for the spiritual nature of man. His peculiar views on these topics will probably appear more or less reasonable to different persons according to their temperamental tendencies and educational bias ; but no one, I think, can lay down this book without a convic- tion of the great ability and transparent sincerity of its author, of its pre-eminent value as a contribution to the general literature of evolution, and of the weight of its arguments in defense of Natural Selection as a controlling factor in organic development.* Evolution may be true, in the field of biology, it vcmy yet be said, but what of it ? Man may be the descendant of an anthropoid ape, "probably arboreal in its habits," *Note should also be made of Prof. Angelo Heilprin's recently published book on "The Bermuda Islands," which contains a careful study ot the lor- mation of coral reefs, contirming Darwin's theories on this subject, which some recent writers have l)rought in question. The tendency of the most recent studies has unqtiestionably been to strengthen the high regard in which Darwin has been justly held as a careful, conscientious investigator and safe theorizer in the field of evolutionary research. 6 The Sco2ye and Principles though of this we are not convinced ; but why is it neces- sary to announce the fact ? Any one who traces his ances- try back far enough, will probably discover relationships of which he will not be particularly proud but he does not therefore find it necessary to bruit the matter abroad, so to speak, to publish it upon the housetops. Truth is a good thing, indeed, but there are times when silence is golden and speech is leaden when discretion in speech is the better part of intellectual valor. What moral or relig- ious end can possibly be attained by the public proclama- tion of a belief in Evolution ? Such are the comments, no doubt, of some of the self-constituted critics of the work of this Association. Another sort of criticism of certain phases of evolutionary thought is often heard from those who are quite ready to declare themselves converts to the doctrine in its purely physical and biological aspects : Evo- lution is only a method, these critics declare ; it is not a philosophy, it is not a religion ; the great problems of ethics, of metaphysics, of life, what have these to do with the nebular hypothesis, the origin of species by natural se- lection, or the descent of man from lower forms of life ? It should be sufficient, perhaps, to remind intelligent people that if evolution is " only a method," it is, so far as we are able to discover, a universal method, penetrating into all the phenomenal activities of nature ; explaining not only the processes whereby suns and worlds have come into being, and the varied and bountiful forms of life have successively appeared upon the earth, but also how the sev- eral faculties of the mind have grown out of the simplest form of conscious apprehension, how the special senses have been developed, how individuals have been impelled to combine, forming the complex organizations into which our civilized societies are divided, how governmental forms have evolved and the institutions of religion have come into being liow religion itself, indeed, and that sense of ob- ligation which constitutes the foundation of man's moral nature, have arisen by processes entirely orderly and nat- ural, out of the interaction between certain primitive instincts and tendencies of the human mind, and the envi- roning conditions under which they have found expression. If we are right in assuming, with Spencer and Fiske and other great leaders in this new movement of thoiight, that evolution is thus practically illimitable in its range of the Evolution Philosophy. 7 throughout the universe of physical and mental phenomena, then indeed must we confess that it is not merely a method whereby the myriad forms of organic life have come into being it is a method which searches into the deeper problems of religion and philosophy, compelling a recon- sideration of old conclusions a reconstruction of many of their fundamental conceptions. To speak of " the phi- losophy of Evolution," therefore, is not without warrant. We may well term it, with John Fiske, a '< cosmic phi- losophy," since it is thus universal in its scope and applica- tion; or with Mr. Spencer, a "synthetic philosophy," since, like the founder of Christianity, it comes not to destroy but to fulfill, discovering the measure of truth which resides in each antagonistic system, and by a new and deeper synthesis combining them into a harmonious and perfect whole. If it should appear to some superficial thinkers that the advocates of this philosophy unnecessarily antagonize the creeds and methods of the prevalent religious faith, ideas and conceptions that by many are deemed sacred, the reply must be that the truth is more sacred than any existing institution, or theological or cosmological concep- tion, however venerable. In the language of Emerson, " Nothing at last is sacred but the integrity of your own mind." There is an ethics of the intellect which imposes upon every reverent thinker the obligation to follow abso- lutely the dictates of his enlightened reason, and frankly to confess his innermost convictions. In the noble passage with which Mr. Spencer concludes the first part of his " First Principles of Philosophy," he says : " Whoever hesitates to utter that which he thinks the highest truth, lest it should be too much inadvance of the time, may reassure himself by looking at his acts from an impersonal point of view. Let him duly recognize the fact that opinion is the agency through which character adapts external arrangements to itself that his opinion rightly forms a part of this agency is a unit of force, constituting, with other such units, the general power which works out social changes ; and he will perceive tliat he may properly give utterance to his innermost convic- tion : leaving it to produce what effect it may. , . . He must remember that, while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future ; and that his thoughts are as 8 The iScope and Principles children born to him, which he may not carelessly let die. He, like every otlier man, may properly consider himself as one of the myriad agencies through whom works the Unknown Cause ; and when the Unknown Canse produces in him a certain belief, he is thereby authorized to profess and act out that belief. For, to render in their highest sense the words of the poet, ' . . . Nature is made better by no mean, But Nature makes that mean ; over that art Which you say adds to Nature, is an art That Nature makes.' "Xot as adventitious, therefore, will the wise man re- gard the faith that is in him. The highest truth he sees he will fearlessly utter; knowing that, let what may come of it, he is thus playing his right part in the world ; know- ing that if he can effect the change he aims at well : if not, well also, though not so well." * This passage is noteworthy not only for the nobility of its thought and the transparent clearness of its diction, but also because it suggests some of the foremost questions involved in the discussion of the evolution philosophy. In naming the Power which works in the thoughts of men as well as in the processes of external Nature, ''the Unknown Cause," Mr. Spencer brings us face to face with the funda- mental problem of the nature of our knowledge and with that mental attitude which is popularly termed Agnos- ticism, the hete-noire of this philosophy in the minds of its orthodox critics, as well as those of the extreme radical or materialistic school of thought. In the misconception and denunciation of the doctrine of the relativity of knowl- edge which constitutes the philosophical breastwork of the agnostic's posi^on, extremes meet, and the Catholic Mal- lock, the anti-Christian realist Francis Ellingwood Abbot, and the materialist, ably represented last season on this I)latform by Mr. Starr H. Nichols,t clasp hands, and mingle their otherwise inharmonious voices. Leaving the fuller explanation and illustration of the doctrine of the rela- tivity of knowledge to my able successor in this course, I shall endeavor hereafter briefly to define philosophical agnosticism ; to show that its attitude is neither idealistic, strictly speaking, nor irreligious ; that it is not inconsistent First Principles, p. 123. fThe Philosophy of Evolution, Evolution Essays, pp. 343-3G1. of the Evolution Philosophy. 9 with a realistic conception of the external world, nor with the obligation to use and trust those high faculties of intellect and reason which constitute the distinguishing features of the mind of man that in every department of scientific, historical and true philosophic investigation, indeed, it is consistent and coincident with the meta-gnos- ticism of my friend, Mr. Skilton. * In speaking of indi- vidual opinion as a unit of that "general power which works out social changes," Mr. Spencer places uppermost as the goal of intelligent thought and action, a practical rather than a merely speculative purpose thereby turn- ing our attention to the field of practical ethics which is involved in the discussion of sociological evolution. To a further consideration of the relations of the evolution philosophy to this topic, foremost at the present day in the arena of discussion and of practical statesmanship, I shall ask your thovightful attention during the concluding por- tion of my paper. What, then, let us ask at the outset, is an Agnostic ? What is philoso})hical agnosticism ? The word, as is well- known, was first introduced into English usage by Prof. Huxley, and was derived by him from Paxil's designation of the "Agnostic" or unknown God, Avhose altar was established by the pious Athenians. As Prof. Huxley himself describes its meaning and origin, it arose from a conviction produced by his early reading of Sir William Hamilton's essay " On the Philosophy of the Uncondi- tioned," strengthened by subsequent reflection and the study of Hume and Kant. Of the essay of Sir William Hamilton, Prof. Huxley declares : " It stamped upon my mind the strong conviction that, on even the most solemn and important of questions, men are apt to take cunning phrases for answers ; and that the limitation of our facul- ties, in a great number of cases, renders real answers to those questions not merely actually impossible, but theo- retically inconceivable." f As regards the validity of spec- ulative conclusions, he was therefore forced to adopt the conviction thus stated by Kant in his "Critique of Pure Reason " : " The greatest and perhaps the sole use of all philosophy of pure reason is, after all, merely negative, since it serves not as an organon for the enlargement [of * The Evolution of Society, Evolution Essays, pp. 225-227. tChiistianity and Agnosticism, Huxley- Wace Controversy. 10 The Scope and Priyiciples knowledge,] but as a discipline for its delimitation, and instead of discovering truth, has only the modest merit of preventing error." In other words, the only practical re- sult of metaphysical studies is to convince the unbiased student that the human mind is incapable of grasping ontological facts. In the clearer language of Mr. Spencer, '^ all our knowledge is relative." We can know nothing of the external universe nothing even of the nature of our own bodies and of our own minds save as they are directly related to our knowing faculties. Involved in this phenomenal knowledge, however, and accompanying it at every step, we have the inexpugnable testimony of our reason and consciousness that behind the world of phe- nomena there exists an Infinite and Eternal Energy which is the source and efficient cause of all phenomena, both physical and mental. As thus stated, the doctrine seems almost a truism. How, indeed, can it be possible that man should know anything which is wholly out of relation to his intellectual faculties ? Nay, of what use or interest to him would such knowledge be if it were possible to attain it ? And on the other hand, how is it possible for him to view the orderly procession of phenomena any single phenomenon, indeed without conceiving it as a manifes- tation of immanent causal energy ? A sense of depend- ence upon a Power which is greater than our luiman capacity of comprehension an apprehension of our own finitude and of that of the phenomenal universe, in the presence of this Power is indeed as necessary to supply the demands of our intellectual as of our emotional and religious nature. If we think at all, we cannot escape from the implication involved in this belief. It rebukes our intellectual conceits, and toadies with an infinite awe and reverence every discovered beauty, every hidden mys- tery, the existence of which is forced upon us by the con- templation of the world of phenomena. In the very fact that the depths of this mystery can never be sounded by the finite plummets of our thought, lies its capacity to for- ever satisfy the artistic, the poetic, the religious demands of our nature. " Who by searching can find out (xod ? Who can know the Almighty to perfection ? " Greater than any object of our definite knowledge is the human mind itself. The noblest product of evolution, it bows be- fore no mere conception of the phenomenal universe, even of the Evolution Flt'dosopJiij. 11 though infinitely extended in time and space. -It yields supreme allegiance, reverence and worship only to that efficient Cause which underlies the world of phenomena, both mental and material, which dwells alike in star and flower, in the wonders of the physical organism, in the heights of thought and in the infinite depth of love, touch- ing all that we see and all that we know with a tender halo of unsearchable mystery. Like the purple haze in which twilight robes the distant mountain-summits, fading away into the infinite depths of the stellar spaces, and softening the harsh outlines of rock and forest into lines of perfect beauty, so the apprehension of the Unknowable Cause of phenomena mellows the sharp boundaries and limitations of the known, softens the crude details of our human picture, and gives it a symmetry and unity which satisfy the aesthetic longing, while it also meets the exi- gent demands of intellect and reason. *' The conviction that human intelligence is incapable of absokite knowledge," says Mr. Spencer, "is one that has slowly been gaining ground as civilization has advanced. Each new ontological theory, from time to time propounded in lieu of other ones shown to be untenable, has been fol- lowed by a new criticism leading to anew scepticism."* Whether Ave investigate the product of thought or the pro- cess of thought, this conviction is forced anew upon our minds. Analyzing the nature of the simplest product of our knowledge, we find that we know it only by a process of classification with something already known. The botanist who discovers a new flower studies its structure, investigates its method of growth, and finally assigns it to its proper order and class with others which he knows, and thus determines its true character. But the Infinite and Absolute, it is evident, cannot be thus classified. There can be but one Infinite ; our knowledge of its essential nature and attribxites must be forever negative. The nat- ure of life and of knowledge alike testify to the fact that we can know only relations. "Life in all its manifesta- tions, inclusive of intelligence in its highest forms, con- sists in the continuous adjustment of inner relations to outer relations." t "Every act of knowing is the forma- tion of a relation in consciousness parallel to a relation in the environment." Beneath this vital tissue of sequences First Principles tlbitl. 12 TJie Scoj^e and Principles and coexistences we cannot penetrate. The very concep- tion of relativity, however, carries with it the knowledge of the Absolute as existing, and as involved in all phenom- enal processes. As we cannot have a shadow without light, so we cannot have the relative without the Absolute : the existence of the one is proof positive of the existence of the other. And since the relations which we know are constant, since the law of cause and effect is universally operative throughout the world of phenomena, our knowl- edge, though relational, is real as real to us as would be our knowledge of the thing in itself, were such knowledge attainable. In knowing phenomena we do know the nou- menon as it is related to us. The materialistic critic of the evolution-philosophy comes to us, indeed, with the assumption that the universe is just what we see it to be, and nothing else. As it is in sense-perception, so it is in its essential nature. Mind itself is material. "The brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile " thought itself is a material product. We must assume something, he says : why not assume that the testimony of our senses is iinal and conclusive ? It is evident, however, that this position of the materialist is reached not by a process of thought, but by the negation of thought. lie is either incapable of duly considering the problems involved in this discussion, or else he delib- erately refuses to consider them, denouncing them as futile and unprofitable speculations. The evolutionist, however, assumes nothing, except the actual facts of experience; his ultimate criterion of truth is the inability to conceive the opposite of the proposition under discussion. The "fun- damental assum})tion " of the materialist is neither logical nor scientific it is essentially a metaphysical assumption, and illustrates a very crude and primitive sort of meta- physics at that. The evolutionist indulges in no assump- tions, falls back on no " first princi])les," or " axiomatic truths," the origin and history of which he cannot trace in the experience of the race. Every conscious experience constitutes a unit of knowledge, and science is simply the orderly classification and interpretation of such experi- ences. To science, therefore, the evoh;tionist appeals not to metaphysics and by science is the position of the materialist undermined and overthrown. Consider, for example, what science teaches us of the of the Evolution Philosophy. 13 nature of sense-perception. That phenomenon which our minds recognize as sound, science declares to be objectively certain vibrations or waves produced in the atmospheric medium. Between the two orders of phenomena, the ex- ternal fact and the subjective perception of it, there is no relation of identity only one of concomitance. One is subjective, wholly, the other objective; one is mental, the other material. Without an ear, a recipient brain and a conscious mind, the atmospheric vibration might go on forever, and there would be no phenomena of sound. The same principle holds good also in sight. That which to our minds appears as color, externally is the inconceiv- ably rapid vibration of the intangible ether which sur- rounds and penetrates the atmospheric envelope of the globe. Without the eye, the recipient brain, and the subtle synthesis of thought, the phenomenon of vision were impossible.* And so of the other special senses. But what we call matter is inseparable from these sense-perceptions, it is made up of them. Take away what we know as form and weight and color and extension, and nothing material remains. It does not follow, however, that the Unknown Reality which caused in us these sensations has ceased to exist. As firmly as we believe in our own exist- ence, do we believe in that of a Keality external to our- selves, and by precisely the same warrant the unthink- ableness of the contrary proposition. To beings constituted differently from ourselves, however, this reality might pre- sent an appearance totally distinct from that which we know as matter. To the simplest form of organism, for example, whose consciousness is limited to a single undif- ferentiated mode of sense perception, those affections of matter which we know as color, taste, odor, sound, exten- sion, would be wholly incomprehensible. The limitation of our own senses, both in number and in range, is entirely arbitrary.! It is quite conceivable that there may be beings Maxwell's new majrnetic theory of light emphasizes still more strongly the principle here laid down. tThe president of tlie British Association, Professor Flower, indorses Sir John Lubbock's idea that there may be "fifty other senses as different from ours as sound is from sight ; and even within the boundaries of our own senses there may be endless sounds which we cannot hear, and colors as dif- ferent as red from green of which we have no conception. These and a thou- sand other questions remain for solution. The familiar world which surrounds us may be a totally different place to other animals. To them It may be full of music which we cannot hear, of color which we cannot see, of sensa- tions which we cannot conceive." 14 The Scope and Principles on some other planet, like the resident of Saturn imagined in the satire of Voltaire, with seventy senses instead of five to whom the universe would present an appearance quite unfamiliar and incomprehensible to our understand- ing. To the old and ingenious play upon words involved in the familiar and brief philosophical catechism: "What is Matter ? Never mind. What is Mind ? No matter. What is the nature of the soul ? It is perfectly imma- terial," science and evolution, therefore, enter an em- phatic protest. Matter, it declares, is the Unknowable Reality as reflected in mind through the mediation of the senses. Mind is that Reality as it appears directly in the operations of consciousness. It is, so far as we know, insep- arable from material conditions ; but it is a false logic which therefore infers that it is itself material. You can neither see, feel, smell, taste, weigh, measure, nor chemically de- compose a thought. It responds to no material tests. Yet in it lies a power greater than that of the Archimedean lever a power sufficient to move the world. Of a soul distinct from mind and form, science knows absolutely nothing ; but since it also knows nothing of the nature of the Absolute Reality of which mind and form are manifes- tations, no divine possibility is slain by this admission. Materialism and Idealism both err in assuming that knowl- edge is absolute instead of relative. Both declare that the universe is just what it appears to be to our senses re- fusing, like the Electoral Commission, to " go behind the returns " and investigate the actual character of the suf- frage. Materialism assumes that matter is the mould of consciousness ; Idealism, that consciousness is the mould of matter. The truth lies between the two extremes, in- cluding what is true in both. The error of Materialism is cruder and more easily refuted than that of Idealism ; in view of the testimony of science as to the nature of our sense-perception, it has not a foot to stand upon. In declaring that the Reality which is external to our consciousness is identical and cotermi- nous with that which we know as matter, it bases its whole philosophy on an unverified and unverifiable assumption which is contradicted by the entire testimony of science. Rut in assuming that there is no Absolute Reality external to consciousness. Idealism is equally metaphysical and un- scientific. The question in reality is simply one of physi- of the Evolution Plulosojjhy. 15 ology of a scientific understanding of the nature of sense- perception; there is nothing speculative or metaphysical about it, whatsoever. The Materialist's position in philosophy reminds one of certain crude attempts at art, which, ignoring all sense of perspective, and disregarding the beautiful blending of lights and shadows as we see them in tlie natural land- scape, illustrates a sort of sharply-defined wooden realism, which is as distressing to the cultivated eye as it is thor- oughly materialistic in its conception and execution. The Ided,list's position, on the contrary, reminds one of an artist who should eschew the use of vulgar material paint, and attempt to dip his pencil in the prismatic hues of the rainbow. Of the two, it must be admitted that the materialistic painter would produce something, though it would not resemble anything that we ever see in Xature ; while the idealist would produce nothing, external to his own imagination.* In the language of Professor Fiske : " Our conclusion is simply this, that no theory of phe- nomena, external or internal, can be framed without postu- lating an Absolute Existence of which phenomena are the manifestations. And now let us note carefully what follows. We cannot identify this Absolute Existence with Mind, since what we know as Mind is a series of phenom- enal manifestations : it Avas the irrefragable part of Hume's argument that, in the eye of science as in the eye of com- mon sense, Mind means not the occult reality but the group of phenomena which we know as thoughts and feelings. Xor can we identify this Absolute Existence with Matter, since what we know as Matter is a series of phenomenal manifestations; it was the irrefragable part of Berkeley's argument that, in the eye of science as in the eye of com- mon sense. Matter means not the occult reality but the group of sensations which we know as extension, resist- ance, color, etc. Absolute Existence, therefore, the Reality which persists independently of us, and of which Mind and Matter are phenomenal manifestations, cannot be identified either with ]Nrind or with Matter. Thus is Ma- terialism included in the same condemnation with Idealism, "f That which the Idealist would produce in his imagination, however, might be infinitely finer than the crude ol)jective production of the Materialist. t Cosmic Philoso])hy, Vol. 1. The Evolutionist is justified in affirming "the eternity and uncreatability of matter," which is the datum on which the 16 The Scope and Prmr'qdes This, then, is the conclusion of the evolution philosophy, differing as widely from Materialism on the one hand as it does from Idealism on the other : a conclusion, moreover, to which we are compelled by an irresistible logic from no basis of metaphysical assumption, but from data furnished by science itself, reinforced by that ultimate criterion of truth which bases the postulates of our reasoning upon the inconceivability of their opposites. The ultimate data both for the scientific conclusions upon which the doctrine of the Unknowable is based, and for the laws of thought under the operation of which it is logically established, are given in experience, which is the final court to which the evolutionist appeals. Philosophical agnosticism, it would appear, therefore, is not identical with materialism ; it is not a cowardly philoso- phy which refuses to think ; it is by no means to be confound- ed with that crude liberalism which dogmatically denies God and immortality. It is antagonistic neither to religion nor to reason ; it is antagonistic only to those unverifiable assumptions dogmatically asserted as assured truths, which transform religion into superstition, and philosophic reason- ing into idle dreaming and unfruitful speculation. The evolution philosophy affirms the duty of thinking out all intellectual problems to their ultimate conclusions, and asserts the competence of reason to deal with the data given in experience, throughout the entire i)henomenal universe of matter and of mlud. The universe of matter is infinitely knowable ; the realm of mind is infinitely knowable. And in knowing mind and matter Ave know the Infinite and Eternal Energy on which they depend, in all its possible relations to our own consciousness. It is the duty of man to use and trust his intellectual faculties in the investigation of all matters which come within the .scojie of his intellect and xmderstanding. All knowledge which can possibly come within the range of our faculties is open to us ; hence there is no real loss or privation in the conception that the mind cannot penetrate behind the veil of phenomena. The superficial appearances of things, j)hysical sciences rest, meaninp; thereby that "the Reality wljidi persists iiKlenendently of us " is constant in its relations, and would "always manifest itselt as matter to a beinjj or beings possessed of a consciousness like ours. The idealistic conception that material olget^s are creations of the individual consciousness, and have no substratum of real existence which endures when that consciousness is no longer active, is of course inconsistent with all forms of scientific realism, and is therefore rejected by the evolutionist. of the Evolution Philosophy. 17 when tested by scientific methods, are found to be almost always illusory and misleading. The perception of this fact imposes upon us the sacred obligation to penetrate beneath the surface to discover the causes and the real relations of phenomena, and to apply the knowledge thus gained to the advancement and betterment of human life. Xo realm of thought is thus too sacred for the human mind to penetrate. Into the nature, origin and historical evolution of religion, into the character and history of man's moral sense, into the realms of psychology and of the physical sciences, the reason must search for material wherewith to broaden and deepen the life of man, and enlarge the area of human happiness. Nor is man even forbidden to enter into the lofty regions of speculative thought : only he is bidden to remember that, in exercising his reason upon ontological problems, he can do no more than to create symbols and imaginative pictures of that which is, from the nature of things, in its absolute essence beyond our human ken. Something of gain in the way of mental discipline there is, doubtless, in climbing occasion- ally into the thin air of these upper regions of speculative research, if by breathing it we do not become intoxicated with the conceit that we are thereby acquainting ourselves with the actual verities of Absolute and Unconditioned Being. Compared with the results of research into the relations of phenomena, conducted according to the scien- tific method, metaphysical speculation has proved unpro- ductive, unprogressive, and sterile of practical benefits to man. There is no agreement as to results among specula- tive thinkers. The schools of metaphysics are as numer- ous as theological sects, and for a similar reason : there is no criterion of truth which all agree to accept. It is evident that the content and methods of religion as reconstructed in accordance with the principles of science and the philosophy of evolution, will differ essentially from those which have governed and still largely govern the work of the Christian church. Yet in so differing they will, if we mistake not, come nearer to the essential thought of the founder of Christianity. Instead of urg- ing man to an egoistic strife after personal salvation, relig- ion thus reconstructed will bid him so enlarge and culti- vate his own nature that he can render the worthiest and most profitable service to his fellow-men. Instead of basing 18 The Scope and Principles salvation on dogmatic belief, it will make it a process of moral and intellectual growth a process of character- building. Instead of repressing the intellect, disparaging human reason, and discouraging free thought, it will bid man remove all shackles and fetters from the mind, to think deeply, to think beyond the superficial appearances of things to breathe the keen air of the intellectual life with perfect freedom, finding therein an inspiration to the noblest living and most devoted service. Instead of urg- ing man to an emotional spasm of repentance for wrong- doing, it will bid him carefully ponder upon the results of his actions, note the instant eifect of an evil deed in re- pressing fulness of life in atrophying the character of the doer. It will show him that the penalty of wrong- doing is intrinsic instead of extrinsic that heaven and hell are conditions of the mind rather than definite local- ities in space. It will regard religion as a life rather than a ceremonial or a creed. It will inculcate justice in place of charity. Instead of accepting poverty, ignorance and wretchedness as ordained of God, as conditions of life to be accepted with resignation and mitigated in some small degree by alms, it will endeavor as far as may be to abolish these conditions, by rendering the poor self-helpful, by educating the ignorant, and by removing the causes of disease and vice, thus laying the foundations of a nobler individual manhood, which is the only sure basis for a regenerated society. If we accept Cicero's derivation of the word " religion," its essential meaning is faithfulness, thoroughness. Tliis principle of faithfulness evolution will teach man to carry into every department of his thought and labor. The reply of the servant-girl, who had recently united with tlie church, to the question of her mistress as to Avhat evidence she had of her conversion : "I know I have got religion, because, now, I sweep under the mats," is suggestive of that conscientious element that a rational religion based upon evolution should introduce into human life. INIatthew Arnold's definition of religion is, " Morality touched with emotion " : a morality lifted out of mere conventionalisms, a morality which will make the employer recognize the lunnanity of his employee, striving to render him a just compensation for his labor, instead of treating him as a mere money-making machine ; which will make the work- of the Ecolut'wn Philosophy. 19 ingman anxious that his work shall be well done, rather than make him strive to do as little as possible for his wages ; which shall abolish shoddy clothes and Buddensiek buildings ; which shall do away with the adulteration of foods and drugs ; which shall create a divine discontent with the " old clothes " of superstition and unreason with which the average man has been satisfied to array his intel- lectual and religious nature, this, if not answering to all that we mean by religion, is the natural and consistent product of a Eeligion of Life. Go into yonder church select it almost at random, if you please, from any quarter of these two great cities these Siamese twins whose common artery is our beautiful Brooklyn bridge and question its members as to the character and meaning of its creed. How many will you find who really know any- thing about the dogmas which they are supposed to profess and believe a belief in which, in many instances, is deemed essential to salvation ? How many of our city congregations, of whatever sect, would sit patiently and hear the cold logic of Calvinism brought home to their understandings ? Against all these duplicities of thought and life, so prevalent in this transition period, the phi- losophy of evolution enters an emphatic protest, seeing that that only can promote growth of inanly and womanly char- acter which is vitally and really appropriated by the under- standing, and allowed its legitimate bearing upon the healthful activities of life. Evolution recognizes the continuity of thought the solidarity of the race the indebtedness of the present to the past. It does not therefore endeavor to establish the new truth or the higher social ideal by violent or revolu- tionary methods. It seeks for the soul of truth in things false for the soul of good in things evil seeing that evils and falsehoods are usually goods and truths out of their proper relations. Evil is mal-adjustment. Its cor- rection should therefore be sought by readjustment, rather than by destruction. Evolution would build on the exist- ing good, rather than seek to lay an entirely new founda- tion. In the church, Evolution beholds an institution capable of bestowing infinite benefits upon mankind ; yet as organized and directed in the past, and to a great degree in the present, it has been and is an institution of doubtful utility. It has repressed the individual reason, teaching 20 The Scope and Prlnc'qiles its devotees to accept as authority the commandments of pope, or priest, or ecclesiastical synod, or sacred book. It has made the past a shackle upon the present, instead of a help and an inspiration to a larger and more progressive life. It has fostered a morbid and unhealthy other-world- liness, instead of seeking to better the condition of men here and now. It has cultivated a low pretense of famil- iarity with the person and attributes of the Deity, as it has assumed to define them, instead of bidding the soul stand in reverent awe in the presence of "the Infinite and Eter- nal Energy whence all things proceed." All these things must be changed if the church Avould remain a living and progressive force in the individual life and in the ordering of society. Instead of ceremonies and w^orship based upon the cur- rent anthropomorphic conceptions of the deity, there Avill arise '' observances tending to keep alive a consciousness of the true relation in which we stand to the Unknown Cause, and tending to give expression to the sentiment underlying that consciousness." As to the character and attributes of this cause, the religious teacher, accepting the teachings of Evolution, Avill not arbitrarily dogmatize. In the language of Mr. Spencer, " duty requires us neither to assert nor to deny that it has personality, but to submit ourselves with all humility to the established limits of our intelligence, in the conviction that the choice is not between personality and something lower, but personality and something higher, and that the ultimate reality is no more representative in terms of human consciousness than human consciousness is re})resentative in terms of a plant's functions." The fact that we stand continually in the presence of this Ultimate Reality, that it is involved in every phenomenal activity, whether of mind or of matter, will however, be kept contin- ually before us. The use of the term '' Unknowable," as applied to this Reality, is unfortunate if thereby it conveys the idea of that which is practically or actually non-exist- ent, a superficial interpretation of Mr. Spencer's doctrine with Avhich we are frequently assailed by his self-consti- tuted critics, but against wdiich he everywhere carefully guards himself, to the understanding mind. As he himself declares : " the Ultimate Reality is the sole existence ; all things present to consciousness being but shows of it." In the words of an able popular interpreter of the evo- of the Evolution Philosophy. 21 lution philosophy : " The agnostic minister will be chiefly a moral educator; but while discussing ethical questions, which must of themselves exert a highly elevating influ- ence on his hearers, he will, at the same time, have ample opportunity of ministering to their spiritual needs by appropriate references to the mysteries of cosmology, either for the purpose of quickening the religious emotions and reinforcing the religious consciousness, or with a view to emphasizing some moral lesson which he may wish to bring home to the hearts of his hearers. Thus will man's con- duct be influenced in the right direction. On the one hand, the necessity of leading a moral life will be impressed upon him ; on the other hand, he will be led to reflect upon that inscrutable power whose marvelous energy reveals itself in a universe of wonders a power which, though indefinable, nay inconceivable, is yet as real in its existence as it is unknowable in its attributes." * Though incompre- hensible, this power is apprehensible ; though unknowable in its essential nature and attributes, it is known as exist- ing, known as infinite and eternal, known as the Energy from whence all things proceed, and known symbolically in its relations to man and to the phenomenal universe. This knowledge satisfies every legitimate hunger of the heart and mind. The attitude of the mind, therefore, in contemplating the Infinite Source of phenomena should be profoundly reverential and worshipful ; yet its truest ser- vice will be found in no ritual or stated ceremonial of relig- ious worship, but in the active and intelligent service of man. And in and through this service, making life itself seem ever grander, more precious, more beautiful, there may grow up in the mind a rational hope for personal con- tinuance hereafter, to supplant the dogmatic assurance of the old theology, in which, as inculcated by the Christian church, thoughtful minds are everywhere coming to have a less and less confident belief. Evolution teaches the essen- tial goodness and desirability of life ; and on this founda- tion, if on any, a rational hope of immortality must finally be based. In this direction the healthy emotions of a rational mind are entitled to have free play, " so long as they do not trespass upon the domains of the intellect." *The Moral and Religious Aspects of Herbert Spencer's Philosophy. By Sylvan Drey. ( London : Williams & Xorgate. Boston : James H. West, Publisher.) 22 The Scojje and Principles Whether this hope in individuals be vivid or dim will prob- ably be largely a matter of temperament and predisposi- tion ; but it will doubtless be even more dependent upon the lively comprehension of this fundamental doctrine of biological evolution the doctrine of the essential good- ness and desirability of life itself. From what has heretofore been said, it is evident that Evolution, whether regarded in its philosophical or in its religious aspects, will largely interest itself in the practical problems of sociology in the promotion of more active and more widely extended human sympathies, in the eleva- tion of the poor, the vicious and the down-trodden thus extending the boundaries and the satisfactions of life not only among the remote and barbarous populations of the earth, but also, primarily and correlatively, in each individ- ual member of society. The word " sociology," as applied to the science of society, or its French equivalent, is, I believe, the invention of Auguste Comte ; but the credit of working out this science of society, from strictly scientific data, into a natural and comprehensive system, is due, more than to any one else, to Mr. Herbert Spencer. It is to this study, most vital in interest and importance to every liuman being, that this series of lectures will direct our attention. Whether or not society may be properly termed '' an or- ganism," in the strict sense in which the individual prod- ucts of biological evolution are thus designated, it certainly bears a close relation to them in many important respects, and especially as to the character of its process of growth. As compared with the development of inorganic materials, which grow by simple accretion or addition to their bulk, organic substances grow by intussusception a process of waste and repair which reaches every i)article throujj^liout their internal structure. In this respect the growth of societies resembles that of organic substances ; it is a sort of vital chemistry. All actual and permanent enlargement of society proceeds from the voluntary co-operative action of individuals. Affection and self-interest are the attrac- tive forces which weld society together, and these forces ojjcrate directly in and u])on individual iniiuls, throughout the social structure. The death of individuals, and the birth and growtli of others to fill their places in society, proceeds in like manntu- with the processes of waste and of the Evolution Philosophy. 23 repair in organic structures. There is such an intimate relationship between biological and social studies, that some knowledge of the laws governing biological growth is neces- sary to lit one for forming correct judgments on socio- logical problems. Biology and sociology both treat of the phenomena of life both involve psychological as well as merely physical conditions the one leading up to the other by an entirely orderly and natural process of devel- opment. Evolution shows that the phenomenal universe is "all of one piece," and in its unity of method sym- bolizes an essential unity of Being, which, if we may not directly affirm it as a demonstrated fact, at least constitutes the most satisfactory and rational theory of the nature of things. In this higher field of sociological study, how many and varied are the problems that are presented for our investi- gation the profoundest, most deeply interesting of any which the human mind can attempt to solve ; for they are problems which concern the origin, the essential character, the temporal and final destiny of man as an individual, and of Man as a race. Without attempting to forestall the sohition of any of these problems, I may, in conclusion, state negatively the attitude of the evolution philosophy toward sociological studies. I. Evolutionists have no special schemes , for social reform to urge upon society. They regard all earnest efforts for the amelioration of existing social evils and inequalities, with sympathy and appreciation, but insist that the various " rapid transit " plans for achieving these much desired ends shall be rigidly examined in the light of social science, and not be too hastily accepted for all that their originators claim them to be. Evolutionists realize that " Nature does not advance by leaps," and they would carefully note the trend of past events, and study the nature of individual man in history and in connection Avith his present institutional environment, before urging him to a definite, forward step, in a direction contrary to that which he has been pursuing. To the Evolutionist, the a priori scheme of the social reformer bears a certain resem- blance to the philosophical system of the metaphysician, and, like the latter, he thinks the former should be sub- mitted to the test of the experiential method. 24 The Scope and Principles II. In urging the study of jVEau in his historical rela- tions, however, evolutionists do not claim that society should take no forward step, or that man should simply imitate or repeat the past. An able student of social and economic problems, Prof. Wm. G. Sumner, a gentleman whose abilities I admire and with many of whose conclu- sions I agree, in an article entitled '' What is Civil Lib- erty ?" in a recent number of the Fopulur Science Monthly, makes the remarkable statement that the doctrine of man's natural liberty is a "dogma," of purely metaphysical origin, and asserts, in italicised phrase, that ''that dogma has never had an historical foundatio7i, but is the purest example that could be brought forward of an out and out a priori dogma." "The doctrine of evolution," he adds, "instead of support- ing the natural equality of all men, would give a demon- stration of their inequality ; and the doctrine of the strug- gle for existence would divorce liberty and equality as incompatible with each other." " Civil liberty," he says elsewliere, " is not a scientific fact. It is not in the order of nature " ; and all these startling assertions he makes in defense of the doctrine, the natural foundations of which he arbitrarily endeavors to undermine. To the evolutionist it is quite evident that if the learned Professor was as well instructed in biology as he is in the- ology, metaphysics and the a pjriori discussions of political economy, he would quite otherwise interpret the sociologi- cal teachings of Evolution. He is but a poor student of natural science, indeed, who would simply content himself with learning facts, without endeavoring to trace their re- lations, to study their causal connections, and therefrom to draw prophetic inferences to guide his future investiga- tions, to interpret underlying laws, and thus enable him to push forward to new discoveries. * To say that Evolution " does not point toward civil liberty " because communities of men have never existed completely under its beneficent sway, is to cut away from scientific research tliat very synthetizing and prophetic quality which is its noblest and * If the doctrine of man's natural liberty is only a "dojrnia," as the I'ro- fessor declares, a mere speculative ideal, and notliinj; more, then it is idle to pursue such a chima-ra. or to liase ui)on it a social jihilosophy. J5at if it is a condition of social eciuilibrinm, towareen working thrr)u;ihout all the stajres of social develojiment. Then, like the moral law, it is :liscoveral)le tliroufili exi)erience and historical investifration, and is strictly " iu the order of nature," though not as a completely realized ideal in society. of the Evolution Philosophy. 25 most fruitful characteristic, and has been the foundation of all advancement, invention, and discovery, from the birth of modern science throughout the entire history of its magnificent achievements. The history of the past gives us pointers for the future and they point always away from the crudities, errors and failures of the past, in the direction of an ideal perfection. In all evolutionary pro- gress, Nature moves along the lines of the least resistance, and these lines are not usually discovered by the use of metaphysical divining-rods, but by patient, unbiased, per- sistent investigation. Myself a firm believer in the advan- tage and necessity of a larger commercial liberty between nations, I do not believe that the beneficence of this prin- ciple will ever be brought home to the convictions of the people by a priori theorizing. The sooner our Economic professors and social reformers appeal to the facts and les- sons of experience, instead of to metaphysical dogmas, and adopt the method of Evolution in place of that of specula- tive theory, the better it will be for the reforms which they advocate. The method of Evolution, as the name indicates, is in its very nature progressive. Evolutionists know that there is no such thing in nature as absolute quiescence : we must have either the activity of progress, or the activity of retrogression. The one leads to a higher and more perfect life the other to dissolution and death. Let us see to it that ive choose the way of progress, and of Life ! ' ' The outworn right, the old abuse, The pious fraud transparent grown, The good held captive in the use Of wrong alone " These wait their doom, from that great law Which makes the past time serve to-day ; A-ud fresher life the world shall draw From their decay, " O backward-looking son of time ! The new is old, the old is new The cycle of a change sublime Still sweeping through. " So wisely taught the Indian seer : Destroying Siva, forming Bralim, 26 Scope and Principles. Who wake by turns earth's love and fear, Are one the same. *' As idly as in that old day Thou mournest, did thy sires repine. So, in his time, thy son, grown gray, Shall sigh for thine. " Yet not the less for them or thou The eternal step of Progress beats To that great anthem, calm and slow, Which God repeats ! " Take heart ! the waster builds again A charmed life old Goodness hath ; The tares may perish but the grain Is not for death. " God works in all things ; all obey His first propulsion from the night ; Ho, wake and watcli ! the world is gray With morning light !" * * Whittier, " The Reformer.' THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE BY EOBEET G. ECCLES, M. D. Author of "Evolution of Mind: its Nature and Development." COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. Spencer's "First Principles," and "Principles of Psychology", Fiske's " Cosmic Philosophy " ; Kant's " Critique of Pure lleason." The works of Bruno, Locke, Bacon, Spinoza, Hume, Mill, Reid, Mansel and Hamilton. (28) THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE.* As this is a Sunday evening lecture, I suppose it is proper to begin with a text. I select the following, therefore : "And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven." Gen. xi., 4. The childish notion expressed in these words is to-day so palpably absurd that a boy of ten years of age would laugh at it, if it were seriously proposed. As transparently ridic- ulous as it is in physics, the same notion is quite common in philosophy. Men expect to build towers of speculation whose tops can reach the Absolute. The projectors of Babel's tower no more seriously hoped to touch the region known as heaven than do our philosophers, who strive to know things as they are in themselves, to reach the indeter- minate. Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo cut away the foun- dations from the earth and left it floating in the ocean of immensity. Hume and Kant, Berkeley and Spencer, cut away the foundations of the supposed stability of truth, and left it a tiny speck amid the endless deep. A tower from either foundation reaching to the infinite is simply ludicrous in its absurdity. All we know or ever hope to know is practically wiped out when contrasted with the in- finite. Two points along any straight line that are at an equal distance from any third point, and in the same direc- tion, must be exactly together, and are not two points at all. From our first item of knowledge to the end of endless knowledge is no farther than from our last item to the same. All we can grasp in thought pales into nothingness before the infinite ocean of facts. If a worm cannot compass our conception of the universe with its limited fund of experi- ence, neither can we compass that of a being millions on millions of times farther beyond us in progress than we are beyond a worm. Natural Philosophy is steadily proving the kinship of our senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling. * Copyright, 1889, by James H. West. 30 The Relativity of Knowledge. We have been taught at school and college to look upon sound and coloj.', odor and taste, as resultants of motion and sensation. The phonograph and telephone are daily demonstrating that sounds of all kinds are merely vibra- tions borne to our senses by means of the ear. The speed and method of vibrating of the disk form all the vocal sounds in complete fidelity. A slow vibration gives a low pitch, and a rapid one a high pitch. All the colors of flowers, ribbons and rainbow are borrowed reflections from the white light of the sun. Monochromatic light would give a ghastly world. (Here the lecturer illustrated by il- luminating with monochromatic light.) Light vibrations give us the sensation of color. The slowest moving waves give us red and the most rapid violet. Taste and odor are due to contact-vibration rather than to that of waves, but are subject to somewhat similar laAvs. Every sense has an exceedingly narrow range. Less than a certain number of atmospheric beats per second will give us no sound. More than a certain number will likewise leave us in silence. Ears are not all alike in this, some being able to hear a higher pitch and others a lower one than their neighbors. The sounds our ears can hear are within a finite range ; those possible to Nature spread off into the inflnite both above and below our powers. Colors are subject to the same law. What the eye can see downward is limited by the speed producing red, while vibrations of ether slower and slower down to inflnity probably exist. What it sees up- ward is a somewhat greater but still limited speed giving violet, while waves of greater and greater speed running upward inflnitely are embraced in Nature's compass. Make proper telephonic connection from the sounding-board of a piano to a remote room ; connect an octave of tuning-forks, pro})erly arranged for damping ; play any tune on the piano within the range of the forks, and they will reproduce it. (The lecturer illustrated by striking a tuning-fork, which conveyed its note to a second fork on a sounding-board, which continued to vibrate after the one originally struck was damped.) Strike notes higher or lower than your forks and they will remain practically silent. A harp with the range of a single octave will do the same. Duplicate every note of the piano with a corresponding one in a tuning- fork, and a reproduction of every piece played on the piano, whether high or low, becomes possible. We are The Relativity of Knowledge. 31 like the single octave of forks, and Nature is like the piano that goes both above and below our powers. But while the piano itself is a finite series, and only a little beyond the octave of forks, Nature is endless in her range, defying our powers of imitation both upward and downward. A worm, claiming to know the universe as it is, becomes an edifying spectacle. A blind fish in the Mammoth Cave would know the folly of the worm, al- though repeating the same silliness for itself. Man can see that neither the worm nor the fish can compass anything like a correct conception of things as they are. The creature last produced, no doubt always in the pride of its heart thinks its own knowledge final, and is willing to stake everything on it. A being as far beyond us as we are be- yond a worm would wonder at our presumption, if made aware of it. Then beings millions on millions of times beyond him, along the infinite scale of impossible concep- tion, would see that even his knowledge was as nothing to the whole. From the single sense of the lowest animal, to the most accurately adjusted five senses of the highest Caucasian, is but a narrow step. We are not one whit nearer that end- lessness of sense-potentiality here depicted for the know- able than is the lowest creature that lives and breathes. Its knowledge of the actual state of the heart of things is as great as ours. It is as near the final synthesis of the awful abyss of endless fact as we are or ever shall be^ though we may go on trying to approach it forever and forever. Science may explain and explain, yet, after all, what do her explanations amount to, before this awful problem that our conceit thinks it has solved ? Physics and chemistry, biology and astronomy, are all vying with each other in trying to explain all things as modes of motion. Our friend Mr. Perrin has taken this cue, and worked out a philosophy where everything is knowable.* He asks us if motion is not the final fact of experience ; if all facts are not at last resolvable into facts of motion. Well, what if this be so ? Suppose we can show that we have no evidence of the existence of motion ? Even if we acknowledge that things do actually move, instead of merely appearing to do so, we can still ask him to tell us *The Religion of Philosophy. By Raymond S. Perrin. 32 The Relativity of Knoivledge. how he can have motion unless there is something, not itself motion, that can be moved. If all human experi- ences are due to motions, what is the unknown something that makes motion possible ? On a ship coming from Liv- erpool to New York, if you walk from stem to stern at the rate of three miles an hour, you may be very certain that you are moving, and those of your fellow-passengers who see you are equally positive. If the boat is going with just the same speed in the opposite direction, it becomes evident that you were all mistaken. As you walked east- ward you no doubt were confident of the direction of your motion ; yet if the boat was going thirty miles per hour in the opposite direction, it is clear that instead of going three miles eastward, as you at first believed, you were really going twenty-seven miles an hour westward. But ^ven this correction can be challenged. The earth carries boat, ocean and passengers at a rate of about 1,000 miles per hour eastward, so that it seems you are going East after all at the rate of about 973 miles per hovu-. Again, this can be challenged ; for the orbital motion changes all our previous computations. Once more, this last can be challenged, for the movement of the solar system among the fixed stars must be considered. Motion cancels motion as we go along in our discoveries, until we finally see that, for aught we know to the contrary, every motion ever made, considered absolutely, may be a mere illusion of sense, due to position, as in the cases we have noted. Could we trace our way through the depths of infinity, we have no reason for assuming that the cancellations, both in direction and time, are not endless. Analogy would say they are. Who then can ever know whether or not there ever was any such thing as an absolute change of place at all ? Of relative change we have an abundance of evidence ; of absolute change, none. As science on tlie one hand resolves everything into motion, and on the otlun* hand proves that we have no evidence of the actiuil exist- ence of motion, it very plainly cancels its own testimony and leaves us without a guide. In considering the physiology of sensation, this cancel- lation becomes still more complete. The thought of a moving body is but a mode of consciousness. The whirl of a wheel gives us no evidence that it, too, is a mode of consciousness. We can truly picture with some approach The RelativitT/ of Knowledge. 33 to accuracy the ideas of other minds. Why ? Because their ideas and ours are both of a kind they are both ideas. We cannot so picture the actual state of that exter- nal reality which produces in us the sensation of a revolv- ing wheel. A sharp knife will produce the sensation of pain. Have we any reason for believing that the pain thus produced was part of the knife-blade, that got into us from it ? A flea moving over our backs will give an itching sen- sation. Does the sensation, <'itch," escape from the feet of the flea and enter the back ? A gentle touch of the ribs by mischievous finger-tips will produce the sensation of tickle. Is the '' tickle " first in the finger-tips and then in the ribs ? An electric induction-coil produces a sensa- tion of shock. Is the shock first in the coil and then in the person shocked ? Our judgments demand that these questions be answered in the negative. W^hatever stimu- lates the nerve-centres susceptible of itching, pain, or tickle, will give us these sensations ; and the stimulating thing need in no sense resemble the sensation produced. Now, it is precisely so with the nerve-centre which appre- hends motion. Whatever stimulates it, makes motion vis- ible to our senses. The poisonous ptomaines of the blood in the delirium of fever produce just such stimulation. Drugs can do the same. An undigested supper will make us see bodies in motion, or believe we move ourselves, in dreams. As the fingers tickle the ribs, so drugs and poisons tickle the brain into seeing moving bodies. They evoke the sen- sations of space and motion. The space and motion I am conscious of in a dream is, so far as my sensations are con- cerned, the same space and motion of my normal, waking moments. Surely you will not assert that the dream-space and dream-motion, and a badly digested supper that tickled it into being, are identical ? If a dose of rich pie-crust can make the sensations of space and motion appear in consciousness, what evidence have we that the actual things in themselves, that encompass us within Nature, are any more like these sensations than the pie-crust is ? If alcohol in excess can tickle our nerve-centres into seeing moving snakes, how do we know that the real snakes are not as unlike these sensations which they produce as the alcohol is ? We can believe that our sensations of space and mo- tion, and the things normally causing them to appear, are just alike. We can also, if we wish, believe that mis- 34 The Relativity of Knowledge. chievous fingers contain the tickle that enters the ribs. Our belief one way or the other cannot alter the facts. This much we can know that the proof in the case of the tickle is just as strong as in the case of space and motion. He who perversely asserts that the finger-tips first contain the tickle that is given Uj) to the ribs, that the flea's feet hold the itchiness that is given up to the back, and that the knife-edge has the pain that enters the cut, is just as rational as tliose who declare that the outer realities of being resemble the space and motion sensations produced in us by their stimulations. He who asserts that the sub- stances which stimulate the nerve-centres of space and motion, producing a delirium of these sensations, is like the sensations themselves, has as much proof as he who holds that anything we see is in any known way like the realities of absolute being. Do whiskey -molecules shape themselves into wriggling snakes when they enter the brain ? Do Indian hemp and morphine, on entering the brain, assume the forms of space, time, and actual world-objects ? Surely no one will hold to a notion so crude. Yet it is not one whit cruder than the current notions of men who believe that the Absolute Reality, external to consciousness, can in its real nature in any sense ever be known. The logic in both instances is positively identical. Space and time, matter and motion, as known to us, are only states of our own consciousness, which the actual con- ditions of being tickle into perception. Whatever outer reality answers to space, stirs up that feeling in us. What- ever outer reality answers to motion creates in us that feeling. Whatever outer reality answers to matter in- duces that feeling. The outer reality bears the same rela- tion to our conception of space, motion, and matter, as tlie fingers, fleas' feet and knife-blade do to the tickle, itchiness and pain. A picture in perspective (illustrated by stereop- tieon views) will stir iTp in the proper nerve-centres a sen- sation of de})th or distance in space, although we know it is not the same as the outer reality that usually stirs up the same feeling. We know it is on a flat surface. A stereoscope will make the sensation more intense. A rotating Geissler-tube, when illuminated, may be made to induce the sensation of right-hand motion when really rotating toward the left, or of left-hand motion when whirling toward the right, or of no motion at all, when, The Relativity of Knowledge. 35 relative to other senses, it is in rapid motion. On a rail- road-train we have all observed how our motion-centres have been agitated into a belief that we are moving, when it is another train that moves, and not ours. As space and motion are but forms of our own consciousness, having some answering correspondence out of the consciousness that produces them, so the tastes and odors, as well as the colors and forms, of objects, are in the same condition of relativity. If I look at a grain of sand through a magnify- ing glass, I observe that what I see is magnified ; but the grain itself does not change its size. If what I see is made larger, but the thing itself is not made larger, the conclusion is inevitable that I do not see the thing itself. This is no trickery of logic, but unchallengeable reason. With crossed fingers I feel one marble as two. I do not actually feel two marbles, but two sensations proceeding from one. If what I feel is doubled, and the thing itself not doubled, I do not feel the thing itself. Take oxygen, hydrogen and carbon atoms. Arrange them one way and you have oxalic, acetic, tartaric or citric acids. Arrange them another way and you have sugar, glucose or levulose. Arrange them other ways, and you have tannin, or the various non-nitrogenous bitter princi- ples of plants. Surely, the same thing cannot in itself be sweet, sour and bitter. The various new arrangements only enable it to tickle our nerve-centres in a somewhat different manner. Turpentine, oil of lemon, oil of bergamot, oil of orange, and oil of pepper, are not only composed of the same kinds of atoms but in precisely the same propor- tions. The shapes into which they are built enable them to affect our nerve-centres differently. The scarlet and yellow iodide of mercury vary only in the way each crys- tallizes, and the color can be changed at will. (The lecturer illustrated by exhibiting scarlet iodide of mercury on a paper. Heating it over a lamp, it became yellow. Crush- ing the yellow crystals with the hand, it again became scarlet.) Salts of mercury, and iodine, may exist together as perfectly transparent solutions, or as densely opaque ones, according as they are able to affect our nerves. (Illus- trated by experiment.) Cold substances brought togetlier may produce heat. The relativity of all these properties appears plain after a few such considerations as the following : Dissolve a 36 The Relativity of Knowledge. small quantity of tartaric acid in a large amount of water, until it is just slightly sour. Let one gentleman swallow some very sour solution slowly, and another one a very sweet one. Now let both taste the dilute acid. No. 1 will de- clare it positively sweet, and No. 2, annoyingly sour. The thing itself is surely not both sweet and sour at the same time. Put your right hand into hot Avater for a while, and your left into cold. Now withdraw both and insert them into a single pail containing te])id water. To the right hand it will be cold, and to the left hot. Surely tluit water is not both hot and cold at the same instant. Let two i)er- sons stare, the one at a very red object and the other at a bright green one ; then let them simultaneously look at a light pink object. The man Avho stared at the green will be sure it is bright red, and the man who stiired at the red will be equally sure it is bright green. (Illustrated on the screen, by the stereopticon.) Is it both red and green at the same time ? The fact revealed by all these experiments is that sensa- tions are states of the conscious-being, and that we have no reason for assuming that things in themselves are like the sensations they produce. Changes in the individual produce changes in the sensations, though we are morally certain that no corresponding change occurs in the external things themselves. Every one has observed how differ- ently his taste has been affected by the same articles of food when sick and when well. So decided, indeed, does this difference become, that things at one time desired, at another become positively obnoxious. There is no change in the food. The change is in the patient. Then, on the other hand, tobacco, at first decidedly disgusting, comes at last to be craved as a sweet morsel. If taste was an actiud quality existing in the things, no change of the individual could alter it. AVe do know Avith certainty how things affect lis, but when Ave assert that this effect is like that Avhich caused it Ave go farther than sound reasoning can tolerate. While thus subject to fluctuations, there is a sort of ])ar- allelism between sensations and the things Avliich induce them. Sugar Avhen out of the mouth, though free from sweetness, does possess some property that in the mouth produces SAveetness. A cannon, fired Avhere there are no ears, may evoke no sound ; but there is something produced The Relativity of Knowledge. 37 that is capable of stimulating ears, when present, into hearing a loud sound. The object I call red may be inno- cent of redness in the absence of eyes, yet it always has something that stirs up the red sensation when eyes are turned toward it in the light. The universe emptied of conscious beings would probably have no length, breadth or thickness. It, however, would still possess some con- stant properties as essential to its being as dimensions are to our conception of it. If we compare things in them- selves to the German language and our knowledge of them to the English language, it will be seen that, so far as prac- tical, every-day aifairs are concerned, our ignorance is not pressingly important. All our ideas can freely be conveyed by the English language, and, while a knowledge of Ger- man might also have its advantages, we can really get along very nicely without it. Even so, our knowledge of phe- nomena can answer our requirements very well without our knowing the answering facts of the noinnena. Should an English-speaking person be called upon to give up his lan- guage, he, if he knew no other, would feel that such an edict demolished all language. When the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge proves to us that in the actual uni- verse of being there are neither time nor space, matter nor motion, form nor force, as we know them, to those who can- not look beyond this fact it seems positively a denial of being itself. The Englishman forbidden to speak English and unacquainted with any other language is struck per- fectly dumb. Conscious beings forbidden to think in terms of thought and experience are launched into helpless un- thinkability. To conceive of matter without lengthy breadth and thickness is utterly impossible ; and to attempt to picture the universe in thought as spaceless would be absui'd. If we are practical realists we have our theory of the universe. We believe it to be just as it alfects us. If we are savants, we know this is absurd, and so we alter it into terms of extension and motion. If we are idealists, we assert it as consciousness impressing consciousness. If we are solipsists, Ave declare it to be non-existent save in ourselves. Realist, scientist, idealist and solipsist are sim- ply theorizers producing languages of their own, while the true language lies behind and out of reach of all. We must have a theory of the universe of some kind. With- out it life would be, so far as we know, impossible. The 38 The Relativity of Knowledge. Agnostic perceives that all these theories are wrong, yet knows that he is himself powerless to provide the right one. He therefore adopts the one that practically is least objectionable, and that, of course, is usually the trans- figured realism of Science. To his mind there naturally comes a condition of perfect freedom from bias of a fixed type. He sees that pretensions to supernatural knowledge are unfounded, but he also sees that the claims of impossi- bility hurled at such knowledge by the sceptic are just as little susceptible of proof. Fairy tales and Arabian Night tales he may look upon with incredulity, but of the facts they record he Avill not be caught asserting the absolute impossibility. Modern Science itself has forced upon us conclusions that seem as devoid of reason, to non-scientific people, as the tales of Baron Munchausen. Take for in- stance, the idea of the physicist concerning the universal ether. Space, he tells us, must be filled everywhere, even in a so-called vacuum, with a substance immensely more elastic and dense than the densest steel.* The dense walls we cannot penetrate are vastly less dense than the space we think is vacant, and in which we move around without per- ceptible resistance. The undulatory theory of light and heat force him to this conclusion in spite of himself.f School text-books usually endeavor to avoid this rock of stumbling by avoiding its mention. Maxwell's new mag- netic theory of the cause of the undulations strengthens the implication by giving more evidence of it. The doc- trine of the correlation and conservation of physical forces, upon which we may safely say our whole civilization has been reared, becomes an unthinkable jumble of unintellig- ibility without it. Our railways, steamboats, steam looms, and myriad forms of steam engines, our telegrai)hs, tele- ])hones, electric lights and electric engines, our modern cheiiiistry, Avith its means of supplying beauty in clothing, purity in food, and medicines, have all been added by fol- lowing the very line of thought that makes theoretically necessary this dense, elastic ether. The doctrine of Evolu- tion is itself the outcome of a chain of facts that point to this seeming absurdity as a solemn truth. Only totally denying the existence of matter, or accept- ing the more rational hypothesis of rhythm among attenu- * Jevon's I'rinciples of Science, Vol. 2, p. 145. t Familiar Lectures on Scientitic .Subjects, j). 282. The Relativity of Knowledge. 39 ated atoms, will help us transcend the difficulty. !N"o mat- ter how continuous a body may seem to be to our senses, chemistry and physics join hands in telling us that this is a mere illusion. The most solid steel is built of molecules that are not and cannot be in actual contact with each other.* They exist in it like a cloud of gnats or flies, and only appear one instead of many because they move to- gether as a niass. If two pieces of steel resist each other, and refuse passage-way the one to the other, it is not be- cause there is not room enough for both pieces within the same superficial limits, but because they are acting like two belligerent flocks of birds, and meeting with their mole- cules, breast to breast. How easy it would be for two flocks of pigeons to pass each other in opposite directions, without the least resistance, if they would only fly in inter- mediate spaces. A distant onlooker could then see them apparently occupying the same space at the same time. The mass of a cubic inch of mercury is far greater than that of a cubic inch of aluminum, and yet the resistance of the latter is far greater than that of the former. If a trip-hammer is adjusted in its rhythm to seconds, and your finger can be waved to and fro beneath it in intermediate time, no harm can befall you. A single maladjustment will cause resistance, or the destruction of your finger. Let the rhj'-thm of the molecules of this disk be adjusted to the rhythm of those of my hand so that they can freely pass each other, and practically the desk will have become non-existent. Adjust those of our bodies to those of the wall, and Ave will no longer need doors. The wall resists light just as it does our bodies ; but glass that may be much denser allows that same light to go through, practically unob- structed. As the light goes through the glass, or electricity through a copper wire, although neither can force a passage- way through a brick, so we go through the solid ether, but cannot pierce the less dense wall. Solidity is only a term belonging to relations, and not an actual condition of being in itself. For anything that we can know to the contrary there may be, right here and now, passing through us and this world, some planet invisible to us, with mountains, oceans, lakes, rivers, cities and inhabitants.! To either affirm or deny betrays our mental weakness. We are * Maxwell's Theorj- of Heat, pp. 281 -287. t Jevon's Principles of Science, Vol. 2, p. 145. Young's " Works," Vol. 1, p. 417. 40 The Relativitij of Knowledge. bound either to limit infinite nature to our finite concep- tions, or to fly off at an insane tangent to the region of fairies. We simply do not and cannot know, one way or the other. For aught that we know to the contrary, the heavenly bodies above may play the part of molecules in forming worlds as much vaster than ours as it is larger than a hydrogen molecule. In such colossal globes there may be intelligent creatures of corresponding magnitude, to whom our little world may be merely a tiny molecule. Again, downward amid our smallest specks of hydrogen, may be complexities as great as those to which we are accustomed. There may be beings and a civilization there. No one can tell. If our world and all it contains, with all visible things, should instantly expand from its present size to that of a giant planet having globes of the precent conceived size as its molecules, we could not know it. If at the next instant it should shrink back again, and past our present conceived point, to that of a hydrogen mole- cule, we and all other things changing in perfect accord, the alteration would be equally unknown to us. All our relations remaining fixed, no method of experiment or in- vestigation could tell of the change. Perhaps now, while we speak, such a swing may be incessantly going on. We know that, relative to one another, the sizes we bear are the same as they were ten minutes ago ; but we do not know whether in an absolute or infinite scale we have not expanded or shrunk billions of miles in our dimensions. We are in utter darkness upon the subject, and it is well for us to know it. Ignorant conceit, only, shrinks from such considerations. As we do not know whether we move at all or not, or, if we do, in what direction we move, so we do not know what size we absolutely bear, or whether we bear any constant size at all. IMotion and size are meaningless terms outside of mere relations. Turning to the weights of bodies, Ave find ourselves forced to the similar conclusions, although weight is our test of mass. The amount of substance in a thing is supposed to be known by its weight. A grocer, with what we call accurate scales, gives us a pound of but- ter. Carried to the equator it is found to be less than a pound. Carried to the pole it is found to be more tlian a pound. Taken to the moon, it would require nine tinu^s as much to make a pound. Taken to the sun, it would weigh The Relativity of Knowledge. 41 a ton. Taken to a star a thousand times larger than Sol, it would weigh 1,000 tons. Taken oft" into the depths of space far from any matter, it Avould gradually get less and less in weight, down to the minutest fraction of a grain. What is its absolute weight ? Has it any ? Its mass, its form, and all its properties which we knoAV, belong only to its relations in the same manner. In itself it has none of them. Absolute truth is hidden from us at every turn and in every place. To us things are true or false, right or wrong, good or evil according as they relate themselves to our understanding. To say whether a thing is true or not we must know its relations. Principles and ideas are true or false according to the standpoint we take in viewing them. Men may positively contradict each other, and both be true and right. In the illustration already given, the man walk- ing toward the stern in the steamboat bound for Xew York, can honestly maintain that he is going eastward at the rate of three miles an hour, while a more far-seeing traveling companion contradicts him, and says he is not going east- ward but westward, and not going three miles an hour but twenty-seven miles an hour. A still more far-seeing gentle- man can honestly and truly contradict both, and assert that the walker is right in saying he is going eastward, but wrong in saying his speed is only three miles an hour ; for it is over 900 miles an hour. Unless all of them can keep their tempers, and lionestly try to find out what the others mean, each will conclude that the others are either fools or stubborn knaves. The zeal that kills, punishes, and hates one's fellows, because they disagree with us, is born of the belief that man can possess absolute and unchangeable knowl- edge. To the zealot, a thing is either true or false, always and under all circumstances. He cannot see that the highest truth is only the last point to which our minds have shifted along a contradictory line. Everything we call truth is only tentative. It is the synthesis of all the facts we have mastered. Additional facts will carry us beyond, to a point that will make our last belief appear a falsehood. Certain things are good and true to our present form of civilization. Change this form, and good becomes bad, right wrong, and truth error. Within this civilization, and harmonic with its structure, there are truths that are now and to us positively true. Change the civilization, and 42 The Relativity of Knowledge. that which was before harmonic, and therefore good, may become discordant and therefore bad. The believer in the Relativity of Knowledge must neces- sarily be a free man mentally. He can listen dispassion- ately to the wildest dreams of Utopia, and say " Yes, when men change in such and such ways your ideal may be real- ized," Mohammedan, Brahmin, Anarchist, Mormon, Spir- itualist, Materialist, Catholic, Protestant, Atheist and The- ist, all alike can tell their story to him, and he will per- ceive that every one of them has ideas that occupy proper places somewhere along the path of the shifting pendulum of relativity. They all occupy, in relation to each other, lower and higher planes of thought, containing some rela- tive truth and a good deal of even relative error. The latter is born of lack of knowledge of facts. The Agnos- tic is a man who is completely disenthralled from the nar- row prejudices so characteristic of his race. He is as earn- est in defending the truth of definite relations as anybody, but he does not fight over the question as to the absolute- ness of such relations. He knows that everything is shift- ing incessantly, and that the truth of to-day may be the error of to-morrow. He has discovered this truth of truths, and realized, in the fullest sense of the words, the exact meaning of that saying of Jesus, <'And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you freer" (John viii., 32.) PRIMITIVE MAN BY Z. SIDNEY SAMPSON Author of "The Evolution of Theology." COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. Spencer's "Principles of Sociology"; Lyell's "Antiquity of Man"; Winchell's " Pre- Adamites " ; Joly's " Man befoi-e Metals" ; Force's " Prehistoric Man " ; Lubbock's "Prehistoric Times," and "Origin of Civilization"; Keary's " Datvn of History"; Lind's "Man"; Nadaillac's "Prehistoric Man in America"; Nillson's ^'Prehistoric ManinSkandinavia" ; Evans' " Ancient Stone Imple- ments in Great Britain," and "Bronze Implements in Great Brit- ain"; Quatrefage's " The Human Race " ; Tylor's "Anthropol- ogy," "Primitive Culture," and "Early History of Mankind'"; Wilson's "Anthropology"; Wright's "The Ice Age in North America"; Wood's "Natural History of Man"; Lewis's "The Antiquity of Man in Eastern America" (in Am. Geologist, 1880). (44) PRIMITIVE MAN.* Man, whence and whither ? These problems have puzzled all the ages and perplexed all the philosophies. If the most advanced doctrine of Evolution be true, and if not only the complex physical organization of Man, but his royal intellect as well, have been compacted of the nebulous mists of the ancient heavens, the mystery and wonder are intensified in manifold degrees, and man becomes a greater enigma to himself than ever. "We walk between two eternities," said Diderot. "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting," writes Wordsworth. Says the Sphinx, in Emerson's Poem : "Who'll tell me my secret The ages have kept ? 1 awaited the seer, While they slumbered and slept; The fate of the man-child ; The meaning of Man ; Known fruit of the unknown.". . . Something, however, -thanks to the science of late years, which has supplanted the former guess-work that went by the name of science, is known of the character of man's life upon the earth prior to historic records ; and the same science is pressing hopefully onward to open new avenues of exploration, and to perfect such knowledge as we possess. In our course of lectures last year we were amply instructed as to the present accomplishments of science on the question of the "Descent of Man." We are now, in a supplementary way, to inquire what has been the life record of man since the period when first he stood forth as truly man, asserting through some sujjcrior, though at first, slight prescience, his mastery over the mere brutes that perish. If the conclusions are subversive of some cherished legends of the historic past, yet here, as on so many other lines of Evolution, we obtain a more unified and coherent, and * COPYEIGUT, 1890, by James H. West. 46 Primitive Man. thereby a more reverent conception of the totality of Nature and of Man, and may be reconciled to the loss of that which the more credulous past held worthy of belief; for as these myths of ancient times have enriched the imagination, and stimulated the faith in an Unknown, so have they entered into tlie life of the Present, which is the sum of all the Past, and have but been transformed into loftier ideals. The establishment, within a recent period, upon a satis- factory scientific basis, of the fact of the great antiquity of man upon the earth, was primarily due to the results of investigations regarded, at the time, as of but slight conse- quence, and therefore, like so many other preludes to the discovery of important scientific truths, wholly under- valued, and, indeed, for a considerable time, wholly disre- garded. The credit of inaugurating the line of research Avhereby has been ultimately demonstrated the existence of primitive races for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years anterior to all historic records, belongs to the French scientist, M. Boucher de Perthes. Possessed by the energy and enthusiasm of a truly scientific spirit, he devoted him- self from the year 1830 to 1841 to a thorough exploration of the ancient caves, peat-mosses and diluvial deposits in the vicinity of Abbeville, and in the valley of the Somme, in France. During this five-years' labor he unearthed a large quantity of flint weapons and tools of various kinds, evidently shaped by artificial means, having surfaces and edges roughly chipped, and obviously designed for use as spears, arrow-heads, axes, knives and hammers. The ques- tion immediately suggested was as to the age of these inqdements. To this geology furnished a reply. Tlie objects were found to be incrusted with material of a yellowish tinge, clearly not due to the substance of the ob- jects themselves, but to the ferruginous nature of the soil in which they had been imbedded. In a certain layer of the diluvium was found the character of such deposit as would have caused the incrustation, and, if the objects were imbedded in it at the time of its formation, some approx- imate idea could be obtained as to the age of the inqjle- ments. "If," as he says in his report upon these investi- gations, as quoted by Prof. Joly in his work, " Man before Metals," ''they were in tlie bed from tlie beginning, tlie problem was solved, and the man who made the implement Primitive Maji. 47 was anterior to the cataclysm to which the deposit owed its formation. In this case there was no possibility of doubt. Diluvian deposits do not, like peat bogs, present an elastic and penetrable mass" (i.e. a mass into which objects could have been forced by various external agencies), <'nor do they, like the bone-caves, present a gaping chasm, into which objects might have been thrown by torrents, or into which they might have been conveyed by men or animals, but, on the contrary, each period is sharply defined. The layers are disposed horizontally, the strata differ in color and sub- stance. If this work of human hands has remained there from the first, as irremovable as the bed itself, then it had a prior existence, and these rude stones, in all their imper- fections, prove the existence of man no less surely than such a building as the Louvre itself could have done." This was evidently a true scientific induction, inferred in accordance with the well recognized scientific formula that the opposite of the proposition cannot be conceived as true. The question as to the age of the diluvium itself makes it necessary for us to turn a few leaves of the geological record. As set forth in the subjoined table,* the periods with Avhich we have to deal are of the Tertiary and Quater- nary epochs, these having been preceded by the immensely long eras of the Primary and Secondary, in which it is not claimed that any traces of man's existence have been dis- covered. Considering now the question as to the possible or prob- able existence of man in the several epochs of the Tertiary, it is agreed that no traces of human remains or human workmanship are discoverable in the earliest, i.e. the Eocene. The mere absence of human remains does not, however, conclude the question, for such are but rarely found in the long subsequent Pleistocene strata, whence, at the same time, thousands of flint implements have been excavated. But the argument from the character of the fauna of the period militates strongly against the prob- ability of man's existence. Giving here the conclusions as summarized by Prof. Fiske in his interesting essay on "Europe before the Arrival of Man," we note the first appearance, in the Eocene, of the placental mammals, fol- lowing the marsupials of the earlier periods, of which * See next page. 48 Primitive Man. latter but few species remain. But the placental mammals of the Eocene differ so widely from the mammals of to-day as not to be recognized as related, in succession, to the Geological Periods. Baces. Ages. 1 i ALHTVIUM and RECENT DILUVIUM GLACIAL EPOCH PLEISTOCENE or POST PLIOCENE HISTORIC LAKE-DWELLERS DOLMEN BUILDERS MOUND BUILDERS PEAT BEDS SHELL MOUNDS CAVE MEN RIVER DRIFT MEN- IRON BRONZE NEOLITHIC TRANSITION PERIOD PALAEOLITHIC PALEOLITHIC Ex PLIOCENE MIOCENE EOCENE PROBABLE APPEARANCE OF MAN EXISTENCE OF MAN DOUBTFUL MAN NON- EXISTENT PALAEOLITHIC latter, except through careful and experienced scientific research and classification ; and the difference consists, mainly, in their far closer relationship among themselves, in structure, than among existing orders and species. In Primitive Man. 49 the Eocene we find the ancestor of the horse, but having several toes, instead of the solid hoof. We have the pro- genitor of the deer and antelope species, but not presenting the special characteristics of the latter, being devoid of horns or antlers. The nearest approach to what was to be man is discovered in the lemur and lemuroid ape. The strange circumstance of all, however, is the resemblance, in form and structure, between the hoofed quadrupeds and the primates (i.e. the lemur and ape families). In other words,, we do not find in the Eocene any of the existing species or genera, but only fauna of the fossil orders, from which present species and varieties have, by a slow evolu- tion, diiferentiated. It is therefore, argues Mr. Boyd Dawkins, with much force, in his "Early Man in Britain," altogether improb- able that man, the most highly complex and specialized of all the primates, with his manifold special characteristics and adaptations of bodily function, to say nothing of his extraordinary and diversified mental processes, should have been contemporaneous with a fauna which had not, as yet, developed a single feature of physical conformation peculiar to the species now existing. To this conclusion add the argument from the non-existence, so far as now known, of human remains or implements, and the question of man's existence in the Eocene must be answered in the negative. Coming now to the Miocene, or Middle Tertiary, the dis- cussion turns mainly upon the fact, or otherwise, of the discovery of traces of man's presence. The discovery of carved flints below certain miocene deposits in France was announced at the Prehistoric Congress in Paris in 1867, and again at the Prehistoric Congress in Brussels in 1872. The announcement caused a wide divergence of opinion among anthropologists, which continues to the present time, some denying wholly that these carvings are the work of man, oth- ers being doubtful, some few admitting it. The question evi- dently awaits further exploration. The supposition of one eminent scientist, M. Gaudry, that these incisions could have been made by the great man-like ape of that period, the dryopithecus, is not generally accepted. With reference to the Pliocene a like question has been raised as to the age of discoveries of the same and similar character. In 1844 the finding of human bones in a volcanic breccia upon the side of a mountain in Prance, 50 Primitive Man. upon the opposite side of which, in the same deposit, were unearthed bones of species of mammals long since extinct, was asserted to prove man's existence in the Pliocene ; but the age of the deposit itself has been questioned, whether Pliocene or early Quaternary. In 1863, the discovery of carved flints in the Pliocene sands of Chartres was com- municated to the French Institute ; and still further, in the progress of the Geological Survey of Portugal, stone imple- ments were found in the Pliocene beneath 1200 feet of superincumbent rock. Without multiplying instances, for which there is not space, the consensus of scientific author- ity is strongly to the effect that man had appeared in the latest Tertiary epoch.* But with the close of the Tertiary, and opening of the Quaternary, all doubt ends. In the Post Pliocene, or Pleistocene, the evidences crowd upon us, and from that period the evolution of man in physical and social con- ditions may be traced, not, indeed, with entire accuracy, but with reasonable certainty. Considering, for a moment, the geological character of the epoch, as necessary to account for the localities of origin and successive migra- tions of primeval man, we note that the conformation of the European continent was, substantially, as at present. It is asserted that, during the Pliocene, inland seas extended from the eastern portion of the Baltic to the Persian Gulf, and from the Caspian to the Arctic, thus allowing the warmer southern currents of the Indian ocean to modify the severer climate of Scandinavia and Russia. Professor Geikie claims that these seas disappeared early in the Pliocene, thereby reducing the temperature of Northern Europe. By the close of the Pliocene the climate of Northern Europe generally had become considerably colder. Throughout the early Pleistocene we therefore have remark- able alternations of climate, precisely how many is unknown, but heralding the approach of the long Glacial Epoch, or constituting interglacial epochs, of which two at least are generally admitted. The proofs of these successive warm- ings and coolings are found in the curious intermixture of fossil remains in the deposits of the Pleistocene. With the remains of mammals i)eculiar to present tropical areas, viz., the lion, leopard, elephant, etc., we find bones of Further evidences are collated in Prof. E. I). Cope's Lecture on "The Descent of Man," Brooklyn Etliical Association "Evohition Essays," p. 163. Primitive Man. 51 the musk sheep, reindeer, arctic fox and chamois, showing that successive cold waves had forced, at one epoch, the arctic fauna far south of their present locality, and again that this was followed by a rise in temperature which permitted the animals of tropical zones to exist much far- ther north than at present. It has been shown that men, prior to the Glacial Epoch, or savages perhaps rather, of probably an extremely low grade of development, without pottery, possibly in the earliest periods unacquainted with lire, existed contemporaneous- ly with a fossil species of the rhinoceros, which at some warm period lived in the vicinity of London and was distrib- uted extensively over Xorthern Europe. They were anterior in time, in France and Britain at least, to the musk sheep and the marmot, animals of the glacial and pre-glacial epochs. The flint implements of these tribes are of the roughest kind. It is claimed by some that these races were supplanted by the subsequent Cave Men ; by others that they represent only an earlier and more primitive condition of the latter. The place of origin of Eiver-Drift man is unknown of course, and to what periods immensely remote his ancestry extended it is still less possible even to approximate. He is simply the earliest of our own species whose existence is traceable, and, if belonging to essentially a distinct race from his successors, he has vanished into the night of the past, with only the most rudely chipped flints left to reveal even the fact of his having been u^pon the earth. The result of the gradual refrigeration of the IS"orthern Hemisphere was the Glacial Period of the Pleistocene, and the overlaying of all the countries now known as Finland and Northern Russia, Scandinavia and Scotland, and the American Continent as far south as the latitude of Phila- delphia, Avith a sheet of ice many hundreds of feet in thick- ness, sending forth immense glaciers still farther south- ward. The occurrence of the Glacial Period is so well established as to have become one of the commonplaces of Geology. The proofs from the striation of rocks in the northerly and central portions of Asia, Europe and Amer- ica, caused by the friction upon rock surfaces of masses of ice in motion, and now still being produced by glacial action in the Alps and elsewhere; the fact of old river-beds existing at the foot of mountains, which have undoubtedly, in past ages, been the scene of glacial movement, and caused 52 Primitive Man. by the melting of the ice mass, the deposit, in all coun- tries, of boulders evidently brought from regions far remote northerly from the localities where deposited, and of a min- eralogical character wholly different, in many instances, from that of the soil on which they rest, are matters of ordinary information. The important result, in the history of primitive man of the ice age, in Europe certainly, w%as the migration from the vicinity of our present arctic climate into the central and southern-central portions of the continent, of the race known as the cave-men, forced south- erly by the exigencies of extreme cold, and displacing or exterminating the j)rior people of the river-drift, who have left with us such abundant proofs of their occupation in the countless specimens of flints, knives, axes, hammers and weapons with which, and by which, their existence and name are identified. The cave man was contemporaneous with the entire glacial era, and with the geological period immediately subsequent, classed by scientists as the Diluv- ian OT-^Drift. This brings us once more to the formation in which M. de Perthes' discoveries Avere first made, and by him made available for further scientific inquiry. The diluvian deposit was largely a direct consequence of the cessation of the glacial epoch in Europe, caused by the gradual increase in temperature and the resultant melting of the vast ice formations, and the gradual withdrawal of the southerly line of glacial action to the remote north once more, except in lofty and therefore cold altitudes like those of the Alps, where it is still in operation. The con- sequence of this general melting down of the ice-deposits Avas the creation of extensive river-floods, which, bearing along the great mass of foreign bodies conveyed southwardly by the glaciers, formed what is known specifically as the diluvium of the valleys consisting of debris from the mountains, gravels, pebbles, and sediment of mud and sand frequently impregnated with oxide of iron (the ferruginous layers of which we have spoken), and with calcareous or chalky material. The close of tlie diluvian period brings us to the alluvial deposits and recent period, within which no terrestrial changes of soil or climate have been suflicieut materially to affect the evolution of tlie race. I return now to the discoveries of jVI. de Perthes. With great confidence in regard to the bearing of these u])on tlm future of primitive ethnology and archaeology, he submitted Primitive Man. 53 his specimens to the Institute, with the usual consequence of arousing skepticism, and, in this case, ridicule. But he laughs best who laughs last, and prejudice and obtuseness finally yielded to scientific examination. It is not so many years indeed, since men ceased to regard these strange, but by no means unusual objects, as preternatural, if not supernatural, or "freaks of nature" as they were once termed. The ancients, indeed, classed them with the supernatural, and had called them ^^lapides fulminis,^' implying that they had fallen from the sky with the thunderbolt and ^^ ceraunioi gemmce,'" i.e. heavenly gems, on the theory that they had been formed on the earth by the fire of Jove; so, also, "lightning-stones." They were used in certain religious ceremonies by Egyptians and Romans. Even to-day they are objects of superstitious regard among some of the more ignorant of the peasantry, and kept by them carefully as having power to ward off disease or witchcraft. But even among scientists these implements had not received the attention which they deserved. As soon as investigation was commenced and interest aroused, many collections were found to have been already made, available for further study, and wliich have materially contributed to the advancement of prehistoric archaeology. Following Sir John Lubbock and others, the division of the age of primitive man which has been generally approved, is that into the palaeolithic, or old stone, and the neolithic, or new stone periods, and the periods of bronze and of iron. To the palaeolithic are assigned the eras of the men of the river-drift and of the cave men ; but it should be here remarked that the points of transition between these various epochs, as well as the length of the periods them- selves, are extremely vague and indeterminate. Old and new stone implements are, in numerous instances, found in the same locality, and neolithic and bronze objects are also frequently associated and both these, in some cases, with implements of iron. To definitely differentiate the periods is equally impossible the earlier extend into the later, so that any chronological arrangement, except of the most general kind, is out of the question. So far, likewise, from these epochs being contemporaneous in all parts of the world, we have numerous of the lower and some of the higher of the savage races of to-day, and some of the 64 Primitive Man. partly civilized, in the habitual use of stone implements of the later stone age. It has therefore been properly said that a given kind of implement indicates rather a stage of culture than a classification in time. So regarded, the palaeolithic are characteristic of the earliest man ; these, roughly hcAvn and chipped, betoken an extremely remote age. The specimens consist of axes, lance and arrow heads, knives, scrapers for preparing skins, and hammers, all of the most primitive type, prepared almost exclusively from flint, except where, as in America, jade and obsidian are more readily obtained. These implements abound in great quan- tities, not only in the diluvian, but in the numerous bone caves of various ages, and megalithic tombs, in peat mosses, shell mounds, barrows, crannoges and lake-dwellings. It is to the flints discovered in the bone-caves that we owe the second important deduction as to man's antiquity, for here we discover bones of extinct species of animals intermingled with palaeolithic implements. If the imple- ments are found so imbedded wath these remains as to prove contemporaneity in the date of deposit, we have a further satisfactory scientific datum. It is now absolutely known that the principal species of animals existent dur- ing the early Quaternary though now wholly extinct- were the mammoth, the Avoolly rhinoceros, the cave hyena, the cave bear, the cave cat, the cave lion, and the Irish elk. "With the bones of these quaternary fauna, have been founil associated not only flint implements, but human remains as well, under circumstances which preclude any reasonable doubt of the co-existence of man Avith the above enumer- ated species. The announcement of these discoveries was first made in 1828. In 1833 tlie caves, of Belgium were thoroughly explored, and skulls and portions of the human skeleton were found lying not only above, but below, fossil animals. Sir Charles Lyell first opposed the theory, but after a quarter of a century argued in su])port of it; and when, in 1858, upon a thorough examination of the recently opened cave of Brixham, in England, an entire leg of the cave bear was found superimposed upon an incrustation of stalagmite, which itself was found superimposed upon flint instruments, the proof was deemed sufficient for the Royal Society to endorse the pro])osition of the existence of Quaternary man as fully established. The bone-caves aboujid in all parts of the globe, among Primitive Man. 55 the most interesting being those found in the cretaceous or chalk formation. As to the agencies by which they have become thus filled with human and animal remains, the action of river-floods does not appear to have been the sole cause, though it may have been one of the most efficient. As has been remarked, these cavities were, for a length of time unknoAvn, utilized by primitive man, as well as by various species of now mostly extinct animals, for purposes of residence, and for temporary shelter ; both probably carried or bore into them the animals upon which they subsisted or preyed. The mere juxtaposition of human and animal remains does not, of itself, demonstrate the great antiquity of the former, for, in fact, various articles of undoubtedly recent human workmanship have been found thus associated. But '' doubt is no longer reasonable when the bones of animals and those of our own species, uniformly mixed, imbedded in the same sediment, and which have undergone the same alterations both in external characteristics and of chemical decomposition, are moreover covered by a thick layer of stalagmite when objects of a completely primitive industry occupy the same deposit with bones of extinct fauna. And finally, when we find in the diluvian strata of the valleys, manufactured objects and bones exactly like those discovered in caves of the same date, the proofs are conclusive." * Have we any data for determining or approximating the age in the world's history of the glacial period, and there- by the time of existence of the cave men and their prede- cessors ? It seems that we have. I give the summary of the argument as set forth by Professor Fiske, in his interesting essay on the " Arrival of Man in Europe." The conclusions there stated are those reached by Prof. Croll. The chief cause of the reduction in temperature, Avhich ultimately produced the ice age, was an alteration in the earth's orbit in the direction of greater eccentricity. f It has been shown that at least three times within the past 3,000,000 years this eccentricity has reached its maximum, with the result * Prof. X. Joly, Man before Metals. t In the discussion followintr the lecture, Dr. P. H. van der Weyde sujifrested that the gradual elevation of land-areas into the region of i)erpetual cold, was a simpler and more reasonable explanation of the formerly extensive prev- alence of glacial phenomena, which are still observable in areas of high eleva- tion. This theory would require ecjually immense periods of time for the deviation of these' recurrent periods of glacial action, and would equally indi- cate the early appearance of man. 56 Primitive Man. that the difference between the greatest and least distances from the snn has been between lour and tive times as great as at present. That is, instead of being, as now, a differ- ence of only 3,000,000 miles, it was from twelve to fourteen millions. Furthermore, owing to what is known to astron- omers as the precession of the equinoxes, at regular intervals of 10,50t) years the winter season has occurred and will occur when the earth is in aphelion, or at the longest distance from the sun. If, now, these two events concur, that is, if the greatest eccentricity of the earth's orbit hai)pens at a time when winter occurs in aphelion, the earth would be in mid- winter at ninety-eight millions of miles distance from the sun, instead of, as at present, ninety-one millions, and the "Winter would be twenty-six days longer than Summer, instead of, as now, being eight days shorter. Working upon these data, Prof. Croll asserts that the first of these periods of great eccentricity began 2,650,000 years ago, and lasted 200,000 years ; the second began 880,000 years since and lasted 160,000 years; the third commenced 240,000 years ago and lasted 160,000 years. This would give us, since the termination of the last glacial era (or eras), 80,000 years. But it is certain that man of the river-drift period lived in pre-glacial times, and if Ave accept the conclusion that the most recent glacial era commenced 240,000 years ago, we must allow not less than 400,000 years ago as the date of the close of the Pliocene period, and the probable first appearance of man. Other theories which have been proposed to account for the Glacial Age, such as variations in the intensity of solar radiation, the movement of the earth from a colder into a warmer region of space, alteration in the axis of the earth and others, are fully stated and criticized in the twelfth chapter of Sir John Lubbock's '' Prehistoric ]\lan," as are also investigations into existing deposits and formations with a view to ascertaining the probable antiquity of the stone and bronze ages. With the disa})pearance or final retreat northward of the cave men, now represented as seems probable, if they have left any descendants, by the Esquimaux tribes alone, me may say that the palaeolithic age as a generally ])revailing stage of ])rimitive life closes, and we observe the gradual appearance of the ground or polished stones which typify the Primitive Mon. 57 neolithic period. A word, however, is necessary as to the habits and customs of palaeolithic man. iS'otwithstanding assertions to the contrary, the bnlk of evidence indicates that Quaternary man from the most remote period was in possession of lire. According to one authority it Avas known to him as far back as the Miocene, but the proofs do not seem to warrant this belief. But in the case of the earliest cave men we find numerous hearths, ashes and cinders, bones wholly or partly calcined, and fragments of hand-made pottery blackened by smoke. Pre- historic man of that period cooked his food, therefore, perhai:)S not after our fashion, but possibly as among cer- tain present savage tribes, by the application of heated stones, or in water heated by such means. His food was not carefully chosen, as it seems to our taste. Mammoths, the rhinoceros, beavers, dogs and foxes were on the bills of fare.* Marrow was a great dainty, as is evident from the quantity of the long bones of animals which have clearly been broken for the purpose of its extraction. Fire was probably obtained by friction in various ways, as among existing low races. Palaeolithic man possessed no cereals, nor had he domestic animals or agriculture. For his sus- tenance he contended with the wild and ferocious animals of his time, as is evident from many skulls of beasts frac- tured by flint weapons. His clothing necessarily was furs and skins, to prepare which he evidently used the flint scrapers which are so abundant. Pins of clay or bone were used to fasten the clothing, though in the so-called reindeer- age rude sewing was effected by bone needles. Of social customs we have no trace, although, if we j udge by analogy of existing savage tribes, both polygamy and polyandry were practised. Of the earliest men we discover no remains of dwellings. They contended with the cave bear and cave hyaena for shelter in the natural cave formations. It was a struggle for existence in the utmost acceptation of the phrase, and that from such an unpromising environment the race should have risen to its present high standard of social and intellectual advantage is not one of the least of the won- ders that the philosophy of Evolution offers for our reflection. *The recent discovery by M. Armand Vire, of palaeolithic flint-hooks, which had evidently been usetl as flsh-hooks, and the prevalence of palaeolithic spear- heads in the" river-drift, indicate that tish was also a common food of palae- olithic man. 68 Primitive Man. We must further briefly note that the numerous carvings and designs of species of animals now extinct, which have been discovered on many of their fossil bones, fre- quently exhibiting a very considerable ability in outline delineation, and superior to anything produced by the lowest or even somewhat advanced races of to-day, are an important contribution to the proofs of the antiquity of man, and equivalent in fact to any others which have been adduced. We may here properly sum up the several evidences : First The discovery in the diluvial or drift strata, Avhose age in geological history is relatively well known, of rude artificial flint implements. Second The discovery in bone caves of human remains and flint instruments demonstrated to be contemporaneous with the remains of species of animals undoubtedly extinct, and of species also which have long disappeared from the region where these remains are found. Third Carvings of extinct species of animals upon the bones of such animals. Fourth The demonstration of the descent of man from some species of primate, necessitating an enormous period of time, anterior even to the Tertiary, for his progress to his earliest known or supposed appearance distinctively as Man. It is not improbable that the very earliest races were wholly devoid of any sentiment of what we call religion, or habits of worship. The lowest tribes of which we have any account in historical records appear to have possessed some instinctive recognition of superior powers, and we discover none in which some rite of propitiation and sacri- fice, or funeral cerenionial at least, has not prevailed. If primitive man exliibited any religious, or, at any rate, theistic observances, they must have appeared, of course, in forms of the lowest and most degrading fetishism, inspired only by fear. But the question must remain largely speculative. At some period subsequent to the disappearance of the cave men, and extending in some cases into the neolithic age (for the chronology is very much disputed), occur the phenomena of the peat deposits, the shell mounds, or kitchen middens as they are termed, and tlie constructions Primitive Man. 59 of the dolmen and crannoge builders of Europe and Asia, and of the mound builders of America. Some species of dolmens may be older, others more recent, than the begin- ning of the new stone age. It is certain that the upper sections of the peat beds have yielded bronze implements, notably a bronze shield of skilled workmanship, which brings this deposit certainly below the neolithic era. These peat beds, or peat mosses, as they are called, are most abundant, and have been studied to the best advantage in Denmark. They consist of successive layers of carbonized material, formed from trees known to be of different periods, the lowest composed of aquatic plants and pines, including the Scotch fir, which long since disappeared from the country. This gives place to various species of oak, all but one of which has disappeared and these, in their turn, to the beech, which now grows luxuriantly in the country. The depth is from fifteen to twenty feet. Palaeo- lithic objects are found in the lowest deposit, which must, according to Professor Steenstrup, have been formed from ten to twelve thousand years since. Peat mosses and bogs, with corresponding remains, and imbedding the remains of extinct species of animals of the same age, are found in Ireland, Prance and Switzerland in the latter containing the well-known leaf-marked coal, which, being covered by a glacial deposit, is of great antiquity, contemporaneous, in the opinion of some, with the earliest appearance of man in pre-glacial times. While it is true that, owing to the spongy, yielding nature of the material of the peat beds, we are not so well assured as to the antiquity of remains therein imbedded as in the case of the well-marked geolog- ical stratum of the diluvium, yet the researches thus far undertaken have been so carefully and impartially con- ducted as to make their results as worthy of confidence as similar explorations of the diluvium ; and, as Professor Virchow has remarked, " If doubt was still entertained as to the coincidence of the age of the pines (now, as we have said, extinct) and the age of stone, the discovery of a flint instrument in the peat at the foot of such a pine would be conclusive." Coming next to the shell mounds or kitchen middens, these also abound most plentifully along the coast of Scan- dinavia, Denmark and Xorth Germany. They consist of remains of prehistoric cookery, oyster-shells, mussels, lim- 60 Primitive Man. pets and periwinkles, together with bones of mammals of species all at present extinct. The heaps themselves are from one to three yards in height by 100 to 350 yards long and 50 to 70 wide. In these, located but a short distance from the shores of the Baltic, and raised about three yards above the sea level, cinders, rude pottery and flint implements are found intermixed; but we discover no cereals, nor instruments of metal, though the flints are of better work- manship than those of the most remote palaeolithic age. Kemains of the blackcock and the penguin, birds long since non-existent in these localities, are also found, but no human remains. The age of the heaps is in dispute some placing it at 7000 years, others bringing them down to the age of the dolmens. It does not seem possible to reconcile scientific opinion on the subject. In the Winter of 1853-54 the waters of Lake Zurich fell to the lowest level till then recorded. Prof. Keller then first had his attention drawn to certain piles driven into the bed of the lake. The closer examination of these Avas the inception of a scientific interest among archaeolo- gists, in the investigation of these structures, which proved to be specially fruitful of results concerning prehistoric man. Kemains of wild and domestic animals, various forms of human skulls, implements of every description, in bone, flint, bronze and iron, pottery of more or less artistic workmanship, objects of art and ornament, woven stuff's, grindmg-stones, mill-stones, grains, breads, fruit, ashes, coal all these are found. The piles are from fif- teen to thirty feet in length, their diameter three to nine inches, and they project above the surface of the water from four to six feet. They are sometimes placed in lines parallel with the shore, sometimes at right angles to it, and are either firmly imbedded in the mud, or su])ported by heaps of stone at their base. They were united by trans- verse beams, lield in position by wooden pins. On these Ijeams was constructed a platform, of thick planks, or of split trunks of trees roughly squared; and upon the plat- forms were erected oval, circular, or rectangular huts, ten, fifteen, or more feet in diameter, the walls being formed of perpendicular posts fastened together by wattled branches, lined with a cement of clay. The huts were covered by a roof of bark, thatch, cane, reed, fern or moss ; a trap-door in tlie platform communicated with the lake below. Each Primitive Man. 61 hut was surrounded by a ring of piles, and was united to the shore by a drawbridge. Such in brief was the lake dwel- ling. Some two hundred villages of such dwellings have been explored, and it appears that each village averaged about three hundred huts. The objects to be secured by this peculiar construction have not been satisfactorily deter- mined, except that the tendency of scientific opinion is to consider defence against attack a principal motive. The oldest of these structures do not antedate the neo- lithic age, and it seems that they existed until a short time after the arrival of the Romans, at least, that is, into the iron age, in the western part of Switzerland. In the east they disappear with the age of stone. Authorities differ as to the period of their earliest construction ; some will have 5000 to 7000 years, others date them back to the earliest stage of the race. That they were considerably subsequent in time to the cave dwellers is, however, gener- ally conceded. What particular race inhabited and built them is also in dispute. Experts like Professors Keller and Virchow assign them to tribes of aborigines of Keltic origin. Another argument. points to an Asiatic origin, and to a sudden irruption of a new people, like similar irrup- tions of authentic history. The fact that, about the begin- ning of the neolithic age, several of the domestic animals (all of which were domesticated in Asia) appear in Europe at the same period ; that also some four species of wheat, two of barley, with millet, peas, poppies, apples, pears, plums and flax, all of which are found in the lake dwellings and elsewhere, are each and all Asiatic importations, points to the sudden appearance in the liistory of European eth- nology of a race essentially in advance of the cave dwellers in all matters pertaining to intelligence and civilization, and the life of which has never become extinct, but has subsisted and been infused into the life of present races. This race, which diffused itself throughout Europe, is alleged to have been of a dark, olive complexion, with black hair and eyes, represented in modern Europe by the Basque people, who have long been recognized as in some respects the most peculiar people in Europe dwelling in the secluded territory lying between the Bay of Biscay and the Pyrenees, and called by the Kelts, who were the van- guard of the great subsequent Aryan immigration, Iberians, or western people. They are supposed likewise to have been 62 Primitive Man. represented by the Etruscans of the early Roman period, with an admixture of blood from the Arabs, the Moors of Spain and the Berber tribes of Northern Africa. Whencesoever their origin, the earliest lake dwellers lived indisputably in the earlier stages of the new stone age. Their implements are highly polished, and frequently ingeniously decorated and ornamented. Many tools and utensils approaching the variety in modern use are not infrequently found ; flint saws with wooden handles ; harpoons and hooks ; arrows ; straight and curved needles, some of the latter sharpened at both ends, with the eye in the centre ; and all manufactured of bone and horn. Bone hairpins ; beads of amber ; horn drinking-cups ; pottery ; the shuttle, spindle, and loom ; various woven stuffs ; cords of tree-libre ; thread of flax ; willow baskets ; cereals, seeds, and various fruit in considerable abundance ; wooden bowls and platters ; combs, maces, battle-axes, spoons, bone forks ; all indicating that with the lake dwellers modern civili- zation had at last dawned upon Europe. They had, more- over, domesticated nearly all of our present valuable domestic animals, including the horse. Their carpentering was ingenious. Possibly they had commerce by barter with the Mediterranean and the Baltic, and they con- structed boats of great size and strength. They clothed themselves not only in skins, but with hempen and sewn stuffs. Their dead were buried in excavations, inclosed in large stone slabs, suggesting an approach to the dolmens, or niegalithic stones. Lake dwellings were not peculiar to the ancient Hel- vetians. We read of them in Herodotus as existing among the ancient Paonians. In modern times we tind them among the Cossacks, among the Papuans of New Guinea, in Borneo, the Celebes, and in Cochin China. Similar also Avere the constructions of the Aztecs of North America, and the so-called floating-islands of the Assyrians and ancient Chinese. The dolmens, or megalithic stones, are rudely constructed, of colossal size, consisting, in the case of dolmens proper, of huge stones i)laced horizontally upon other immense upright blocks, the whole either covered with earth, or left exposed. Of the latter kind, Stonehenge is a Avell known instance. Those covered with earth take the name also of "barrows," and "passage graves." These exjwsed dolmens. Primitive Man. 63 or " stone tables " as the word implies, abound especially in the plains of Brittany, in central France, and in the region of the Pyrenees. Isolated upright stones, mostly of enor- mous size, and known as menhirs, occurring sometimes singly, at other times in rows, are equally abundant, notably those at Carnac in France, which extended a dis- tance of a mile, and number, in all, eleven thousand, dis- posed in eleven rows. A single specimen measures twenty yards in length, by two in average width, and another rises to the extraordinary height of thirty feet above the ground, being imbedded fifteen below it. Covered dolmens were, quite exclusively, appropriated to purposes of burial ; exposed dolmens and menhirs commonly to religious observances and sacrifices. How these huge masses of stone were got together and raised is as much of a mystery as the piling of the Pyra- mids. Objects of both stone and metal have been discovered in the burial mounds, indicating that they are to be attrib- uted to a period bordering on the close of the stone and opening of the bronze periods. Who were the dolmen builders is another debated point in prehistoric archaeology. By some they are supposed to have been the Kelts ; by others, a race prior to the latter, whom they supplanted. That these structures are not Druidic, and that the Druids belong to a period far subsequent, is generally conceded, but scientists are at variance not only upon the question as to who built them, but also on the question whether they are the constructions of any special race, or whether ditferent races may not have independently reached, or passed through a dolmen and tumulus building epoch. That America, no less than Europe, was the the habitat of races as primeval as the palaeolithic man of Europe, has been fully established. At New Orleans a complete skele- ton has been discovered, buried beneath four successive for- ests, and an age of 57,000 years has been assigned to the remains. Agassiz came upon human remains in the con- glomerate of a Florida reef, which he assertec\ to have been deposited exceeding 10,000 years ago. The caves of Brazil have yielded, as in Europe, numerous bones of man im- bedded with those of fossil animals. The implements dis- covered are the same, subserving similar purposes, although, as has been stated, more frequently chipped from obsidian, jade or porphyry. Likewise we find in Central America, 64 Primitive Man. Peru, and Bolivia, the huge chulpas, or burial crypts, of perpendicular stones, answering to the similar dolmens and tumulus graves of Europe, and proving a universal tendency of primitive peoples to develop correspondent ideas as to architectural work, at widely different localities. It is to the so-called " Mounds of the American Basin " that notice and research have of late years been more par- ticularly directed, and it is in these localities, embracing the extensive areas in the region of the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi, in the valley of the Scioto, and in Wisconsin, that Messrs. Squier and Davis, and others, have made an exhaustive study of these prehistoric phenomena. Briefly stated, these mounds, mostly designed and con- structed for burial purposes, though in certain instances for purposes of religious observance, are in form most generally circular. At other times they are laid out, over extensive areas, in the form, or after the outline, of various animals, or even of such objects as pipes, etc. Advantage has been taken of the natural conformation of the ground to represent such figures, and tlie results, so far as mere size is con- cerned, are astonishing, one of them containing not less than 550,000 cubic feet, while four would exceed the largest of the Pyramids, and another one is fulh' 700 feet in lengtli by 500 in width and 90 in height, and is estimated to con- tain twenty million cubic feet of contents. There is considerable uniformity as to the relics discov- ered. Together with polished stone implements, we find work in copper, and also chipped flints, making it difficult to attribute the mounds to specific periods. The question is still furtlier complicated by tlie fact that they have been occupied by ditt'erent tribes, if not by various races, at suc- cessive periods, remains having frequently been disturbed, though not generally molested, for the convenience of sub- sequent occu])aiits. With reference to the mounds, as well as to the dolmens and barrows of Euroj)e, the conclusion of archaeologists is that they were intended, as in the case of the Pyramids, for places of seimlture for chiefs of tribes, perlia])S also for others of distinction. So much labor would not be expended for the burial of the common peoi)le. The rela- tive scarcity of human remains indicates the purpose above mentioned, and the presence of altars, and other tokens and emblems of ritual and sacrifice, suggestive of the Primitive Man. 65 universally prevailing worship of the dead, or worship of deities at the tombs of the deceased, points to the same conclusion. The period, or stage of culture, denoted by the use of bronze implements, brings us well within historic times. The date of the disuse of bronze, and the adoption of iron as the most serviceable metal for general use in the con- struction of tools and weapons, is as difficult of approxi- mation as the periods of the rise and cessation of the early ages of stone, for one reason, among many, that the use of bronze in the manufacture of ornamental work contin- ued far down into the iron epoch. Sir John Lubbock places the close of the Bronze age at the period of the Trojan war ; and the mention of brass (as the word bronze is improperly translated) in Deuteromony, so much more frequently than iron, denotes that the same age among the early Hebrews had not then closed. The object of this Essay being, particularly, an inquiry into the life and relics of more primitive races, our space has been mostly given to the discoveries and conclusions relating to the earlier old and new stone periods. Within the limits of a single paper, we can do little more than suggest, not discuss at length, the most important topics and results of prehistoric archaeology. The literature of the subject is voluminous and increasing, bvit it is not appropriate, in a popular series, that we should enter into scientific details, nor is such treatment in fact necessary or important. The significance of the whole discussion for us, in this course upon Sociological Evolution, hinges upon the question of man's existence in the palaeolithic age. If we establish, as a truth, the fact of man's existence upon the planet at a period remote from us by 80,000 years, or even half that time; if we find him, at that distant age, so low in respect to habits, manners, and intelligence, that for uncounted centuries lie had to take almost even chances of survival with the cave-bear and the mammoth, frozen by glaciers or scorched with torrid heat; toilsomely shaping his rough-hewn flints wherewith barely to hold his own in the struggle for existence; if these things be a proven fact, and if from this state have emerged the complex and elaborate civilizations, arts, commerce, industries, and im- mensely specialized activities of the modern centuries, the doctrine of the continuous evolution of man and of society 66 Primitive Man. receives an affirmation second only to that which it received when the genius of Darwin brought to its support the revolutionary doctrine of natural selection, with all its manifold implications. The descent of man from some one of the primates of the animal kingdom was indeed dis- tinctly asserted by Darwin ; but the proofs as to the slow, gradual melioration of the race, in respect to its pro- gress from brutehood to manhood, was yet to be distinctly affirmed and demonstrated by the patient labors of prehis- toric science. These demonstrations (for such they now are) have put the last nail in the coffin of special creation- ist theories, and the entire cosmos of man and nature is fully explicated as the sublime immanent working of One Power energizing in and through both Man and Nature. THE GROWTH OF THE MARRIAGE RELATION. BY C. ST AXIL AND WAKE Author of "The Development of Marriaoe and Kinship," "The Evolution of Morality," etc., etc. COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. Spencer's "Principles of Sociology"; "Wake's "The Develop- ment of Marriage and Kinship" ; McLennan's "iStudies in Ancient History" (on Primitive Marriage); Tylor's " Primitive Culture" Keary's "Dawn of History" ; Maine's "Early Law and Customs" Starcke's " The Primitive Family in its Origin and Development" Snyder's "The Geography of Marriage"; Morgan's "Ancient Society"; Lubbock's "Origin of Civilization"; Coulange's "An- cient City." (68) THE GRO^A^TH OF THE MARRIAGE RELATION.* So FAR as our experience goes, the highest product of evolution is the complicated social organism we know as a nation or State, and marriage is the essential condition of its existence. Not necessarily, however, such a form or forms of the marriage relation as distinguish existing civil- ized societies. History, past as well as contemporaneous, informs us that the relation between the sexes implied in the term " marriage " may take many phases. The prin- ciples of Evolution require, however, that these various forms of marriage shall not have originated spontaneously. They are growths of the great world-tree, and, as twigs of one of its highest branches, are organically connected with each other. The branch itself was once only a twig on the parent stem, and had its origin in a simple bud, the growth of which if traced throughout will show the development of the marriage relation under all its forms, and also of society itself. These considerations show that we must not look to the most civilized races of mankind for the earliest phase of marriage. Among them we may expect to find this rela- tion assume a form answering to the moral and intellectual status they have reached in the course of their general progress. Thus, among the Aryan peoples, or at least those who have embraced Christianity, monogamy, or the perma- nent marriage of one man to one woman, subject only to the law of divorce, is universally recognized as the only form which the marriage relation should be allowed to take. The existence of systematic monogamy is treated as evi- dence that any people among whom it is prevalent are far advanced in general culture. When, therefore, we read that "a man shall leave his father and mothei*, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh," Ave know that this rule cannot have been framed during the earliest age of man's existence ; and we infer that it was the mar- * CopviiiGHT, 1890, by James H. West. 70 The Growth of the Man'lage Relation. riage law of a race more highly cultured than the Israelites, who were polygamists down to a late period of their history. The early Hebrews had, however, made such advances in civilization that we cannot look to them for the earliest form in wliich the marriage relation expressed itself. We must go beyond tliem to the lowest of all exist- ing races, from whom we sliall learn mcn'e of the manners of primitive man than by searching the records of the l)ast. Marriage is, indeed, not limited to the human race. The idea of sex is universal throughout the organic world, and in the animal kingdom similar phases of the marriage relation are to be met with as with man himself. Thus, of the man-like apes, the gorilla and the chimpanzee are polygynous, while the orang and the soko are monundrous. The orang associates with his female companion only i)art of the year, but some kinds of monkeys, which are said to be strictly monogamous, live with their mates all the year round. This consorting is evidently based on the sexual instinct, which is the true source of all inarriage. We find that the chief actions of the animal life are directed towards one or other of two great ends, the pres- ervation of the individual or the perpetuation of the race. The former is the organic instinct, or instinct of self-pres- ervation, and the latter the sexual instinct, or instinct of race-perpetuation. The reference to race shows what is the true object of the association between the sexes in ''mar- riage," which necessarily supposes fitness fur the relation, and a certain degree of permanence. In the absence of permanence, the institution could not take root so as to undergo the growtli which the theor}' of evolution requires. Temporary marriages have not been unknown, even to peo})l('S claiming a considerable degree of culture, but i\\vy are not so common as some writers suppose, and they must be regarded as ])urely exce])tional. The nuirriage relation is thus based on the sexual instinct, its aim is the })erpetuation of the race tlirough the family, and it requires a certain permanence in the association formed between the individuals concerned. These features exclude from consideration the exam])les, real or sup])osed, of promiscuity, wliich are said to jirove that primitive man once existed in snch a social condition, but which do not possess the signiticance attached to them by Mr. Herbert The Growth of the Marriage Relation. 71 Spencer and other writers. Instead of promiscuity, we find that the most uncivilized peoples liave certain rules which restrict the operation of the sexual instinct, and reduce its importance as a factor in the formation of the marriage relation. Those restrictions are natural or human, accord- ing to their origin, and the former may fitly be termed a natural restraint on promiscuity. It has been found, by a study of the marriage regulations in force among various peoples, that individuals regarded as closely related by blood are not permitted to intermarry. This rule is so widespread that I have no hesitation in asserting it to be general. It was in operation among the ancients, and it is recognized by all peoples of the present day, however low they may be in the scale of civilization. There are certain exceptions, which, however, are so few that they show how general must be the rule. This may be illustrated by the fact that the Australian aborigines have a most elaborate system of kinship, based on the division of the tribes into classes and totems, with which is associated a series of marriage regulations whose object is to prevent the intermarriage of persons who are of the same blood. All the Australian tribes have the utmost abhorrence of consanguineous marriages, and the Dieyeri, one of the most uncultured of them, profess to explain the origin of the subdivision of the tribe into families or totem groups, as intended to prevent such marriages. Moreover, it has been shown by the Hon. L. H. Morgan that a system of kin- ship similar to that of the Australians, though, with certain variations, is in vogue among nearly all the non- Aryan peo- ples of the globe. Wherever kinship is traced preferably tlirough either the male line or the female line, the rule that persons related through the father or through the mother, as the case may be, cannot intermarry, is strictly enforced. It is usually extended so as to exclude from tlie marriage relation persons who are nearly connected through the other parent, although not regardeed as of kin. This extension is shown where, as among nearly all the Australian tribes, marriage with a half-sister is prohibited, although she belongs to her half-brother's intermarrying group. The rule of non-intermarriage of persons related by blood, which probably arose in the very infancy of the race, throu.ijch a natural feeling against the intermarriagre of 72 The Growth of the Marriage Relation. brothers and sisters, is expressed by the term exogamy, which, as used by its inventor, Dr. J. F. McLennan, meant "prohibited marriage within the tribe or group," as opposed to endogamij, or "marriage within the tribe or group." It was pointed out by ]Mr. Morgan that exogamy is merely the rule that iatennurriage in the gens is i)rohihited, the gens consisting of " a body of consanguinei descended from the same common ancestor, distinguislied by a gentile name, and bound together by affinities of blood." By endogamy, then, we must understand marriage within the gens or group of kin, and, apart from certain practices said to be known on special occasions to the Australian aborigines and some other uncivilized i)eoples, it may be doubted whether the existence of real endogamy has ever been established. There may be tribes consisting of several gentes, clans, or groups of kin, who do not allow marriage outside of the tribe, but they are not necessarily endoga- mous ; as the members of one gens, clan, or group may inter- marry with those of another such group belonging to the same tribe, in strict accordance with the principles of exogamy. The Hindoo castes were said by Dr. McLennan to be endogamous, but they are divided into gotrams or families, and marriage is prohibited between persons of the same gotram, on the ground that the possession by its members of a common name shows that they belong to the same stock. Tliis is really an example of simple exogamy with- in what may be called an endogamous group. As applied by Dr. jVIcLennan the terms are misleading, and INIr. Her- bert Spencer, applying them in the same way, erroneously supposes that exogamy has given place to endogamy as the relations of groups of men have become more 2)eacefid. The only Avcll authenticated exceptions to tlie rule against the intermarriage of recognized consanguinei, are certain cases which may be explained as having for their object the preserving of a superior strain of blood, and wliich there- fore proves the importance attached to blood relationship. The King of Hawaii was obliged to marry the woman next in rank to himself, whatever their relationship, as rank descended through females and competition to the throne would thus be prevented. The Incas, who claimed descent from tlie Sun and regarded purity of the royal blood as absolutely necessary, said that the kingdom should The Growth of the Marriage Relation. 73 be inherited through both parents. Hence the eldest son of the monarch married his nearest kinswoman, whatever their relationship to each other. Unions of a similar character were made by the ancient Persians, but they were of comparatively late introduction, and owed their origin to Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, or to the priests in his interest. The actual exceptions to the rule against the intermarriage of consanguinei are thus seen to have rela- tion to purity of blood, and, as having a special object, they tend to confirm the rule instead of disproving it. The opinion that the parental relationship is not recognized or is disregarded among the lower races has been shown to be baseless. Relationship through both parents is fully recognized with few exceptions, although kinship may be traced through only one parent. We have now to consider the restrictions on entering into the marriage relation due to human action, and which may be termed social restraints on promiscn ity, as distinguished from the natural restraints arising from consanguinity. While the latter affect whole classes, the former may be said to affect individuals, and they arise from the claim made by parents or others to control the conduct of females belonging to the family group. This claim is asserted in various w^ays, such as, on the one hand, the prevention of unchastity, and on the other hand, the compulsory provision of the sexual hospitality which is general among uncultured peoples, and which anciently formed so important a feature in the temple service of the Great Goddess, as it does still in India. The parental right is asserted also in betrothal, which is very commonly practised even while the female is a mere infant. Betrothal is useful, where it is not abused in the interests of the older men of a tribe, as it operates, like marriage, to put the tahn on females who might other- w^ise be led to form temporary unions outside of the law of marriage. There is a further motive in betrothal and marriage, which has reference through the female to her offspring. In the absence of any arrangement to the contrary, a woman's children would belong to their mother's family group. Among the early Arabs, females remained at home after marriage, whetlier they formed temporary or perma- nent unions, and as descent was traced in the female line, children were born within the tribe to which they belonged- 74 The Growth of the Marriage Relation. With descent in the male line the same result would follow if the wife left her own tribe to live among her husband's kindred, as is customary with the Turanians. If, in this case, the husband remained after marriage with his wife's family, their offspring would form a separate group of kinsfolk within the wife's tribe. Such apparently has been the origin of the gens or totem group among the American and Australian aborigines. The claims of parents and others which constitute the restrictions on marriage due to human agency, are not less real and effective than those arising from the restraints due to consanguinity, on which the rule of exogamy is based. It is possible, however, that the former may not have been in operation from so early a period as the latter ; seeing that in the earliest form of the marriage relation, all the members of a group of persons stood in this rela- tion to all the members of an adjoining group, so that there may not have been any place for restrictions other than those arising from consanguinity. Stating now the law in its widest form, we may say that the marriage relation may take any fonn that is consistent with the restrictions from time to time imposed by nature or by man. It is important to notice, with reference to these restrictions, that although their primary operation is to act as restraints on promiscuity, yet that they act also as inducements to marriage. Dr. Starcke, after considering certain supposed examples of promiscuity, observes* that " if marriage were decided by tlie sexual relations, it would be difficult to understand for what reason marriages were contracted in those communities in which an altogether licentious sexual life is permitted to the unmarried." As a fact, however, the restrictions above referred to tend to prevent this licentiousness, as they are intended to do, and thus induce individuals to enter into the legitimate mar- riage relation. There are, however, various active induce- ments which are greatly influential over the formation of that relation. Dr. Starcke remarks that a man connects himself with a woman in order that she may keep house for him, a second motive being that of obtaining children. These motives alone are not sufficient, however, and we must give the first place to the feeling, call it love or sym- pathy, which is the main-sjjring of marriage in civilized The rriiuitive Family in its Origin and Development (1889), p. 256. The Growth of the Marriage Relation. 75 societies. There can be little doubt that sympathy is a much more important factor in the formation of the marriage relation with the lower races than is generally allowed. The desire for companionship, at least, is uni- versal, and it is an expression of sympathetic feeling. It must be influential wherever a man leaves his own home to reside with another family to secure the hand of a woman ; especially where, as is often the case, such residence entails service which amounts to considerable self-sacrifice. When a change took place, consequent on its being customary for a wife to leave the hut of her parents to reside in that of her husband, especially if this were among his kinsfolk, the desire to have some one to take charge of his house- hold during his absence, and to cook the food supplied by his labors as a hunter or a fisherman, would acquire in- creased force as an inducement to marriage. It is by the birth of children that the sexual instinct effects the perpetuation of the race which is its true aim in marriage, and we must assume, therefore, that this aim operates as a strong motive for marriage itself. We must suppose it, indeed, to be included in the desire for compan- ionship which is the earliest inducement for entering into the marriage relation. There is no doubt that the feeling of sympathy which underlies that desire would be increased by the birth of children, for whom real affection is enter- tained by one or both parents among all peoples, however uncultured. The importance of this feeling in connection with the development of the family was referred to by your President in his admirable lecture of last season on the "Evolution of Morals." He said that the long period of infancy ''held the family together and necessitated a continuance of those acts of mutual forbearance and affec- tion which cease among animals when the young are able to make shift for themselves. The mother ministered to the child, while the father gathered food and protected the family from wild beasts and savage men. Other children came, perhaps, before the care of the mother over the first- born could be relaxed. So, in the rude cave-dwelling, grew up the germ of the home the earliest example of the permanent family relation." The inducements to, or motives for, entering into the marriage relation referred to, and which may be termed internal or subjective conditions, must in course of time 76 The Growth of the Marriage Relation. have had considerable influence over the formal develop- ment of the law of marriage. There are other and objec tive conditions, however, those which constitute the exter- nal environment, which are at first the most important in relation to such development. The phase of marriage which may fit a people dwelling in the midst of plenty, may not be suited for those who are not so highly favored by natural or other circumstances ; and so also with a city or agricultural population as compared with those whose lives are more unsettled. The hunting condition of life is sup- posed to be the most primitive, and it is not difficult to see what phase of marriage might under its influence be devel- oped among a rude people. The men would be often away from home for a considerable time, and they would have to leave their wives behind them to take care of their house- holds and children. They would be, nevertheless, desirous of having female companions during their absence, which would not be possible if each man had a wife to himself and the males and females were equal in number. In this case, the only plan that could be adopted would be for the men to join with their wives. Some of the women could then remain at home to take care of the families of the community, while the others would accompany the men to the hunting-ground. We have here the very simplest form of the marriage relation, and it is found in actual existence among the lowest of all human races, the aborigines of Australia. The Australian tribe was originally divided into two groups, or ''classes," each of which consisted of a body of kinsfolk, male and female, tracing descent from a common female ancestor, and forbidden to marry among themselves, answering to the gens of the American aborig- ines. The llev. Lorinier Fison states that, under this system, marriage is founded on the rights, not of individ- uals, but of the "classes," and theoretically all the men of each group are married to all the women of the group to which they do not belong. With descent in the female line, each group may be supposed to have consisted origi- nally of a woman and her offspring, forming two families which entered into the marriage relation with each other, and thus originated what is termed ^ro^;-marriage. Tlie original community would form one large group divided into two exogamous intermarrying sub-groups ; answering somewhat to the jninaluan family of the I'olynesian The Growth of the Marriage Relation. 77 Islanders, in which several brothers had their wives in common, or several sisters had their husbands in common. The Australian system, as now seen in practice, gives every man and woman a wife or husband, and also one or more " accessory spouses," each of whom may be husband or wife to some other person. In all cases the restriction on the intermarriage of kinsfolk is strictly enforced. The Australian system appears to me to furnish the key to all other phases of the marriage relation. These depend on the conditions under which they have been developed, but they stand in a definite relation to group-marriage. Thus, First, the group idea may be abolished on the male side, in which case we have a group of women married to a single man, (a) where the wives are kinswomen, as in the sister polygyny of the American aborigines, and (b) where the wives are strangers in blood, giving the harem or com- mon polygyny of the East. Secondly, the group idea may be abolished on the female side, in which case we have a group of men married to a single female, (a) where the husbands are kinsmen, as in Tibetan polyandry, and (b) where the husbands are strangers in blood, as in Nair polyandry, if this can be accepted as a true phase of the marriage relation. Thirdly, with the group idea abolished on both sides, we have the intermarriage of two individuals, giving (a) individual marriage, with power for the husband, under special circumstances, to marry a second wife, or to take accessory wives the monandry of the Turanian peoples and the so-called pairing-family arrangement of the American aborigines ; and (b) the individual marriage in which a man has but one wife, and a woman but one hus- band, unless the marriage relation is terminated by divorce or death, being the monogamy of modern civilization. It is perhaps impossible to determine whether the primi- tive groui>marriage was developed first in the direction of polygyny or polyandry, but as there is reason to believe that men at first left their own family groups to live in the groups to which their wives belonged, a practice which is usually associated with kinship through females, and as this is found to exist among the more primitive human races, many of whom also practice polygyny, we may assume that polyandry was of later development. Prob- ably the marriage of a man to several sisters originated in a state of society where families were comparatively isolated, 78 The Growth of the Mari'iage Relation. as may be the case in a sparsely populated region. If, under these circumstances, a man married into a family which had several daughters, and he was a good hunter or hsherman, he would be allowed to enter into the marriage relation with all the sisters, giving the phase of polygyny (a) which was at one time usual among the Indians of North America. The offspring of such an association would belong to their mother's family-group, and Avhether they had one or several fathers would be a matter of indif- ference in a rude society. The question of food supply would be an important factor, and if the husband of the eldest daughter was not a good provider he would not be allowed to marry the second daughter, and possibly might not be suffered even to retain the hrst. The two predomi- nant ideas in this simplest phase of polygyny are the retention of the daughters, and therefore their children, at home, and the provision of food for the supply of the gen- eral family group. The second phase of polygyny (b), that of the harem or common polygynovis family, is dependent on different ideas from the earlier j)hase. Here the wives are usually strangers in blood, although not necessarily so, and instead of stay- ing at home, they go to reside in the family group of their husband. The external conditions with which this polygyny is associated are those of plenty, which enables a man to purchase his wives, and thus to acquire the right to their children. It is consistent with this view that mar- riage of the type under consideration has become preva- lent especially where descent in the male line is preferred to the earlier system of female kinship, although it is prac- tised also Avhere this system is established. The possession of several wives may not only insure a large family, but it increases a man's social position, as he is enabled to pro- vide more abundantly for his guests. This is the cause assigned for polygyny among the Islanders of the I'aciHc, as it is with many Asiatic peoples. Catlin states, in rela- tion to some of the North American Indians, that they desire a plurality of wives owing to the advantage to be gained by having " a stock of laborers," by whom a man's wealth may be increased. On the other hand, among the higher races the possession of niany wives is regarded as evidence of wealth, and, as 'SXv. 8])eneer remarks, monog- amy is considered mean. The desire for increased iniiu- The Growth of the Marriage Relation. 79 ence is probably everywhere an important motive for the practise of polygyny, partly through the large family which may result, and partly owing to the formation of family alliances by the chiefs, which have a real value in the absence of a central governing authority, for giving a greater coherence to society. Referring now to the polyandrous phase of the marriage relation (a), in which a group of kinsmen are married to a single female, we find it usually associated with conditions similar to those where a group of kinswomen are married to one man. There are two essential diiferences, however, which are dependent on each other. Instead of the men remaining after marriage among their wife's relations, the woman leaves her home to live with her husbands, at their own home. This is due to the fact that the wife is pur- chased, and consequently, in this phase of polyandry, the children belong to their fathers' family group, instead of to that of their mother as in the related polygynous marriage. The Tibetans, who belong to the same stock as the Mon- gols, are the most pronounced polyandrists of the present day, although there are indications that the practice was at one time widely spread throughout the Asiatic continent. It is stated by Mr. Andrew Wilson that, among the Tibetan- speaking people, the choice of a wife is the right of the eldest brother, but "the contract he makes is understood to involve a marital contract with all the other brothers, if they choose to avail themselves of it." It might be thought this curious custom must be accompanied by a scarcity of women, but, as a fact, there is in Tibet a large surplus of women who are maintained in the Lama nunneries. The real explanation of its polyandry may be inferred from the effect which this practice has in "checking the increase of population in regions from which emigration is difficult, and where it is also difficult to increase the means of sub- sistence." Poverty appears to have been the ultimate cause of polyandry wherever this system has prevailed, although sometimes it is accompanied by a scarcity of females, diie to infanticide, or to the excessive price set on them, limiting the accessible su})ply. The existence of polyandry among a people possessing much property is due to long continued habit, which originated at a time when they lived under much less favorable conditions. In Ceylon, where polyandry is the most common form 80 The Growth of the Marriage Relation. taken by the marriage relation, there are two kinds of mar- riage, deega and heena. The former is where a woman goes to live in the house or village of her husband or husbands, and the latter where she remains at home after marriage. Polyandry of the Tibetan type is, therefore, of the deega sort. Neither this nor heena marriage is necessarily associ- ated with polyandry, but Dr. McLennan identifies the latter with the curious custom prevalent among the Nairs of Malabar, which may be taken as an example of polyandry of the type (b) where the husbands are strangers in blood. This system, like the ordinary form of polygyny, is associated with plenty instead of poverty, being restricted to the higher classes, and as there is no wife-purchase, the children follow their mothers in descent and are the heirs of their maternal uncles. According to Nair custom, a man is married to a girl of his own caste, but he leaves her immediately after the ceremony and never revisits her. Usually she continues to live with her mother, brothers, and sisters, the head of the household being the mother, and, on her death, the eldest sister. There is no male head of the family, which is perpetuated through the females, who, after their marriage, have the right to receive the visits of certain Brahmins, and of Nairs other than their nominal husbands. By this arrangement each male Nair may have a share in several wives, who answer to the " accessory spouses " of Australian group-marriage, but, as he is not allowed to associate with his own wife, he has not the privileges of the Noa, or marital relation. That curious custom probably originated in the Nairs, who are a military caste of Sudras, taking a vow of celibacy, as was usual among the Christian knights of the Middle Ages. At the same time, the Nair women, after their nominal marriage, Avere permitted, for the purpose of perpetuating the caste, to form irregular associations with the younger Brahmins, who themselves were not permitted to marry. When the vow of celibacy was relaxed the prohibition was continued so far as a Nair's own wife was concerned, but he was allowed to visit other Nair women, the Brahmins still retaining their old privilege. We have now to trace the origin of individual marriage, that is, the living together in the marriage relation of only two individuals, who may be said to rei)resent the two primitive intermarrying groups. Various causes have been The Growth of the Marriage Relation. 81 assigned for the origin of systematic individual marriage, which, before it could be exhibited in the higher phase of monogamy, must pass through the lower form (a) of monan- dry, which allows a man under special circumstances to enter into the marriage relation with another woman during his wife's lifetime. There is no doubt that individual mar- riage may exist alongside of polygyny or polyandry. In fact, where the former of these systems is permitted, it is restricted in practice to men who are well-to-do, the major- ity being necessarily limited to one wife, as in polyan- drous communities they have to be satisfied with a share in one. There does not appear, however, to be any evidence that monandry, except of this accidental kind, existed in the earliest times. The wife-purchase, which Mr. Spencer supposes to have aided at a later date in the establishment of monogamy, is, moreover, associated with the earlier systems of polygyny and polyandry. In fact it is a question how far wife-purchase was practised by the truly monog- amous peoples of antiquity. Among the causes which, with monandrous peoples, induce men to enter into the marriage relation a second time while the first wife is living, one of the most import- ant is the desire for children. Where a wife is childless, or has no son, it is not surprising if, considering the natural object of marriage, a man marries a second wife, with or without divorcing the first one. To the ordinary reasons for desiring male offspring, was added at an early date, a superstitious one based on the necessity of having a sou to perform the funeral rites. The idea that happiness in the future life was thus secured is universal among the ancient nations. It was founded on the belief, enter- tained also by many existing races, that the father lives again in his son. Hence, the not having a son, was always regarded as a sufficient justification for the marrying of a second wife. Although, according to what appears to me to be the proper view of so-called "marriage by capture," it is a mere ceremony, and has to do with kinship rather than the evolution of marriage, a notice of it may be introduced here, as it is practised chiefly among peoples having sys- tematic monandry. The essential element of that ceremony is stated by Dr. McLennan, when he says, "the marriage is agreed upon by bargain, and the theft or abduction follows 82 The Growth of the Marriage Relation. as a concerted matter of form, to make valid the marriage." He adds : " The test, then, of the presence of the symbol in any case is, that the capture is concerted, and is preceded by a contract of marriage. If there is no preceding con- tract, the case is one of actual abduction." * It would be thought, therefore, that cases of abduction are excluded from a consideration of " marriage by capture " ; instead of which, however. Dr. McLennan bases his explanation of the ceremony on the early theft of women of foreign tribes, which he thinks became symbolized "among exogamous tribes, out of respect for immemorial usage, when friendly relations came to be established between tribes and families, and their members intermarried by purchase instead of capture." I have elsewhere given my reasons for dissent- ing from this conclusion, which appears not to be warranted by the facts. What is called "marriage by capture," is really " ceremonial capture in marriage." It has relation to the contract of marriage, the pre-existence of which is its essential condition, and it refers in t\ie first place to the bride; and secondly to the offspring of the marriage itself. The latter is the most important feature, and it depends on the fact that the effect of the contract of marriage is to take away from the family group of tlie bride the children to l)e born of the marriage, and give them to the family group of the husband. The ceremony may possibly be in imitation of actual cai)ture. If so, however, it is not evi- dence of a former general condition of society when women were stolen for wives, but it is rather a recognition of the fact that women captured during warfare belong to the victors, and that their children are incorporated with the conquering people. Ceremonial capture is, indeed, often in the nature of a feigned combat between the relatives of the bridegroom and those of the bride; in which tlie former are successful only because this is required by the agree- ment previously entered into between the parties. There is another object in view, however, which is probably the most important motive of the whole ceremonial. It ojjer- ates as a public announcement of the marriage and of the consequences to flow froni it. Where the bride's consent has not already been obtained, she usually has the oppor- tunity of refusing to be captured, or of afterwards leaving tlie husband chosen for her. The consent of tlie bride's Studies in Ancieut Histor>% p. 1" The Growth of the Marriage Relation. 83 friends is shown by their allowing her to be carried off, which also operates as a relinquishment of their right to her offspring, and the ceremony can at any future time be referred to as evidence of these facts, as well as of the marriage itself, if it should be called in question on either side. Returning now to individual marriage it may be doubted whether its enforced practice, by the force of cir- cumstances, would lead to its general establishment on a moral basis. The substitution of systematic monogamy for polygyny or polyandry is due to a subjective change, rather than an external change of conditions; although there does not appear to be any special tendency to such a system, apart from the general progress which is exhibited in the evolution of human society. The feeling of self- respect which is probably at the root of individual marriage of the true type, is very strong among the Chinese, as it is with other peoples of a similar degree of culture, although men are allowed certain latitude Avhich is not conceded to women. That feeling forbids women to remarry on the death of their husbands, and it must be influential over the conduct of the men themselves. Self-respect is assigned as a reason for the abandonment of polyandry by the Kandyan chiefs, and there is no doubt that it has much to do with the fact of polygyny losing its hold on the higher classes in Egypt and other Mohammedan countries, the establish- ment of monandry among whom may be regarded as a real moral advance. If the development of monandry is the result of a sub- jective change, mvich more must it be so with the higher phase of individual marriage in which neither the man nor the woman can enter into the marriage relation with another individual, unless released from their first tie by divorce or death. Probably there have always been examples of this higher marriage among the Chinese, whose ideas as to the requirement of a son to perform the funereal rites are shared by the Hindoos and the allied Aryan peoples of antiquity, among whom monogamy was developed. This, however, differs essentially from the monandry of the Turanian peoples, in that not only is it founded on mutual regard, with exchange of presents instead of wife-purchase, but it is placed under the sanction of religion. Monogamy thus represents the highest phase of develop- 84 The Growth of the Marriage Relation. ment of which the marriage relation is capable. It places husband and wife on a footing of perfect equality, and they are united by a spiritual as well as a social bond, which is supposed to constitute for both of them a perpetual engage- ment. Marriage was to the ancients, however, something more than the uniting in heart and hand of two individ- uals; it was the mode provided by nature for continuing the succession of persons required to perform the rites of the religion of the hearth and of ancestors. The continu- ity of the family was thus regarded as the first and holiest of duties. Under the influence of the ideas embodied in the teach- ing of the Persian Zoroaster, the Jews not only acquired a purer faith, but they gradually replaced their early polygyny with monogamy. The marriage relation with them, and therefore Avith the primitive Christians, retained its religious sanction, and the law of marriage was expressed in the words of Genesis, "a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh." There were, however, ideas afloat in the East relative to marriage which were especially attractive to many persons in the early Christian church. In the ancient mysteries it was taught that the association of tlie soul Avith the material body Avas a source of spiritual impurity, from Avhich it had to be freed. Birth, if not an evil, Avas the cause of evil, and it was not going much further to assert that that to Avhich birth Avas due Avas also evil. These ideas strongly influenced early Christianity, and its followers, expecting also an early return of Jesus to earth, and the end of the existing order of things, regarded mai'- riage as at least useless. St. Paul appears to have been of this opinion, and, although he authorized marriage Avheu expedient, yet he did not look upon it as so high a state as virginity ; in Avhich he Avas folloAved by many of the Fathers of the Churcli. It Avould have been a misfortune for Christianity, no less than for society, if those ideas had retained their vitality. After the fire of Christian zeal had Avell nigh burned out, hoAvever, marrijbge Avas restored to its proper place as a sacred bond between two individuals, and a natural pro- A'ision for the perpetuation of the race through the family. It felt, moreoA^er, the retiuing influence of the emotion Avhich, having at first been appropriated almost entirely to Tlie Growth of the Marriage Relation. 85 the founder of Christianity, was now shown also towards the life-partner in the cares and duties of earthly existence. The marriage relation was thus elevated and spiritualized, although it is questionable whether it was more so than with the early Aryans, to whom it was the most sacred of engagements and therefore the most difficult to be absolved from. Through the centuries which elapsed after the rehabilitation of marriage it again suffered, but in a differ- ent direction. Among the higher classes especially it lost much of its spirituality ; although it had become a sacrament of the church, and was held to be indissoluble, except in very speciat cases. Since the Eeformation, the Protestant sects have departed, in their ideas of the marriage relation, from the views ex- pressed by the founder of Christianity. The marriage cere- mony having ceased to be regarded by them as a sacrament, or even by many Protestants as an ecclesiastical office, marriage itself has gradually lost its indissoluble nature, and hence the practice of divorce for causes other than adultery has been introduced. This is reverting to what was customary in the ancient world before the establish- ment of Christianity, and so long as the power of divorce is not abused it is undoubtedly required by the laws of social progress. Ill-assorted marriages cannot have been "made in heaven," nor even, as the Japanese suppose, by ancestral spirits on earth; and they should be dissolved when their failure is not due to fraudulent design. The State should intervene to prevent the success of attempted fraud, but it should provide for divorce by simple, though not hasty means, in other cases, treating the contract of marriage as it would any other contract, and giving as great facilities for setting it aside, if its terms cannot be properly carried out, as it does for the contract to be entered into. The State should also deal with questions of marriage disability consequent on relationship. The descriptive system, under which kinship is traced through both father and mother would, if the old rule of marriage were en- forced, exclude from intermarriage all persons of kin through either parent, however distantly related. This would be carrying the objection to consanguineous unions which seems justifiable on natural grounds* much too *Mr. George H. Darwin, as the result of his inquiries, came to the conclu- sion that " various maladies take an easy hold of the offsjjrinf^ of consanguine- ous marriages," although tliey are probably as prolific as ordinary ones. 86 The Growth of the Marriage Relation. far, and it was finally decided, therefore, in connection with the system above referred to, that any persons may inter- marry provided they are not more nearly related to each other on either side tlian in the fourth degree. The Christian church, however, introduced a new series of disabilities, by making affinity through marriage as much a bar as blood-relationship itself. Such questions as marriage with a deceased wife's sister or a deceased hus- band's brother are not for the church to decide. They should be treated as questions of social expediency, to be settled by the State, in which light should be regarded also all matters coming under the head of "social restraints" on marriage, now represented by the simple requirement of the consent of parents or guardians. A few words may be said, in conclusion, as to the future of the marriage relation. We have seen that in tlie animal kingdom, and therefore with primitive man, the chief actions of life are directed toward self-preservation and the perpetuation of the race. Where these interests came into conflict the former necessarily prevailed, as the individual always preferred himself to that of which he merely formed a part. In these latter ages we may expect the same result to follow from the antagonism between self and race which always exists. It now takes, however, a different form from what it had during primitive ages, at least when man lives for something more than the supply of mere physical wants or the gratification of the sensuous side of his nature. Ever since man's thoughts came to be elevated there has been a constant antagonism between the lower and higher principles of his being. Christianity is a phase of this conflict, concerned hitherto, however, chiefly with the emotional element in man's nature, but the great mental development which has taken place during recent centuries is resulting in the subordination of the emotions to the intellect. The consequence of this must be that the marriage relation will be entered into with more delibera- tion than formerly, and its conditions be regulated in accordance with definite principles. It is quite possible, indeed, that as a result of the development of the intel- lectual faculties, which constitute the chief element in individuality, the desire to escape the cares of a family may lead to a disinclination for marriage, if even there is not a repugnance to it. The Growth of the Marriage Relation. 87 In the interests of the race this result must be deplored ; but should it occur, it may point to the conclusion that the highest evolutionary progress which mankind is capable of must be looked for in another state of existence, where, the mind not being subject as at present to material influ- ences, its noblest faculties will attain their full develop- ment. If, however, the instinct of race continues to be sufficiently strong to induce the more intellectual class to enter into the marriage relation, but under such a sense of duty as that which led the followers of Zoroaster to address prayers to Ormuzd that he would bless the union, and give them children "renowned by merit, who would be chiefs in the assemblies," the result might be the evolution of a people superior in physical and mental constitution to any the world has yet seen. At the same time, it is conceivable that such a development of intellectual wealth might be attended with a result similar to that which has been observed in regard to the accumulation of material wealth, a gradual lessening of the number of its possessors, and their final extinction, leaving the race to be perpetuated by those less abundantly endowed, mentally if not physically. There is, however, another possibility to be contem- plated. With improvement in sanitary arrangements, and in the general physical conditions under which the masses of the people live, combined with immunity from warfare, which must ultimately attend the progress of mankind in civilization, the increase in population will be so great that measures of some kind will have to be adopted to keep it within reasonable limits. Whether it will then be proper or politic to provide for the improvement of the race may be left for posterity to decide. Schopenhauer was probably right, however, when he said " could we prevent all villains from becoming fathers of families, shut up the dunder- heads in monasteries, . . . and provide every girl of spirit and intellect with a husband worthy of her, we might look for an age surpassing that of Pericles." THE EVOLUTION OF THE STATE BY JOHN A. TAYLOK COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. Spencer's "Principles of Sociology," Vols. 1 and 2, "Political Institutions," " Study of Sociology " and " Social Statics " ; Fiske's " Cosmic Philosophy," "American Political Ideas" and "Begin- nings of New England " ; Keary's " Dawn of History " ; Lubbock's "Origin of Civilization"; Coulange's "Ancient City"; Maine's "Ancient Law," "Early Law and Customs," "Popular Govern- ment" and "Historic Institutions"; Tj'lor's "Early History of Mankind"; Morris's "The Aryan Race : Its Oi'igin and Achieve- ments" ; Amos's "Science of Law" ; Bagehot's " Physics and Pol- itics" and "English Constitution"; Ritchie's "Darwinism and Politics" ; Adams's "Village Communities" ; Freeman's "History of Federal Government," "Comparative Politics" and "Growth of the English Constitvition" ; Bryce's "American Commonwealth" ; Morgan's "Ancient Society"; Howard's "Local Constitutional History of the United States"; DeLolme on "The English Con- stitution"; Holmes's "Constitutional History of England"; Stubbs's "Constitutional History"; Mill's "Representative Gov- ernment"; Woolsey's "Political Science"; Von Hoi tz's "Consti- tutional Law." (90) THE EVOLUTION OF THE STATE.* Nearly six hundred years ago, on the banks of the most famous river in Germany, the foundations of a majestic cathedral were laid. Within a hundred years from that time, a part of the building was consecrated, and thence- forward the pilgrims to that sacred temple saw only an unfinished shrine. Within the present generation, without a change of plan, the name of the architect lost to human knowledge, it has been completed in the precise way in which it was designed, and presents the loftiest example of pure Gotliic architecture to be found in Europe. The traveler, who stands with wondering admiration within its aisles, reflects that, when its deep foundation-stones were put in place, the art of printing was unknown, the works of Shakespeare were unwritten. Constitutional lib- erty was yet to be conceived of. Pope Innocent IV. was the real ruler of civilization, and the great majority of men were slaves. Yet no more surely did the germ of this magnificent structure lie perfect, yet unevolved, in the thought of this unknown master of his noble art, than did. the present structure of the civilized State lie dormant in the rude elements of government which then existed. " The roots of the present," it has been said, " lie deep in the past, and nothing in the past is dead to the man who would learn how the present comes to be what it is." The State is what we make it, each of us, all of us. Of the more than a billion people who live upon the earth, each single being constitutes an independent, self-related center to which subjective unit all the phenomena of the world, including every other of the billion people, is objective. There is an inside and an outside world. The one is wrapt in subjective privacy. It is the secret penetralia of the human being. It is known only to the ego. The other is open to the perception and judgment of all mankind. To its just measurement all of history, science, art, human experience, invention and imagination contribute. * COPYKIGHT, 1890, l)y Jauies H. West. 92 The Evolution of the State. Constantly, through the ages, some great soul, out of the many people, has arrested the attention of mankind by mastering all the known facts of life, and giving expres- sion, in thought or deed, to the highest known human ideal. Such a man, in ethics, was Jesus ; in literature, Shake- speare; in state-craft, Lincoln. Tliese were types of an unusual order of humanity. They marked, at different ages of the world, the possibilities of manhood. It has required the long perspective of eighteen centuries to approximately estimate the worth of Jesus, so long, indeed, that his human nature has been resolved by millions of his believers into the qualities of a supernatural being, a God. These great men, and all the exceptionally strong natures of all known periods, have signally served to indicate the heights to which our common human nature could attain. They constitute the exceptional beings of their time. Now it is manifest that all problems, dealing with humanity as a whole, must take into consideration every living human being. " Society," says Thompson, our lead- ing American Psychologist, '' is an organic whole, of "whose members each is at the same time the means and the end of all the rest." And when Ave inquire to what pres- ent height has the State evolved, Ave have to determine, not Avhat achievements have been made possible for special sons of genius, but how the State deals Avith the average man, the Avorld over. And in the first place Ave must clearly recognize Avhat the State is. Obviously the evolution of the State is not merely the evolution of man. It deals rather Avith the growth of mankind in association, considered solely as a governing entity. Whenever tAvo men come together in their habitat, agreement becomes necessary ; in other Avords, they must he. organized, and there is founded a rudimental State. Herbert Spencer says, "Socially as Avell as individually, organization is indispensable to growth, beyond a certain point there cannot be further groAvth Avithout further organ- ization." The State has been defined to be "a Avhole people united into one body ])olitic"; and again, as "the visible embodi- ment of justice under the conditions of human society." Por the purpose of this j)a])er, the State Avill be considered as the seat of supreme political poAver, Avhence proceed all The Evolution of the State. 93 binding rules of civic conduct. This supreme political authority may find its warrant in a written code, as in the United States Constitution ; it may rest upon unexpressed political postulates, like the English Constitution; or it may reside alone in the will of an absolute sovereign like the Russian Czar. It will be seen at once that the evolution of such a political entity is something different from the growth of society or individual development. It witnesses in its present condition the latest, and therefore the highest known exposition of the governing faculty in man. Nor will it be at all certain that we shall find, in the present attainment of the State, a stage of development at all commensurate with the development of science, art, litera- ture or invention. Indeed, we are confronted at the threshold of our inquiry by the question, has the State evolved ? Is there any law of development by which succeeding stages of political institutions may be said to have been related to previous states of being ? Eemembering that the trend of all evolution is from the simple to the complex, from the homogeneous to the hetero- geneous, we must expect to find humanity progressing along the lines of an intelligent development, each step a cause, and each step a sequence, proceeding upward and onward toward a completer form of government. Ko one can, of course, expect that upon this occasion any coherent outline even, shall be suggested of the principles or laws upon which the State shall have been evolved. Little more can be done than to glance ra|)idly at certain epochs in State evolution, find, if Ave may, some connecting links between the different stages of society, and draw from these such indications as may be discerned of future ten- dencies. Of one thing, at the outset, the evolutionist may be sure. The law of evolution is either universal or it does not exist. The great generalization of Spencer, that things do not drift, but proceed, is as inseparable fi'om the develop- ment of the most magnificent commonwealth as from the lowest animal cell known to the biologist. Whether we find the law or not, it is there ; just as the rolling planets of the universe were held poised in the limitless spaces ages and ages before Newton discovered the law of gravi- tation. Let us then consider, for a moment, some of the begin- 94 The Evolutiou of the State. nings of government. Without doubt its earliest form was the patriarchal. Even before the time when savaged chose the tallest man for chief, the family head had exer- cised his petty sway. The father was an absolute power among all ancient peoples. Among the Romans he could sell his children into slavery, and sons who held the high- est offices could still own no estates. Such a potentate was the unit of the rude State of his time. The numbers of those who were considered as making up the State wer, reckoned only by such headships, and the larger authority conferred upon the leader of the State was fashioned upon the basis of family government as it then existed. Out of these family associations came the clans, still held together by ties of blood, all worshiping a common ancestor and either contesting for the headship of the clan or agreeing by consent of the heads of the families upon a chief. The numbers of the clan were doubtless largely increased by the fiction of adopted children, a process which imported, to the special clan, new blood, and at the same time extended its power and influence. The clan, still further evolved into the tribal State, was a form of government fitted only for nomadic people, and as soon as the race advanced to the pursuits of agriculture and the formation of stable communities, locality undoubtedly be- came the important bond of adhesion, and a clearer con- ception of the modern State began to appear. And when the boundaries of cities were enlarged, by conquest, to great territories, the flag became the symbol of one people, and the great father or king over this land found in the head of the family the suggestion and limitation of his power. Now, the idea upon which the father's absolute domin- ion over the family was based, rested upon the inability of the wife and children to control themselves, or wisely measure their own necessities ; and so long as the concep- tion of the State was simply that of a huge family, the king, whether chosen or hereditary, postulated his dominion upon the immaturity of his subjects. The subjects were children, the king the father. The king's will was the law of the ruder State, as the father's had been of the family, and long before the individual man had become recognized as the true unit of the State, the old English barons were combating the allied forces of the king and The Evolution oj the State. 95 the lower people in their revolt against the oppression of the crown. Thus early, it becomes us to note that the State was little more than a most inconvenient, though necessary, burden upon the race, so long as it failed to recognize manhood as the one indispensable ingredient of successful political institutions. Such was the rule of petty kings; and whenever, by conquest, numbers of petty sovereignties were reduced to one dominion, there was developed a representation of each small kingdom or tribe by its chosen head, which, under such rulers as William the Conqueror, in England, grad- ually came to form an aristocracy of nobles who were destined to force the king to enlarge the freedom of the masses, in order that he might himself escape destruction. Meantime the powerful influence of the church, which before the art of printing was discovered was the sole vehicle of knowledge, was preparing the way for the voice of the people to be heard in the councils of the State. So that, four centuries ago, taking England as the most ad- vanced example, the evolution of the State had reached a point where the one man power of primitive times had been largely circumscribed by the successful assaults of the common people upon the strongholds of sovereignty. And the chief agent of this result will be seen to be the barbarous, exterminating, almost endless warfare of these early centuries. Out of these rugged furrows of bloody war has blown the consummate flower of modern civiliza- tion, whose fruitage-time must still be placed in the cen- turies which are to come. At this period, the king could levy no tax without the grant of Parliament ; no law could be promulgated without its assent, no man could be committed to prison but by legal warrant, the fact of guilt or innocence was deter- mined by a public court with a jury of twelve men, and the oflB-cers and servants of the crown were subject to the same tribunal ; and, for more than a hundred years pre- vious, the kings of England had desisted from imposing taxes without consent of Parliament. That which was at last coming to fruition was the share of the governed in the policy of the government. True, it was a sadly crippled share. Only within the present decade has the agriculturist laborer of England taken a direct part in the composition of Parliament. But, all through these 96 The Evolutlo7i of the State. pregnant centuries, the man's tone has been heard. It has pushed its way through tumbling dynasties, midst the ruins of baronial castles and the falling fortunes of kings and emperors, impelled by the irresistible laws of evolution. It has announced, with increasing force and fervor, one inevitable condition of national and individual growth to be the absolute, unqualified equality of individual human rights. Much as this early recognition of the voice of the indi- vidual man may have been smothered by the usurpations of power during the succeeding centuries, it is a note- worthy fact that, long before the discovery of this conti- nent within which representative government is supposed to have found its completest development, manhood, as the essential unit of the State, was finding place in the thoughts of the world's statesmen. Long after this, the English corporation (evolved, as has been suggested, from the. Roman Collegia, out of which, in time, as Professor Bryce, in his remarkable book on the American Commonwealth, has shown, was to arise first the Colonial government, then the State government, then the Federal government, each in its turn an outgrowth of the other) was to prefigure the growth as distinguished from the drift of a State. Here, in the new land, with a diver- sified climate and soil, untrammeled by questions of the relations of ancient sovereignties, freed from the dominion of the one man power, was to be formulated the first writ- ten constitution known to man. And singularly enough, it was to find its substantial prototype, not in the long line of its immediate ancestry, but in the polity of ancient Greece, where, long before the white-haired Goth had invaded and subdued the swarthy Koman, the assembly of the citizens determined important public questions, and was the ultimate tribunal of the governed. And stranger yet, it was to promulgate in solemn terms, in its new code, the same paradox wliich had then existed in the streets of Athens, proclaiming, with one breath, the equality of all men before the law, and insisting, in the next, upon the degradation and enslavement of a substantial minority of mankind. And now, may we not see that the State has evolved by the same processes and under the same conditions as those by means of which civilization itself has grown? One The Evolution of the State. 97 most important fact to be noted is, that the most signal advances made by civilization have taken place within the present centnry. Dr. Strong, in his Avidely read book on our country, has said that, '' any one as old as the nine- teenth century has seen a very large proportion of all the progress in civilization made by the race." And Andrew Carnegie, in his glowing laudation of what he calls the " Triumphant Democracy," asserts that " a hundred years ago, agriculture was in little better condition all over the world than it was a thousand years before." Taking, then, our American Commonwealth as, at its birth, expressing the highest type to which the State had then evolved, upon what shall we find its growth to have depended ? Behind it lay the ancient oligarchies, and the so-called republics of Greece, the rise and temporary spread of Christianity, the darkness of the middle centuries, shrouding with obscurity all rights of man, all lights of learning, and all hopes of religion ; the revival of brutal wars of conquest ; age upon age of slaughtered human life, the masses held in s'lavery and ignorance ; and at last the gradual dawning of an uplifting sense of the dignity of man. DeLolme had just given to the world his classic panegyric of the English government when the first Presi- dent of our republic took the oath of office. " Liberty," said DeLolme, in his concluding chapter, " merely showed herself to the ingenious nations of antiquity who inhab- ited the South of Europe, and she has found six centuries necessary for the completion of her work." Yet wlren these glowing words were written, trial by personal contest had not been abolished, and no person accused of crime was allowed counsel in the English Courts. Our republic, at its birth, stood in all essential respects for government by the governed. More nearly, then, per- haps, than at any time since, the wish of Thomas Carlyle was realized, and the individual citizen was weighed as well as counted ; and to this end no single factor had more largely contributed than the town-meeting of New England. The one fundamental postulate upon which rested the theory of the State, at that time, may be said to be the right of personal representation. Prof. Stubbs has shown that, "as early as the beginning of the thirteenth century, the doctrine that the taxpayer should have a voice in the bestowal of the tax, was gaining ground, but it required 98 The Evolution of the State. live hundred years for its full recognition." Prof. Howard, in his recent book on the Local Constitutional History of the United States, has pointed out that " the revival of the primitive village community in the New England towns was a revival of organs and functions on the recurrence of the primitive environment," and that " the selectmen of the town were the lowest representative government " ; and it is obvious that the moment our early communities began to prosper and extend their conquest over nature, the act of government had to be delegated. Townsmen were therefore chosen in New Haven, as long ago as 1651, in order that, in the words of their quaint resokition, "the town meetings which spend the town much time, may not bee so often," and, ten years before, voting by proxy had been established in Massachusetts. More than one hundred years thereafter, the first written constitution known to history, adopted by the people, was put in practice in Virginia; and thirteen years after this event, the Constitution under which we live, which Glad- stone has pronounced one of the greatest products of the human intellect, went into eifect as the express charter of the State. Representative governments, then, had made possible the founding of our own State ; and this, the first of rigid constitutions, was absolutely representative in all its parts. The sovereignty of the States was represented in its Senate. The people were directly represented in its House of Representatives, and, for the first time in the history of government, the department of Justice was given power to pass upon the validity of laws passed by these representative bodies. Clearly, the State which we are now describing had evolved from all the attempts at government in the past; and the one law of growth which is apparent in any broad survey of its evolution is that the State became effective in exact proportion as it recognized the individual dignity of its citizenship. The one inseparable accompaniment and evidence of the evolution of the State has been the con- tinual uplifting and expansion of manhood as a type. This has been and is the supreme result and test of State growth. "A government is to be judged," says John Stuart Mill, "by its tendency to improve tlie people, and by the goodness or badness of the work it performs for them." By manhood as a type, I mean the average being The Evohitiou of the State. 99 taken from the aggregate of every race and every clime, in every country of the world. Marcus Aurelius, standing at the threshold of the Christian era, looking forward seven- teen centuries in the history of his race, said, "mankind are under one common law, and if so, they must be fellow- citizens and belong to the same body politic. From whence it will follow that the whole world is but one common- wealth." Now, whatever may be said of ancient republics, of special reigns of special kings, the candid mind must see that the voice of this average man was heard loudest, and with more effect, in this new commonwealth, than it had elsewhere been heard in the history of the world. And it was listened to. From the time of the establishment of Christianity, the voice of the priest has been substituted for that of man. The darkness of the middle centuries, and the clanging swords of war, had stifled this power of protest ; but the invention of printing gave an audience to the average man; the compounding of gunpowder short- ened, by making more fatal, the wars of conquest ; and out of this progression of the arts and sciences emerged the man, to be accounted for in future governments. Here, in his new environment, free from misalliance with the church, disturbed by no questions of State boundaries and perplexing balances of power, the new man founded the new State, and, in token of his different status in the new world, he was given the ballot as his scepter. What the evolutionist has to observe, is, that the organic law, under which the great republic started upon its career, contained no new conception of human rights. Government by the governed was as old as Aristotle. It was the dream of Plato. At no time in known history had it been absent from the thoughts of men. It had simply waited for its fitting environment. Like the grain-seed in the mummy's wrappings, it throve at once when placed in proper soil and stimulated by a congenial climate. A most emphatic exposition of what an ill-adapted soil and an unfavorable climate would do for a similar endeavor was to be imme- diately furnished, in the abortive attempt, in France, to establish, on a like theory of government, a permanent republic. As Prof. Adams has suggested in his work on " The Democracy and Monarchy of France," Rousseau had indeed overstated the problem of a perfect form of govern- 100 The Evolution of the State. inent, when he declared it to be "to find a form of society in which each one, uniting himself with the whole, shall yet obey himself and remain as free as before." Yet no student of the French Revolution can fail to find sufficient causes for its failure in the essential limitations of its environment. Here, then, was a serious challenge to posterity. Black- stone had but just proclaimed that the natural foundations of fovereignty were "wisdom to discern the real interest of the community, goodness to endeavor always to pursue that real interest, and strength or power to carry this knowledge and intention into action." The edict of the new republic set forth that all these natural foundations of sovereignty were inherent in the common citizen. Let us consider for a moment the development of this new republic. Happily we may do so from the standpoint of a full century's experience. In seeking for the causes of what we shall find as its fruition, one of the lirst mis- takes will doubtless be to attribute to the agency of the Constitution, itself, far more than can be justly claimed for it. With a favoring climate, a virgin soil, freedom from intestine broils, and from foreign wars either of con- quest or of defence a sturdy race of men, filled Avith the unconquerable resolution which characterized our early immigrants, would perhaps have given an impetus to our Western civilization which no mere form of government would have withstood or hindered. Again, it is not to be forgotten that this sacred instru- ment was itself a patchwork of concessions, holding within its terms a flat denial of the absolute rights of men, and made possible as the organic law only by the surrender of convictions which were not lightly held by the States of New York and llhode Island, which were among the last to adopt it. Indeed, the question is now very seriously, and with great force, raised, whether we shall be able effectually to deal with evils which are manifestly grave, until we shall have deliberately revised this great Charter of our liberty. Among the recent contributions to the literature of states- manship, one of the strongest in its statement and in the admirable temper of its pages is a small work on True Dem- ocratic Government, written a few years ago by Albert Stickney. After setting forth the advantages of a Demo- The Evolution of the State. 101 cratic Government, he argues with great cogency that we need to reorganize our organic law, and that a Convention should be called to that end. Whatever may be said of the perfect character of the work of our fathers, they themselves were not so vain-glorious as not to provide, in the terms of the instrument they presented for adoption, the process of amendment. And, although it is probably true, as Von Hoist has declared in his history of Consti- tutional Law, that <'the republic has been more conserva- tive in its fundamental law than any State whatever of the European Constitution," yet it must be conceded that if we cannot, as a people, be trusted to sit in deliberation upon what the organic law of our nation should be, then we have already demonstrated the failure of a republican or demo- cratic form of government. Furthermore, if we are candid with ourselves, we must see that, for some reason or other, great evils have arisen in government, which are due either to an inadequate organic law or to an imperfect adminis- tration of that law. Let us pause for a moment to consider one of the most obvious of these. I refer to the conspicuous incapacity of any present mode of city government. No demonstration of this fact is needed. The public till is deemed by many to be a legitimate field for plunder. Its guardians have a market price. There is no municipal legislature in any considerable city of the Union, the character of whose working majority of membership is such as to command any large degree of confidence in either its integrity, indus- try or intelligence. The important franchises of our cities are hawked about in undiscovered places to the holders of the largest purses. Public interests lie dormant; private interests are ram/pant. Public office is made to produce the largest results to the smallest number. Men Avith polished exterior insist that they must make terms with what are called the "practical politicians," or else we shall accom- plish nothing at all; and so the dispensers of patronage quietly place good men where they will do the least harm, and deliver the most important interests of the city to men who market their opportunity to the best personal advan- tage. The representation of the City of New York in the last legislature is a frightful example of incapacity and corruji- tion; and what else could be expected when we find that 102 The Evolution of the State. one-third of its entire delegation were born outside the country whose important interests they were called upon to serve ? So rank have these conditions become that they are attracting the attention of statesmen everywhere. So able and impartial an observer as Mr. Bryce has found it necessary to say, " There is no denying that the government of cities is the one conspicuous failure of the United States." Nor is this failure of minor importance. When our constitution was framed, there were but thirteen cities whose population exceeded 5000, and but one with more than 40,000 inhabitants. To-day there are thirty exceed- ing 100,000, and two exceeding 1,000,000. Ninety-seven per cent, of the population for which our fathers provided a scheme of government, lived outside the city limits ; to-day less than seventy -eight per cent, inhabit the country. Within that time, space has been nearly annihilated ; and communication is almost uninterrupted. A great thought uttered at any center of the world instantly vibrates throughout Christendom. The rapid acquisition of surplus wealth fills the streets of the metropolis, and the trend of all things, in densely populated centers, is daily seen to be more and more toward complexity. This, with a constantly changing environment, engenders problems of which the franiers of our Constitution never dreamed. Is it strange that the machinery should need to be readapted to its new task ? But, it may be said, If the people are competent to govern ; if, by the process of a natural evolution, the supreme power has been rationally devolved upon the entire citizenship, why is not an efficient appeal made to that original source of power .^ Are we not justified, by the experience of the last twenty years, in replying that, while exceptional spasms of reform have here and there worked tenij)oniry relief from especially aggravating epochs of corru})tion, yet the people have really delegated their franchise to the active leaders of the two great political parties ? My meaning is, that neither any one, nor any thousand, nor any twenty thousand citizens of any considerable city, can, under existing machinery, do anything other than express a preference at the polls. ]>ut the ballot was given, at its origin, as a means of choosing from many, and not simply of ])referring. Exactly stated, the government of this and most of our cities is in the absolute control of a limited The Evolution of the State. 103 number of men in both political parties, and any reason- ably well-informed politician of either party would be com- petent to make up a list of less than fifty " wheel-horses " in politics, whose favor would insure his elevation to any office in the municipality. These constitute a political oligarchy, who furnish us with as poor a government as they dare to do. Such is party municipal government, which is rightly said by Mr. Stickney, in his latest volume on '' The Political Problem," to mean, " Government by organized bodies of professional electioneering agents, who betake themselves to the work of carrying elections because it pays ; who are compelled by the force of circumstances to make it pay, and who will continue so to do just so long as the work is so vast, so regular and has such large prizes." What then are we to conclude ? That in an age when rapid advances are being made in all departments of human endeavor, when science and invention and all forms of achievement are striding rapidly forward, the State is lag- ging in the race ? Quite possibly this is true. Having delegated our right of choice, as has been suggested, to the politicians, we have reached an epoch in the evolution of the State when the art and science of government are left in abeyance, and the best thought and effort of our time are given to other pursuits. One evidence of this is to be found, as it seems to me, in the observation that, among civilized peoples, the rights of person and property, which are essential tests of govern- mental efficiency, are not largely affected by particular forms of government. At any rate, an unprejudiced view of the conditions of society as determined by institutional forms in England and the United States would not, as I think, disclose such serious discrepancies as might be sup- posed to exist. It may well be doubted whether the citizen of Toronto, Canada, is not quite as comfortably governed as the citizen of Brooklyn ; and among civilized communities, the advantages of discoveries and inventions in science and art have been quite as efficiently availed of in one as in another form of liberal government. "Obedience is what makes government," says Edmund Burke, and "not the names by which it is called." Even in the ideal govern- ments, many limitations were set up which this enlight- ened age would instantly disallow. In More's Utopia, it 104 The Evolution of the State. was death to talk about the government ; while, in our modern England and America, it is almost criminal, during a certain portion of any year, to talk about anything else. In Plato's Republic, citizens were to be punished if they attem])ted to concern themselves with trade. In these days of the actual republic, a vast number of ov;r citizens lind little concern in anything else. How, then, briefly stated, has the State evolved ? Begin- ning with the surrender of individual indulgence to the welfare of the associated family group; rising to tribal importance by the kinship-line of demarcation ; increasing tlic numbers of the gens by the supremacy of conquest find by adoption; the heads of important tribes choosing ])etty kings, and themselves, in turn, constituting an aris- tocracy of nobles ; the sui)reme head and these allied nobles seeking, in turn, one against the other, the alliance of the masses, and, as a consequence, conceding to the average man important recognition ; the average man him- self finally over-topping both kings and nobles, his speech attended to, his thovight made free, his needs becoming the ultimate end of government. Have we not thus epitomized the complete analogue of all that we know of evolution ? Government changes from snudl to greater numbers, developing, as it advances, great complexity of problems. Out of the hot crucible of war the fittest form of government survives and thrives. Deep in the still currents of the early centuries, the seed-germ of average humanity quietly awaited its favorable environ- ment, occasionally seeking the upper sky of active being during some spasmodic ei)isode of war, then being closed u])on l)y inauspicious times until the fitting surroundings for its healthy growth are furnished it by the inexorable logic of events. And having thus imperfectly demonstrated tlie morphology of the State, we are brought to our con- cluding itupiiry. AVliat final form Avill the State assume, when under the full control of the principles of Evolution? Truly this is an ambitious question. Some light niight be thrown upon the j)roblem, if we could be quite certain of the ultimate scope of governments. Two theories are current concerning the true functions of the State. One is, that it fulfills its office completely when it secures to the individual absolute justice mean- The Evolution of the State. 105 ing, thereby, the opportunity to exercise, to their full bent, all the faculties with which he is endowed. Another is, that the State should directly supply to the individiial that which, by reason of congenital defect or unfavorable envi- ronment, he may stand in need of. The disciples of the first theory would limit to the nar- rowest extent the subjects of governmental control. They would leave to individuals, or private combinations of such, the prosecution and development of all enterprises which do not involve the liberty of the person or the right of property. It is enough, say they, that the State secures the highway for its people to walk in ; let it not be encum- bered by even the postal-wagons of the nation. It is the old doctrine of laissez-faire, and is postulated upon the aphorism that ''all a man wants is a fair chance." The paternal theory, on the other hand, insists that the strength of all is pledged to the assistance of those who need it ; that what may be well done and with much saving of effort by the general community for all, is within the true scope of governmental function ; that all the cardinal necessities of existence, such as light, heat, education, com- munication and transportation, not to say food, should be undertaken to be furnished by government ; and some say, further, that the entire industrial scheme should go forward under the direct supervision of the State. Among the latter, Mr. Edward Bellamy, in a most ingenious, enter- taining and plausible manner, has set forth the sublime satisfaction of "Looking Backward" from the twentieth century, in such attractive guise that a society has already been formed, in Boston, the natural birth-place of soci- eties, to further the practical adoption of the views in gen- eral outlined by him. Perhaps these two views may be briefly defined as Anarchistic and Socialistic. Against the one it may be as- serted, that it leaves without provision many hard conditions of society ; and against the other, that it reduces to inane, commonplace existence the multiform activities of life as they now proceed. Both, doubtless, have in view the highest happiness of mankind ; and whether Ave ask to what has the State evolved, or what final form will the State assume under the full control of the principles of evolution, these two widely diverging views of the State-function suggest, with force, the great perplexities of the question. 106 The Evolution of the State. Let us not forget that the development of the State is but the evolution of associated manhood. It finds its most faithful prototype in the growth of a man. An infant is lying snug in the cradle. The air is carefully tempered to its feeble powers. It breathes the environment of a pure and happy household. It comes to youth and early man- hood un vexed by any sombre view of nature, or the world about it. From within as from without, come only chaste thoughts of love and duty and the genial ways of sacred fellowship. Manhood is still attended with serene sur- roundings. The robust work of active life is carried for- ward with amazing energy and success ; the Avindows of the man's mature reflection are never shut to the white- winged messenger of honor, truth and love. His life is radiant with shining deeds of helpfulness to others, and, waking or sleeping, no evil thoughts intrude upon his pres- ence. He is honest, faithful, kind, affectionate and pure as if by instinct. And when, at last, he falls into his final slumber, the estimate which men make of him is full of credit and renown. What is it that has made this man what he is ? He has walked his pleasant way of life, surrounded by the same great limitations as his fellows. For him no special stars have shone, no different sea has broken on the shore, no special forests waved their branches. Yet, to the making of his manhood, have contributed all the events of all the human lives which have preceded him. All deeds of death- less valor, all stainless lives of heroes in the past, all lowly suffering of humble men and women in the poor places of the world, all victories and achievements of the great in the luxurious halls of power, the joy and suffering of the rudest inhabitants of an African jungle, have helped to make possible for him this perfect human life, and he has inherited all i)recious thoughts of all noble souls that have ever lived. Now, the State is Init the outgrowth of all human devel- opment. To its present condition, all the men and women of the past have contributed. Their personal gifts and attainments, their individual environments, liave entered into and shaped the structure of government as it now exists. If then, we may not comprehend the subtle influ- ences that contrive for us a perfect man, how shall we be able to determine the real conditions of a State under the The Evolution of the State. 107 full control of the doctrine of evolution? We stand between two eternities. Within the compass of the past three centuries, most of the elements we prize to day in the science of government have been evolved. Taking the limit of man's possession of the earth to be within the period demonstrated to us by Mr. Sampson, in his admirable lecture on "Primitive Man," four hundred thousand years were necessary to the human race before the earliest form of government was possible. Who shall say that the earth- dweller of a million years to come shall not be a part of some great system of government ? What prophet shall be so bold as to outline the political system which shall then infold the earth ? The conception of the Universe itself is daily widening. Astronomers are piercing farther and farther the depths behind the midnight sky. Geologists and Archaeologists are digging farther and farther into the heart of the world and its history. The boldest explorer of this realm which is to be, must be satisfied with what he may have the courage to say is the tendency of things. Let me noAV say, however, in view of some discouraging episodes of government, that have been referred to, that the tendency, to my mind, is forward, not backward; up- ward, not downward. The doctrine of evolution is of necessity optimistic. Growth without limit means contin- ual advance; surging and re-surging, like the tides of the ocean, but forging forward from one cycle to another. Physical cataclysms alone excepted, the march of humanity is to be perpetually toward the light. So Jesus preached, so Plato dreamed, so Milton sang, so Luther protested, so Philip Sydney fought and died, so the great of every age and clime have acted and spoken. Tliis is the vestal fire of all the ages, which has been perpetually burning in the human heart Progress and Victory for the human soul. I close this paper with the suggestion that, at some time in the perhaps far distant future, the State will have evolved into an entity of purely delegated, as distinguished from representative, powers. Signs are not wanting, already, that a reversion such as Mr. Stickney has indicated to the primitive meeting, in open convention, of the citi- zens of a limited vicinage, will constitute the only direct political relation of the governed with the government. May not the people of a given section wisely conclude that it is safer for the common interest to delegate, to a 108 The Evolution of the State. person known to each of tlieni, fairly chosen in open con- vention and after full deliberation, those important powers which they now entrust to unknown spoilsmen, whose only incentive to action is the advancement of their private interest, and who have neither the capacity nor the inclina- tion to further the public good, and who, therefore, permit the citizen, for instance, to bo represented in Congress by some person who is amenable, not as the Constitution designed, to the people, but to those who hold the power to present him to the people as their candidate ? However this may be, the State, as an affirmative factor of evil interference with the man, belongs wholly to the past. The State which is to be will foster every personal right, protect every avenue of personal advancement, encourage every aspiration for personal freedom. It will gather to itself all great and noble thoughts, because it will witness the elevation of the common man. Into its com- plete formation will enter all lofty contemplation of the highest good to man. To its constitution all classes and conditions of mankind will contribute. Every noble en- deavor, every holy instinct, and every chivalric deed of all the past, will be garnered in its perfect Statehood. It will be tolerant of human weakness, it will be helpful to human endeavor. Truth and honor will find in it an altar. Virtue will find it a shield, and vice a sword. Speech will be given audience by it. Crime will be disarmed by it. Into it will flow all gracious impulses, out of it will come all needful courage ; for it will reach its perfection at a time and in an age when men shall be exactly what they seem, and the State itself shall be the auspicious symbol of the Brotherhood of Man. THE EVOLUTION OF LAW BY KUrUS SHELDON COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. Spencer's " Principles of Sociology"; Amos's" Science of Law'* and " Systematic Yiew of the Science of Jurisprudence"; Maine's "Ancient Law," "Early Law and Customs," and "Popular Gov- ernment"; Bagehot's "Physics and Politics"; Coulange's "An- cient City"; Pollock's "History of the Science of Politics," and "Essays in Ethics and Jurisprudence"; Lightwood's "Nature of Positive Law"; Holland's "Jurisprudence"; Morey's "Roman Law"; Muirheads's "Roman Law" (in Ency. Brit.); Wharton's "Commentaries on American Law," chaps. L, II., III. (110) THE EVOLUTION OF LAW.* In the modern State there are two kinds of law ; one made by the legislature ; the other by the judges. Law made by the legislature is called statute law ; that made by the judges is called the law of judicial decision. If a man agrees to serve another for a term of two years, he is not bound unless his agreement is in writing ; because there is a statute to that effect. But if he agrees for a term of less than a year and for a consideration, it is a, valid contract : not because of any act of legislature, but because, long ago, in England, in the time of Stephen, the spiritual courts held that a man was bound in conscience by his engagement ; afterwards, the temporal courts held that he was bound in law, and have so continued to do to this day. Statute law includes political, public and private law, the law of procedure, corporations and municipalities, etc., and a part of what is called Private law, which has to do with the rights and obligations of individuals in the or- dinary affairs and business of life. The larger part of the rules of Private law is made by the judges. That judges make law is not explicitly stated in the text-books. In fact it is not generally admitted that they have any part in law-making ; the theory being that there is somewhere a store of ready-made law, con- sisting of rules and precedents, where the judges somehow find what they want after the lawyers have searched for it in vain, and then expound and apply it with plenty of comment and obiter dicta, but no addition. Now, it often happens that, if any determination of right or liability is made, it must be made by the Court. Consider the first case of action brought against a parlor- car company for loss of a satchel containing jcAvelry en- trusted to the porter without notice of contents. Here the Court gives judgment in a case which differs from any to be found in the reports ; and just in proportion to *Coi'vuiGHT, 181)0, by James H. West. 112 The Evolution of Law. the difference of the circumstances from those of any previous case, is the amount of new law made. Yet the books and the case-lawyer would have us believe that this decision was somehow implicit and potential in the judgment of the Court in a case tried before Lord Holt in 1704, in which the plaintiff brought suit against the de- fendant for loss occasioned by his having undertaken to haul and deliver a cask of brandy ; which he did with such negligence that it fell out of the cart and was staved, so that the brandy was spilt upon the ground, to the great loss of the plaintiff. The thorough-going theory of the law of judicial de- cision is that a rule or principle is somewhere to be found in reports which will fit the facts of any case in trial and serve as a precedent. Yet, as Maine says, '' the moment ^'tlie judgment has been rendered and reported, we slide ^' unconsciously or unavowedly into a new train of thought. " We noAv admit that the new decision has modified the '' law. The rules applicable have to use the very in- ^' accurate expression sometimes employed become more ^' elastic. In fact they have been changed." The growth of judicial law is a process of continuous adjustment of the rules of previously determined law to conditions ever varying. As gradually and slowly as the simple means of transport used in old times the heavy wagon dragged through many miles of mud develops into the long train of cars running on its iron track, with all the attendant complexity of commercial incidents, so, slowly and running parallel with it, taking up small in- crements along the course of growing commerce, with some help from legislation, does the law of Carriers groAV to a comprehensive system adequate to the needs of a complex civilization. And so each part of the law rapidly increases, following civilization as it advances, until at last the total becomes a vast bulk of judge-made laws ; eacli part very great, the Avhole enormous ; recorded in 8,000 volumes of reports, the despair of lawyer and legislator ; tlie result of the progressive deduction of rules and principles by a process of distinguishing, by small variation, variations from previous cases, similar, but not identical ; so that when a decision is made, some increment is added to the body of the law, or sub- stitution of new for old is made, even to such a degree that The Evolution of Laic. 118 at last, by the slow process of distinguishing, old law is reversed. I find no better illustration of the growth of law by variation dependent on changing conditions, than the words of Coleridge, C. J., in his charge to the jury in a case of blasphen^ : " Gentlemen, you have heard with truth that these things are, according to the old law, if the dicta of old judges, dicta often not necessary for the decisions, are to be t^ken as of absolute and unqualified authority, that these things, I say, are undoubtedly blasphemous libels, simply because they question tlie truth of Christi- anity. But these dicta cannot be taken to be the true state- ment of the law, as the law is now. It is no longer true, in the sense in which it was when these dicta were uttered, that Christianity is the law of the land. Therefore to base the prosecution of a bare denial of the truth of Christi- anity simpliciter et per se on the ground that Christianity is a part of the law of the land in the sense in which it was said to be so by Lord Hale and Lord Raymond and Lord Tenterden, is in my judgment a mistake. It is to forget that law grows ; and that, though the principles of law re- main unchanged, yet (and it is one of the advantages of the common law ), their application is to be changed with the changing circumstances of the times. Some persons may call this retrogression, I call it progression, of human opinion." Law begins when a dispute between two, about right or duty, is settled by a third person, instead of being deter- mined by the superior strength or skill of one of the dis- jmtants, the third party having authority to enforce the decision. In primitive times this authority rested some- times in the tribe, sometimes, as in the Homeric era, in the assembly of warriors ; in early English history, in the hundred ; in a higher phase of civilization, in the State. Probably no check is at first put upon the liberty of the individual to make reprisals or take vengeance ; robbery for robbery, theft for theft, killing for killing, is as natural as with animals : but when at last it works in upon the slow perception of the members of a tribe, that indi- vidual security depends upon tribal integrity, some re- straint is put on the liberty of individuals to settle their quarrels ad libituvi, and the parties are compelled to submit to some kind of arbitration. It is likely that, at first, ref- 114 The Evolution of Law. erence to arbitration was voluntary, to a by-stander. Next, the arbitrator was some man in authority, priest or magistrate ; possibly, in important cases, the chief or patriarch ; obedience being still voluntary, but likely to be enforced by force of public opinion the life of early as well as of advanced law. The next step occurs when the tribe or State assumes jurisdiction to the extent of giving the plaintiff power to compel the defendant to come before a magistrate for settlement of the dispute. The most ancient legal proceeding of which we have record gives strong support to the theory that this was the first stage in the growth of law. This was the Legis Actio Sacramenti, the source and pattern of all later actions in Roman and Continental and old English law. The trial began with the bringing of the slave or property in dis- pute into court. Then began a feigned combat, which is thus described by Gains : " The claimant held a wand, and, grasping the slave or thing over which he claimed dominion, said : < This man I claim as owner, by the law of the Quirites, according to the reason that I have stated. Thus upon him I lay my lance.' The adversary then repeated the same formula, and touched the property with a wand which represented his spear. This process was called the hand-grapple, and symbolized a fight for possession. The magistrate, repre- senting the State, ordered tliem to loose their hold. Then each challenged the other to stake a sum of money on the truth of his assertion. The wager accepted, issue was joined, and the money was put into the hands of the mag- istrate as a compensation for rendering judgment." In some such rough way as this the plaintiff compelled his adversary to come into court to have justice done as fitted the times. This getting a man into court was the most important part of ancient law, as is witnessed by the fact that the early codes give first place and great space to the law of procedure. When the parties are in court, the magistrate must pronounce judgment according to law that is, he must determine rights and duties by applica- tion of some rule or principle. These rules and principles are the substance of the law, the reason and excuse Avhich justify the interference of the public with the will of the individual. The first appearance of substantive law is as custom, The Evolution of Law. 115 sanctioned and enforced by an authority which is sovereign. There are two stages in its development 1st, the growth of custom, and, 2d, its sanction by the sovereign, whether assembly, tribe or king. It is true that Maine and the German school do not regard compulsion as a necessary element of the primitive customary law. But their arguments seem to go no further than to prove that ancient customs become habitual to such a degree that they become constant factors of action. This constancy is due to a conservative spirit and an apathy of thought which belong to a time when status is the prevail- ing condition of men. But unless personal will is somehow limited there is no Law in the legal sense ; in this essay at least law connotes compulsion. It is just when the individual will begins to act in some way that conflicts with custom, that law begins. As long as pure passive custom reigns there is no law for instinctive action does not lie in the province of will. Just outside of the land held in common by the most primitive and rudimentary of States, the village com- munity, in the wilderness, there is a spring of water. A path leads to it, used for time out of mind by every man in the community. It happens that some one builds a hilt, or fences in a bit of ground, right across the path. Then the germ of law latent in every society springs into life and action. The chief, or the assembly of citizens, declares that this is a trespass upon public and private rights, and removes the obstruction : and, if the offender resists, perhaps puts him out of the law, so that any man may with impunity take his life. Again, it is the custom of the tribe that the control of the persons and property of the family shall descend to the eldest son when the father dies. This custom, neces- sary for protection and preservation of the family, has its sources far back beyond memory of man or reach of investigation, in the needs and ideas of a primitive people ; when it emerges into history it has been converted into customary law. It is not necessary to go to ancient time for illustrations of the law of Custom. Although it is the first phase of legal growth, it remains always active and productive. Modern laAv is full of it. A very large part of what is, in strict terms. Common Law the Common Law of Black- 116 The Evolution of Law. stone consists of decisions of the Courts which hold that certain customs are binding, because they have been common throughout the land, and have prevailed from a time to the contrary of which the memory of man ninueth not. For generations custom is the only source of law. It is a characteristic of primitive communities, of simple structure and with small store of civil experience, that a course of conduct which has been the custom of ancestors is regarded as binding for no other reason than that it has been liabit- ual. Modern tests of validity, that it is reasonable, cer- tain, etc., are not requisite. Even when tlie village community has become subject to a sovereign, the law of custom still prevails and is paramount ; for the sovereign does not make new law ; he enforces the old. No king or assembly ever enacted the law of ^;a^rtrt. protestas, which through the long course of Roman history determined religion, morals, manners, rights and duties by an iron rule, relaxed at last but never completely loosened ; its influence co-extensive with the Roman Empire, transmitted through many a channel to this day, and still apparent in the law of primogeniture and the few remaining disabilities of women. It is probable that among the first customs that were converted into law were many that were derived from religious ceremonial. Religion was the chief business of the family, as war was of the community (tribe). Nothing was done before the domestic hearth without offering to the Lares ; no furroAV was turned and no seed planted with- out invocation of the gods, attended with strictest rite and ceremonial. The battle nuist wait for the generals to consult the augurs for those were the days when augurs met without laughing. So strict was this ritualism that the drop])ing of a word or the omission of a gesture was of fatal consequence. The formality and punctiliousness of the religious rite remained when it received sanction from the State, and became a legal obligation. De m'm'nms iioti curat lex, the law is not concerned about trifles, is a legal maxim of modern growth. It is a natural result of primitive conditions of thought and culture, superstition, narrow experience and shallow understanding, that form should count for more than substance. The reason of a custom soon passes out of sight and out of mind ; but though the reason fails, the law remains : and the ceremonial which The Evolution of Law. 117 was once significant of real relations, and decisive of right and duty, is reduced to mere formula and gestures of no import. So old law becomes technical to the last degree ; error in the letter kills, so that the spirit can not make alive again by amendment of course. Gains says, if you sued by Legis actio sacramenti for injury to your vines, and called them vines, you would fail ; you should call them trees, because the text of the XII. Table made mention of trees only. An old Teutonic law reads : If you sue for a bull, you will miscarry if you describe him as a bull ; you must give him the ancient judicial designation of the leader of the herd. The fore-finger must be called the arrow-finger ; and the goat the feeder on leeks. And even as late as the time of Edward I., the rule held that " he who fails in a word, fails in his cause." This technicality, which has been called a disease of early law, is trans- missible by descent, and runs far down into modern law. In England it had a most extravagant outcome in the system of special pleading so long in use. At last it comes to pass, in progressive communities, that the iron rule of form and ceremonial can no longer be endured, and the " cake of custom " breaks at last. Social and political life have expanded and deepened, becoming manifold and complex, so that the old laws are not ade- quate to present needs. Xew rights and duties arise to Avhich they are not suited. How shall these be fitted to the new order of things ? The fact is, they are not fitted, but new rights and duties are adjusted to the old ways, are transferred from the domain of morality to that of legality, and are somehow forced and squeezed into the ancient formulas without thought of logic or convenience. When the mind regards form as the essence and reason of law, it easily adapts old ceremonies to new material without perception of inconsistencies. The ceremonial law is hard to change, because it has come to be regarded as the conservative element in society. Average morality has run far in advance of positive law, but in order that the law may be brought to harmonize with it, the popular conscience must have a long period for action upon the public will, and through this upon State administration. Then begins the work of a new and unique agency for harmonizing law Avith social needs and ideas. This first 118 The Evolution of Law. instrument for the modification and improvement of law- is Fiction. Old law, particularly Roman and English, is full of these devices. One of them had a great influence, civil and social, in ancient time, and has left its traces in many parts of modern law. In Palestine, India, Greece, and Kome, there was nothing of so much social and civil importance as that the integrity of the family should continue unbroken after the death of the father. He was its head and lord ; and more, for he was household priest. He alone could law- fully conduct the rites of ancestral worship. Any inter- ruption of sacred rites was fatal in its consequences. When the father died, his office immediately passed to the oldest male descendant. In those days of private feud and tribal conflict, when men fought like kites and crows, it was likely to happen that all the males in a family would perish. But the worship of ancestors mvist be kept up without a day's interruption. Some remedy must be devised. There was no thought of any out of the exact line of the old ceremonial. The law was that the duty could not be delegated ; it must fall upon the oldest male descendant. But there was none. The problem was solved by the formal adoption of a stranger as son, who immedi- ately became such, not only by law, but also in the regard of the family and in the opinion of the community. Headship could not descend to a female. From this rule of exclusive devolution of the paternal power to a male is derived a great part of the modern law which deter- mines the course which the property of an intestate shall follow, and also the legal relations of husband and father to w^ife and children. The fiction of adoption was extended to other trans- actions. The strict rule of ancient law did not permit a man to sell his laud or to devise it by will. He held land and goods as trustee for his family, to the end that it might not perish out of the land. Private ownership with right to sell is an incident of advanced law. Of course, with change of conditions as time goes on, this rule be- comes inconvenient. The public begin to regard it first as inconvenient, then as unjust, at last as not to be endured. Then public opinion begins its influence ui)on the magis- trates. But there is no thought of changing the old law imposed by the ancestral gods which declares that prop- The Evolution of Law. 119 erty belongs to the family ; and when the family has perished that it shall go to the gens. So the crafty and shifty magistrate invents a fiction which satisfies the unsophis- ticated gods with the form, and gives the substance to buyer or devisee. The proposed devisee is adopted with rigid observance of ancient form and formula, as eldest son of the family ; or the vendee is so adopted ; and the title of either is perfect. For a long time, reforms in Roman and English law were brought about in this way. It is said, by competent authority, that there was a time when almost the entire law of English procedure was composed of such fictions. It is quite certain that no historic system has been without them ; and it is fair to infer that they are a necessary phase of legal development. The reason is not far to seek. We find it in the conditions of a primitive people ; their poverty of resource, narrow range of experience, a lack of constructive imagination, the formality and techni- cality of primitive ways due to the influence of a cere- monial religion, and most of all, in the mental apathy that always characterizes an age of ignorance. Next to Fiction in the development of Law comes Equitij] which, according to Sir Henry Maine, signifies "Any body of rules existing by the side of the original " civil law ; founded on distinct principles, and claiming " incidentally to supersede the civil law in virtue of a su- "perior sanctity inherent in these principles." This is not what modern courts would regard as a " working defini- tion " ; for they have come to regard Equity as a fixed sys- tem, Maine regards it as an influence. The necessity for the action of such an influence in the modification and improvement of the law is due to the fact that, in all communities which are not stationary, the morality of the people runs in advance of the law. As civilization progresses, rights and duties multiply and become more complex ; with this, morality refines, and the public conscience broadens, deepens and becomes more sensitive, so that the rigidity and formality of old law comes to be regarded as a hindrance to progress. Espec- ially does its inadequacy in adapting form to substance, and procedure to merits, and its poverty of resource in number and kinds of remedies, begin to be felt. The sense comes that procedure and judgment should be ac- 120 The Evolution of Law. cording to the merits of each case considered by itself, rather than as one of a class of cases that fall nnder some general rule : and particularly that a man's claim shall depend for success upon application of principles of right and justice, and not upon the chance of fitting his case into some determined and arbitrary form of statement, or of referring it to some precedent. The stock illustration of the operation of Equity given in the text-books is this: Tlie Common Law would not discharge a man from liability upon a bond which he had signed and sealed, unless he could bring into Court as evidence of discharge a release also under sign and seal of the plaintiff. If the defendant oifered to prove that he had in fact discharged himself from liability, by payment of money or otherwise, he would not be permitted to intro- duce his evidence. But when the Equity Courts began to assume jurisdiction, they admitted the evidence, and, upon proof of discharge, issued an injunction forbidding the plaintiff to f urtlier prosecute his suit. This was sub poena : that is, if the plaintiff persisted, he was summoned before the Chancellor and fined or imprisoned for contenq^t of Court. He could get no help from the Common law Courts ; for the Chancellor stood next to the throne, was the keeper of the King's conscience, and had all his influ- ence and power to aid in enforcing his judgment. Again, Common Law could not anticipate and prevent the doing of a threatened wrong, but must wait until the act was done, and then could give damages in money only. Equity compelled the offender to come into court, and enjoined his wrong-doing under penalty of fine and imprisonment. Again, the old law gave to the husband absolute ownership and control of the personal property owned before marriage by the wife. Equity compelled liim to set aside in the hands of trustees a part for her exclusive use. A brief sketch of the growth of Ecpiity in England will further illustrate its character. During tlie reign of "William the Conqueror and his immediate successors, the King's Court, composed of the great lords, exercised juris- diction in the most important civil and criminal cases, leaving to the ohl popular County Courts a very limited authority in local affairs. The King's Court finally broke up into tliree distinct Courts, afterwards called Common Law, to distinguish them from the Courts of Chancery. The Evolution of Law. 121 The business of those days was fighting : there was hardly a beginning of trade and commerce ; the value of all the personal property in the Kingdom was small ; the rules of land law, compared with those of a later period, were few and simple ; so the law of the time was crude and rudimentary. There were only four forms of action in the Common Law Courts which could be employed to maintain a right or remedy a wrong. These failing to fit the case, the plaintiff must go out of Court poorer than he went in. These four remedies, as stiff and narrow as they were simple, afforded poor showing for relief in the manifold forms of what Coke used to call fraud and covin. There was many a way by which the cruel over- lord could oppress and defraud his poor tenant with im- punity, because his act could not be described in the set phrases of either of the writs of Debt, Detinue, Covenant or Trespass. We read that at last some complainant, failing to get redress in the Common Law Courts, but bound to push his case, would somehow get access to the King, coming down to London, or appearing before him on one of his circuits through the kingdom, and would give his plaint, and pray for relief. Whereupon the King summoned the accused to make his plea, and, if found in the wrong, with off-hand justice he granted the relief asked for. There were besides, cases too difficult to be determined by the ordinary courts, which were brought before the King for decision. This kind of business grew, of course, and be- came so heavy a burden that he must have help, and so a Justiciary, or Chancellor, as auxiliary. In time the work increased so that it became necessary to organize a corp of assistants and subordinates. This was the origin of the famous Court of Chancery an institu- tion at first beneficent, remedial, and progressive, which regarded justice as of more consequence that precedent, and form as of little account when weighed against substance ; but which became first conservative, then reactionary, and at last an obstacle to right and justice, so that it well deserved all the invective of Bentham and all the satire of Dickens. The tliird agent in the modification and improvement of law is Legislation, which in course of time becomes a large part of the business of the State. The State is now 122 The Evolution of Law. mature. It has become sovereign, embodied in king, emperor, or assembly, and supreme over its subjects to determine action, compel obedience, and regulate rights and duties. According to the theory of the English school of jurisprudence there is no limit upon its power to make law but in fact, and in apparent support of the doctrines of the rival German school, the action of legislatures is limited by the popular conscience and will. A distinctive characteristic of Legislation is that it is supreme over all other methods of law-making. Its ad- vantage is that it can make the will of the people effective much more directly and expeditiously than the other agencies. Many are the cases in which Legislation has swept away the cobwebs of legal subtlety, simplified tech- nical laws, and cleared from the path of progress the obstacles of precedent and form. It has abolished im- prisonment for debt, removed the disability of a party to a suit to testify ; has given the prisoner the benefit of counsel and the right to testify in his own behalf; has converted the wife from a figment of law appurtenant to the husband into a legal person, and is slowly bringing woman to an equality with man in civil rights. In the progressive State the legislative function increases rapidly in scope and application, until its share in law- making becomes apparently, if not really, greater than that of all other sources. After lai)S^ of time, perhaps of a centur}', as in Kew York State ; perhaps of centuries, as in England, the bulk of this statute law becomes very great. At the same time the law of judicial decision has also been growing rapidly, with constant accumulation of additions, affirmations, reversals, and distinctions. There may hav(^ been must have been a guiding principle of growth in either case, which a master in analysis might discover ; Imt none the less is the result in one case a thicket, in the other a jungle, the, imperviousness and cruel thorniness of which it enters into the heart of none but a practicing lawyer to conceive. Statutes accumulate by the myriads, with no order, no sequence except in date, no interdependence ; in a word, there is nothing in print that is so utterly incoherent as a collection of statutes. And it takes thousands of volumes to contain the (lisjccta membra of the behemoth of Common Law which some beaten and dis- The Evolution of Law. 123 gusted lawyer three hundred years ago called a " godless jumble," probably after judgment against his client. This complexity, confusion and unwieldiness surely seems to call for some sort of correction. Not a few are of the opinion that the remedy is to be found in codification, which they regard as an advanced phase in the growth of law; while their opponents regard it as an advanced stage in the decomposition of law. A Code is a systematic body of laws enacted by the legislature. It comprises the settled principles of the law of judicial decision, and statutory law previously enacted, arranged systematically by topics, in divisions, chapters and sections, for easy reference. It also contains definitions of legal terms, rules for its own interpretation, and provisions for the future scope and application of the method of judicial decision to such cases as may arise outside of its own intent and specification. It should repeal obsolete statutes, settle disputed questions of law in the province of judicial decision, and provide for its own amendment. This is a long definition, still it is incomplete. The ancient codes, of which the Jewish, Roman, Salic and Brehon are examples, were not codes in the modern sense. They were mere undigested collections of custom- ary laws, published for the information of the people and the government of magistrates. In the later period of Roman law, especially during the Empire, many experi- ments in scientific codification were made, resulting, early in the sixth century, in the publication of the famous Justinian Codes. These are the source and model of the modern European codes, of which the most famous is the Code Napoleon. The Codes of Justinian are the domain of research and exploration for students of general juris- prudence and the philosophy of law; subjects of great importance in their possible relation to the future im- provement of law. The movement for codification of English law was initiated by Bentham early in this century, in his vigorous and virulent style. But English institutions are hard to change, and progress has been slow. At last hoAvever, Codification is the "burning question" in English jurisprudence. Already two or three branches of Private Law have been codified, and more are likely to follow. Lawyers, Judges and Legis- lators there, as here, are divided ; men of great ability 124 The Evolution of Law. and learned in the law differ most positively, one party insisting that Codification is the only hope for the law of the future ; the other, that it would be its destruction. Codification has fared better in the United States. The majority of the States have adopted one or more of the ordinary forms of Practice, Penal and Civil codes. Louisi- ana from the first has been governed by a Code modeled upon the Code Napoleon. It is here at home, in the State of New York, that the main battle has been fought, with victory for the advocates of Codification in 1848, when the Code of Civil Procedure was adopted ; and in 1882, when the Penal Code was enacted, while the fight still goes on, fierce and hot, over the proposed Civil Code. The advocates of codification claim that it is possible for a Commission of Experts in special departments to frame a general Code, made up of special Codes, con- structed, if necessary, by extensions made at convenient intervals of time, tliat would have these advantages over the present system or chaos of laws, as they call it: Scientific Arrangement ; Accessibility ; Intelligibility ; Cer- tainty. It is urged that Codification is necessary because law, whether statute or judicial, is not at present sys- tematized in a scientific and pliilosophic way. Both are published in volumes that appear from year to year, and are mere records, without system, analysis or arrangement of any sort ; except so far as the so-called Revision of Statutes made in some of the States goes in that direction. To be sure, ponderous digests are published, but these have no legal authority. It is charged, as a defect of the law of judicial decision in its present state, that it is inaccessible to any but experts ; and that an expert even must work a devious and doubtful way through a maze of cases in order to find a case on all fours with his own, only to realize, after a search through some hundreds of cases scattered hither and yon in some hundreds of the 8,000 volumes of reports, that case-law is wliat Pollock calls "chaos tem- pered by digests." The advocates of codification claim that a code would cure this defect and make the law accessible. It is also cliarged tliat tlie law, whether statute or judi- cial, is unintelligible, as well as inaccessible, to any but experts, so that a man of ordinary intelligence, even one of trained intellect, cannot without help of a lawyer ascertain The Evolution of Law. 125 the law that concerns his ordinary rights and duties, although it is a legal maxim that ignorance of the law is of no avail as a defence. It is urged that a code would cure this defect. One enthusiast suggests that such a code should be used as a text-book in our public schools, the most important sections of law to be learned, as the Twelve Tables were learned by Koman boys. It is also charged that the law of judicial decision is defective in the quality of certainty. This appears in the great num- ber of conflicting decisions and overruled cases to be found in the reports. Of the 154 cases reported in one volume (1883) of the reports of the Court of Appeals in New York, 32 were reversals of decisions made by the General Term. In 25 volumes of Missouri reports, 40 per cent, are reversals. Another alleged cause of uncertainty is that important questions remain unsettled, because the Courts, as some one has said, "nibble round their edges," and give judgment by indirection only. It is objected to codification that the reduction of the law of judicial decision to statute form will give it the acknowledged defects of statute law particularity, rigid- ity, and strictness in interpretation. Also, that it deprives the courts of the power to exercise the fu.nction of ad- ministering equity, of which the distinctive merit and advantage is that it does justice in each case according to the particulars of the case, which any rigid formula of law fails to do. It is also objected that it is obvious that no jurist of one generation can anticipate the needs of the next. Law is the resultant of the moral and physical forces of civilization, which vary continually with the changing circumstances, conscience and will of the people. Any code must, therefore, be continually subjected to amendment, and be tinkered according to the varying ca- prices of legislative committees, resulting in a confusion and uncertainty much greater than that charged against the law of judicial decision. Again, it is objected that the enactment of a code would not dispense with the necessity of further development of judicial law ; for it is a well-known fact that it is im- possible to draw a statute in terms so exact and definite that it will not some time require judicial interpretation to determine its meaning and application. The New York Code of Procedure has been the prolific source of thou- 126 The Evolution of Law. sands of decisions. It is said that there are, in English and American reports, 40,000 cases of interpretation of the Statute of Frauds. Finally, it is objected that history shows that codifica- tion is suited only to a moribund state of the law, when it has lost its spontaneity and capacity for improvement ; that codes have appeared at a period of national decline, as in the case of the Justinian Codes, or at a period of political con- fusion, as in the case of the Code Napolean. One writer (Best) says that codification has always been indicative of a contemporaneous state of absolutism on one side, of civic pusillanimity on the other. The great German jurist Savigny regards the French, Prussian and Austrian Codes as symbolical of the peculiar vices incident both to revolu- tion and tyranny. The conflict of opinion finds expression, on one side, in the language of Sir Henry Maine: "English law will continue to bear the marks of the injury that results "from the absence of creative judisprudence, until legisla- "tive rearrangement and restatement fully disclose the " stores of common sense which are at present concealed " by its defects of language and form." On the other hand, an American law-writer wails after this fashion: "If England adopts codification, it requires no gift of " prophecy to foresee that her encompassing seas will weep "upon the dripping rocks around that island a more " mournful requiem than was ever before sung over fallen " greatness and glory." The several methods of development of law Custom, Fiction, Equity and Legislation, and, if you please, Codifi- cation; the necessary results of the continuous interaction of State and society; different methods of adjustment of rights and duties, and all operating, wlien in normal action, to produce for each individual least restraint and the greatest liberty are best illustrated in the two great historical systems of law, the Roman and the P^nglish. There is space for only a passing notice. Their lines of development are in some respects so diverse that they have sometimes been regarded as repugnant sys- tems. This is true rather in respect to forms and proced- ure than in substance. The most obvious differences are that the distinction between real and personal ])roperty, Avhich is of such importance in English law and one of the The Evolution of Law. 127 greatest of obstacles, perhaps the greatest, in its progress, had no place in the Roman. At Rome, Law and Equity were administered by the same Court in England, they were divided between two, which differed in constitution, jurisdiction, procedure, principles and, in early times, in spirit and ideals, so that for a long time they were in open and bitter conflict. In each of our original States, with the sole exception of Louisiana I believe, Law and Equity were administered in separate Courts. In 1848 the two jurisdictions in the State of Xew York were merged into one, by Act of Legislature. The majority of the States have followed her example, and at last, even in old England, the home of precedent, the Law and Equity Courts were consolidated in 1873. In the law-courts of England, questions of faoi; were always decided by a jury taken from the people ; in Rome they were referred to an oflicer selected from a body of professional experts. In English practice, no decision was made upon a hypothetical case for the sake of determining a principle of law. An issue of fact or law could be joined only when a suit was brought for actual damage or relief. A great deal of Roman law consisted of the opin- ions of jurists upon hypothetical cases, which were made authoritative by the edict of the praetor. Law grew much more rapidly, and it was much easier to modify it, in Rome, because the judges were less conservative and had less re- gard for precedent. At Rome, law was studied philosphi- cally, as a science ; in England, as a profession, empirically. Although, in literature and art, Rome was of second rate, pupil and imitator, in law she was original and cre- ative ; without peer then, and without superior now. In one direction she made greater progress than any modern State the philosophical study of law. Professional jurists are rare in this country and in England, and are not common on the Continent. They abounded in Rome, and Maine says that they were the means of producing results which the English practitioner lacks centuries of attaining. He adds that "the great importance of the Roman law is that in our law we approach nearer and nearer to its con- clusions." The law of any period is the resultant of countless forces, climatic, social, religious and moral, concurring through long periods of time and over wide areas of influ- 128 The Evolution of Law. ence. Making allowance for the fact that law lags behind morality, we find the law of any period fairly representa- tive of the intelligence, morality and ideals of tlie people. The student finds many illustrations, often quaint and curi- ous, of the varying phases of social and civil relations, and of habit, thought and belief. Some of the primitive methods of collecting a debt strike a modern sheriff as at least unique. The first of the Twelve Roman Tables reads, " If you summon a man (debtor) into Court, he must go ; if he refuse, call a witness and arrest him ; if he attempts flight, lay hands upon him." Observe that the plaintiff is allowed to arrest the defendant and bring him into court. The State is not represented by an officer ; the summons is a private act, and th^ duty of the official is only to give judgment. This is a step in advance of the mode of private redress, when the parties fought it out with fists or clubs. If judg- ment went against the defendant he was allowed thirty days in which to satisfy it. If he failed, the plaintiff could arrest him and bring him before the magistrate, who demanded surety. If this was not given, he was adjudged to the plaintiff; was put in chains, and confined in the house of the plaintiff for thirty days. Meanwhile, the amount of his debt was proclaimed on three successive days, in the market-place. If on the third day no surety was obtained, he could be sold into slavery ; or he might be put to death, and his body divided probably ^;ro rata among the creditors. The words of the Twelfth Table are, " On the third market-day let him be cut in pieces : if any one cut too much or too little it will be no crime." Very gruesome this, worse than the old English law of imprisonment for debt; and worse than the experience of the uncomfortable victim of modern supplementary ])ro- ceedings after execution. However, retrospective jtity may be suspended in view of the fact that later criticism gives a milder meaning to the text to this effect : " Let him be sold, and the proceeds be divided ratably among the credi- tors." The following is how they collected a debt not long ago, in India. The process was called " sifti7if/ d/iania,'' and is thus described : "It is a fixed principle with tlie Hindoo "that to deprive a Brahmin of life, either by direct violence *'or by causing his death in any mode, is a crime which The Evolution of Law. 129 " admits of no expiation. To this principle may be traced "the practice called dharna. The Brahmin proceeds to " the door or house of the person against whom it is di- " rected, or wherever he may most conveniently arrest him ; " he there sits down in dharna, with poison or some instru- "ment of suicide in his hand, threatening to use it if his " adversary attempts to molest or pass him. He thus coni- "pletely arrests him. The Brahmin fasts, and by the '' rigor of etiquette the debtor also fasts ; and so they " remain, until satisfaction is obtained. Failure is rare ; " for if the arrested party were to suffer the Brahmin to " perish by hunger the sin would lie forever upon his head." It is said that this method of procedure '' has been put '' under the ban of the British law, and chiefly survives in " an exaggerated air of suffering worn by the creditor, who " comes to ask a debtor of higher rank for payment, when "he is told to wait." In Persia the man who is to fast sows barley in front of the debtor's door, and sits down, with intent to stay till the debt is paid or the barley grown so as to give him bread. We do not know that any connection has ever been traced between this and a similar custom which formerly obtained in Ireland. Illustration of variations of law due to influences of race and time is found in the history of the testamentary dis- position of property. The idea that a man has the right to direct the course which his property shall take after his death is modern, and even now does not prevail in parts of the East. In India, the theory of the native law is that descendants receive the property of their ancestor in trust for continued performance of the rites prescribed for worship of ancestors. Essentially the same law held in early Rome, and centuries passed before fiction and equity so modified it that testamentary disposition became free. In England lands could not be devised according to the wish of a testator until the reign of Henry YIII. The growth of Criminal law is a subject of great interest, rich in material for the investigation of the stu- dent of comparative law. There is space here for but a single point. The interference of the State in what modern law calls crimes made its appearance late in history. For generations, murder, theft and robbery were regarded as private wrongs, to be settled by the method of retaliation. 130 The Evolution of Law. When the State at last interfered it did no more than to compel the tribe of the injured man to accept a money compensation. A notable generalization of comparative law has been expressed by Maine, in a significant sentence : " The move- ''ment of progressive Societies has been from Status to " Contract." In ancient communities State law does not reacli the individual : it deals only with family relations. The individual was absolutely subject in life, person, and earnings, to the head of the family, no matter how old he might be. He had no personal rights; if injured he could not recover damages ; his family must prosecute, and received the damages ; if he injured a member of another family, his own settled by the payment of a fine. He was not a legal unit, or even a legal fraction ; he was an abso- lute zero. It followed that in a political and a legal point of view his condition was that of status, determined by family and tribe, with no element of individuality in it. He had no legal free-will, so could not bind himself by a promise; and therefore could not make a contract. As he had no legal free-will, his legal status, of whatever sort, could not be changed by his own act. When contract seems to be first enforced by law it is not for the reason of the English law, that there has been some consideration ; or for that of the Roman law, that it is equitable that a man shall be bound by his promise but it was en- forced because some public State ceremonial had been per- formed in which certain formalities in act and formulas in words had been followed with exactness ; then the promisor was bound, even if his promise had been obtained by fraud or force. In the early stage of development of contract, an agreement could not be made binding by private consent or action alone. The State must give its sanction in some ceremonial. Even to-day, in some of the Indian provinces, a contract is not considered binding by the natives until it has been confirmed by the courts, representing the State. At last, with help of Fiction, Equity and Legislation, the old patria 2>otestas has almost died out of Western law. Status has passed to Contract; and the riglit of men and women too to be their own masters, and to ex- tend the spliere of the action of their will over things by private owership, and over persons by contract, is forever assured. EVOLUTION OF MEDICAL SCIENCE BY ROBERT G. ECCLES, M. D. Author of "The Evolution of Mind," "The Relativity of Knowledge," etc. COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. Spencer's "Principles of Sociology" ; Gradle's " The Germ The- ory of Disease"; Tyndall's "Fragments of Science"; Stille's Therapeutics and Materia Medica" ; Belfield's " Relation of Micro- organisms to Disease" ; Peters's "History of Ancient Pharmacy," (Pop. Sci. Mo., p. 95); Whewell's "History of the Inductive Sci- ences," (Vol. I., p. 227, Vol. II., p. 261) ; Rodwell's " Birth of Chem- istry"; Hughes's "Manual of Therapeutics"; "Pharmacopoeia" (Ency. Brit.), "Avicena," "Alchemy," "Pharmacopffiia," "Phar- macy" (Chambers's Ency.), "Pharmacopoeia" (Johnson's Cyclo- pedia), N. Y. Medical Times (Vol. XVII., p. 158), Jour, of Am. Med. Asso. (Vol. XIII., p. 258), Druggist's Circular (Vol. XXXIII., p. 124), N. E. Druggi.st (Vol. I., p. 12); Flint's "Practice of Med- icine"; "Michigan State Board of Health Report" (Report of Committee on Sanitary Literature, p. 122); Cruikshank's "Prac- tical Bactei-iology." (132) THE EVOLUTION OF MEDICAL SCIENCE.* How primitive man treated disease and eased pain is now mainly a matter of pure conjecture. General inferences may be drawn from the methods of modern savages and the traditions carried into historic time. Till men suffered by the mere sight of suifering in others, no effort was likely to be put forth to still the pain felt by a neighbor, or stay the ravages of disease upon him. Side by side with the development of the altruistic fellow-feeling has gone on the Evolution of Medicine. There looms up with the dawn of history an indefinite mass of distorted facts and pure fiction from which modern Physical Science as well as modern Medical Science has been born. To fully realize the process by which the change went on is exceedingly difficult, owing to our inability to put ourselves, in fancy, into the queer mental states of our progenitors. It is hard for us to believe that they were as thoroughly steeped in superstition as the facts force us to acknowledge. Supernaturalism wove itself into every thought and controlled every act. The ghost-theory ex- plained every fact of their experience. Winds and waves, falling bodies, light and darkness, disease and death, were all the direct results of the wills of ghosts. Our modern savages are in this same frame of mind, and show neither surprise nor wonder at anything that occurs. To them, our telephones and telegraphs, railway-trams, and machinery of all kinds, are as simple and understandable as is the shooting of an arrow from their bow. Their belief in magic by ghost-power is thorough, unwavering and radical. It no more occurs to them to question this than it does to us to question that twice two is equal to four. Their only cause of wonder is the occasional failure of civilized man to do some miraculous thing they think he should be able to do by his magic. This way of thinking keeps savages, and kept primitive man, in incessant and abject terror of the forces of Nature, *CopYKiGHT, 1890, by James H. West. 134 The Evolution of Medical Science. and made them the dupes of every miracle-monger that came along. The dangerous, and to them evil, forces were the objects of their worship. They did not consider it good policy to worship a good god, as he would be good to them anyway. The evil powers were therefore the ones pro- pitiated at first. Wlien a person became sick, it. was taken at once to be a case of obsession. One or more evil spirits were supposed to have taken possession of him. How to drive the bad ghosts out was the problem they set before themselves to solve.* Of course they had to resort to the priests for help in all such cases. Thus it is, that the earliest historical records tell only of ecclesiastical phy- sicians, and their treatment consisted solely of charms, prayers or incantations, coupled of course with some rich offering to the gods.f With the differentiations of theology came corresponding changes in the theory of disease and its treatment. When one good God, and a devil with a host of minor evil spirits, came to be believed in, the notion arose that sickness was due to sin.| It was considered that God was meting out justice to the sick. Then repent- ance was preached as a saving grace, and prayer as the talisman to recovery. Written prayers were fastened around the diseased part, and the sign of the cross or other religious sign drawn over the same as a charm. By thus pleasing God, they were siipposed to be removing them- selves from the buffetings of Satan. When they failed to rally after this, they were thought to be very wicked indeed, and as God continued to curse them it was impious for man to be kind to them. Under idolatry and fetishism, remedies of a simple char- acter were resorted to. Under Christianity and the strict sects of the Hebrews, the resort to therapeutic measures was considered a lack of faith in God. The fetish-wor- shipor began his use of remedies as a logical sequence of his faith. The Hebrew and Christian rejected them on the same ground. The former believed that there were souls to all objects, dead as well as living. Some souls were bad and some good. I?ad souls made disease, and good ones health. They held that what was eaten imparted its soul, in whole or in part, to the eater. Cowards ate the lion's * I^ul)l)<)i'k'H Orijjin of Civiliziition, p. 19. t American Cycloija'dia, word "Medicine." t.Iol), dial). '1, V. 7, clia]). l."), v. 2(1; .loliii, cliai). 0, v. 2. James, cnai). 5, v. 14, 15. The Evolution of Medical Science. 135 flesh to gain bravery, and his bones for strength. Weak stomachs were supposed to be cured by eating strong ones. People with short breath expected improvement from eat- ing foxes, that were believed to have long breath. Only women were allowed to eat deer-flesh, as it made them faint- hearted. New-Zealanders make baptised children swallow pebbles, to make them hard-hearted and incapable of pity.* Thus at the very dawn of knowledge, and among all savages, the medical doctrine is that similars cure similars. When very bad spirits were supposed to be in possession of a patient, they fought them out with bad odors or very abominable doses. It was still the same " similia similihus curantur.'' What the Ptolemaic system and astrology were to astronomy, this doctrine has been to medicine. Every child has as natural a trend to this belief as it has to believ- ing that the earth is flat and stationary. All barbarous and savage people in every age have harbored it as they have other superstitions. In fact, it is a strictly logical superstitious deduction. As such, of course, it must con- tain, somehow or somewhere, a soul of truth. It certainly has been of incalculable advantage to the race, in leading to experiments that laid the foundations of Science. Very often it must have proven successful by causing vomiting or catharsis to ensue, or a critical sweat to be established. Upon the facts thus garnered, the philosophers began to work, and we find the disciples of Pythagoras going out and visiting the sick at their homes. Before this, when the priests held rule, the sick had to be carried to the temples where they were. All the progress made in Med- ical Science from this time onward was by battling priests of every kind. Each new accretion has been a survival in a most intense struggle for existence.! Hippocrates, in tlie fifth century before Christ, gives us a systematic statement of what was known up to this time, and we have only to take succeeding gains, one by one, to see how truth has always been challenged for its credentials. The worst part of the battle has been in behalf of anatomy and physiol- ogy the corner-stones of the Science and it continues in some countries to this day. For ages, the dissection of a human body was an act considered so sacrilegious that murder was looked upon as less heinous. There are people * Lubbock's Origin of Civilization, p. 13. t Warfare of Science, pp. 77 to 92. 136 The Evolution of Medical Science. living now who can remember when a man was likely to be lynched, in this country, if it was known that he had taken part in the dissection of a human body. The only speck of sunshine for progressive Medicine, over a period of thousands of years, was wlien the Ptol- emies founded and cared for the Alexandrian library, allow- ing human dissections, and encouraging the importation of all sorts of remedies from every part of the earth. Then arose a large number of able anatomists and physicians, who added extensively to human knowledge and redeemed the Art of Medicine from the region of downright super- stition.* But while Egypt was thus basking in the light of Science, Rome was depending upon charms and incanta- tions to heal her sick. At every epidemic they built a temple to pacify the supposed angry gods. Soon, however, they borrowed from their more fortunate neighbors much of their skill and knowledge. Celsus has shown us that this was really no beggarly amount. They were able to perform operations for hernia, calculus, intestinal wounds, and cataract. They could use the catheter, trephine, lig- ature severed arteries, and remove hemorrhoids. They used lead plaster for the same purposes as we do to-day, and employed opium as successfully in curing dysentery. About this time, too, some cathartics had been discovered. A generation later, Galen compiled the medical knowledge of the times, after which an era of darkness set in, Avhen men's minds were frozen into set forms for twelve hundred years. Christianity, such as it then was, soon became a power in the land, and it was the sworn foe to medical progress. It was willing enougli, usually, to accept acquired facts, l)ut no new ones were allowed to be promulgated, nor etforts made to discover them. As the Bible was the only guide in matters theological, so Galen became the sole authority in matters medical. To dare to differ from Galen Avas to raise a similar tempest to daring to differ from Christ. Dissecting human bodies, under Paganism, was a niis- tlemeanor ; under Christianity it became the most horrible of crimes. From time to time the church would rise iip in arms against medical men because of some new discovery. Then all medicine would for a season be denrnmced. The doctors were charged witli sorcery and unhiwi'ul com])act with the devil, crimes ])uiiisliable by burning at the stake. f * rcters' I'ictorial History of Ancient riiarniucy. !>. is. t White's Warfare of Science, \i. 77. The Evolution of Medical Science. 137 In 1243, the Dominicans solemnly interdicted every member of their order from the study of medicine. About the same time, the popes ordered all medical books from the mon- asteries, and forbade their study. Petrarch called the doctors, " Men who deny Genesis and bark at Christ."* They were called Atheists, Mohammedans, Sorcerers, Magi- cians, and all other titles likely to embitter the ignorant and superstitious against them. As late as 1722, the Eev. Edward Massey said that diseases are sent by Providence for the punishment of sin, and the attempt to prevent them is a "diabolical operation." During all this dark period the only valuable gains made were borrowed from the Mohammedans. Avicenna, an Arabian, taught us how to use colchicum for gout, iron for anaemia, and rhubarb in dysentery. To him we are indebted for cassia, senna, manna, tamarinds, and camphor. We here see why doctors were called " Mohammedans," a term that then was worse than burglar or thief is to-day. In the loth century, a number of bold spirits defied the popular prejudice so far as to dissect bodies privately. Some were caught and severely punished. In the 16th century, more of it still was done, in defiance of law, but privately, of course. Strange to say, however, even these men could not divorce themselves from subserviency to Galen. Whatever they found disagreeing with his descrip- tion was set down as due to human degeneracy. The body not being just as Galen described it, it must have changed. Galen could not be mistaken. f It is ever thus, in progress from superstition to truth. The majority take the popular side, whether right or wrong. Nor can they be blamed for this. As a rule it is the side of the greatest safety. Dis- sentients, in defending a solitary fragment of truth, are more likely than not to discard the accumulated experiences of the race, making that fragment do duty for the whole. The men and women that are able honestly to weigh facts, and be guided solely thereby, are, in every age, few and far between. Hence it is, as a rule, safer to err on the side of conservatism than on that of so-called radicalism. In spite of this, we cannot help wishing that there had been more, and more pronounced, radicals during the Middle Ages. The theological nightmare of those times, especially in Ibid, pp. 100 to 108. t Amencan Cyclopaedia, word "Medicine." 138 The Evolution of Medical Science. Christian countries, is somewhat appalling. Medical Sci- ence was held by it as in an iron vice. Escape was impos- sible. To be brought face to face with the crass ignorance, and horrible medical superstitions, then indulged in, is well, frankly, it is nauseating, and very apt to seriously disturb delicate stomachs. Nor need we go back much over a century to find it, since the awakening is of very recent occurrence. For instance, take "Helmont's Amulet for the Plague," which sober, sensible yes, sensible, as sensibility went in those days medical men of good standing en- dorsed, declaring that it had " proven its efficacy in many instances" (I am quoting their own words), "particularly during the war between the Imperialists and Regulars in Hungary, where the plague raged in a terrible manner. It gained such a reputation throughout the country that all barbers and blear-eyed witches are already acquainted with its virtues." * The recipe was so highly esteemed among the leading medical men of the times that it occupied a prominent place in a Pharmacopoeia of 1731, and was endorsed by the College of Physicians of the Kingdom of Prussia. Here is the delectable recipe : " Large, old frogs, caught in the month of June, are hung up by their hind legs over a dish covered with wax, which has been placed over a moderate fire. After a few days, the frogs discharge horrible fumes and slaver, which attract every kind of worms and flies. These stick to the wax and add their own drivel to the mess. When the frogs are dead, roast and mix them with the carefully preserved mixture of wax and drivel, and shape this compound into small rolls, or imitate the shapes of frogs. One of these is sewn into a cloth, and worn in the region of the heart, suspended by a silk thread around the neck. The longer one wears these, the more certainly will he be protected from the ravages of the plague." t In 1G63, Bechler's "Parnassus Medicinalis Illustratus" contained, among other equally quaint yet loathsome ther- apeutics, the following: "Powdered human bone in red wine will cure dysentery. The marrow and oil distilled from bone is good for rheumatism. Prepared human skull is a sure cure for the falling sickness. Moss grown on a skull is a haemostatic. ]\rummy dissolves coagulated blood, ro- *New KntrUmd Druggist, March, 1889. p. 12. t I'eters' Pictorial History- of Ancient I'luinnacy, pp. 1'2, ILX.i; New England Druggist, March, 18'J, pp. 12, l.J. The Evolutioii of Medical Science. 139 lieves cough, etc. . . . Human fat, when properly rubbed into the skin, restores weak limbs. Water distilled from human hair, and mixed with honey, promotes the growth of hair," etc. The druggists at this time kept in stock, for the compounding of physicians' prescriptions, the excreta of human beings and animals, spirit of human skull, spirit of human bones, human fat, "poor sinner's fat," wolf-liver^ fox-lung, deer-spine, pike's-jaw, rabbit-hair, gallstones, scor- pion and centipede ashes,* "With more of horrible and awful, That even to name would be unlawful." To this day, a branch of the Homeopathic school prescribes just such remedies, and they can be purchased at the head- quarters of the high potency homeopathic specifics, No. 13 W. 38th St., New York City. I give the address, lest some skeptical person should doubt the reliability of the state- ment.f Originally, however, they were given in large doses, but now in infinitessimal ones. At the time these remedies were so popular, the Jesuit priests introduced from South America the bark of the Cinchona tree, for the cure of malarial diseases. Protestant Europe rose up in arms against it, and stigmatized it as "Jesuit Bark." Blood-curdling stories of its poisonous and destructive effects were told, and these, in modified form, have been handed down from sire to son until the present day. Scarcely a month ago, a patient of mine refused to take quinine, because it was the poisonous ex- tract of Jesuit bark. Ever since charms and prayers Avere replaced by therapeutic measures, men have striven to dis- cover specifics for diseases. The majority of laymen to-day think that doctors have such specifics. In "Jesuit Bark" and its alkaloid, quinine, we have about the nearest ap- proach ever reached to such a thing as a specific in medicine, and yet theological bigotry in disguised form causes hun- dreds of sufferers to refuse to use it. Doctors are compelled, in such cases, to hide the name under some foreign synonym, so that their patients shall not know that they are swallowing, in not only harmless but really useful doses, this drug. Our fathers condemned it, and lied about it, merely because Catholic Priests first brought it to notice ; but they did not Ibid. t Druggist's Circular, June, 1888, p. 124; Medical Advance, March, 1889, Advertisement. 140 The JEvolution of Medical Science. hesitate to swallow their own and other human beings' and animals' filth, or decoctions from skulls gathered from graveyards. Cinchona, in spite of theological ire, has proven itself fit, and survived; the other remedies were unfit, and only persist in modified forms and obscure places because superstition is not yet dead in the earth. The fetish idea that led up to such abominable forms of medical treatment, on the theory that like cures like or sim- ilar cures similar, was modified from time to time, with fashions in theological thought. The doctrine of " signa- tures " was an outgrowth of this kind. God in his good- ness had not left man to grope his way in darkness in med- ical matters, they taught. He had put his sign on every remedy, so that anyone could easily discover it. Similar to the symptoms of the disease, or to the organ diseased, somewhere could be found a mark or appearance in the plants or things God designed we should use as cures. You will observe it is still the old formula of fetishism, of "similia similibus curantur," but it has taken on a Chris- tian covering. Paracelsus was the latest champion of this form.* Many of the old remedies, that are quite worthless, stick by us still as family-lieirlooms. ]ilood-root, having a red juice like blood, was considered good for the blood. Liver- wort, having a leaf like the liver, cures diseased livers. Eyebright, having a spot like an eye, cures bad eyes. Cel- andine, having a yellow juice, cures jaundice. Bug-gloss looks like a snake's head, and therefore cures snake-bite. Ked flannel looks like blood, and cures blood taints. Hun- dreds to-day refuse to wear wliite flannel, which is in every way superior so far as health is concerned, because it is not "medicated." Little do they know that tliey are under the thrall of the silliest kind of a silly su})erstition. This notion of signatures, wild as it is, led to decided improvement in medical science, by precipitating a fight with the Orthodox disciples of Galen, and leading on to a long series of experiments in therapeutics and chemistry. The followers of raracelsus did not confine themselves to drugs of vegetable and animal origin, but went on trying minerals as well. The Galenites, being strongest, had laws enacted forbidding the use of mineral substances in med- icine. Tlien went on the feud tliat has left its mark on the 'Popular Science Monthly, vol. 1, pp. 95 to 100. The Evolution of Medical Science. 141 minds of many people to-day, making them decline to use mineral drugs if they know them as such. It is really a wonder they do not stop drinking water, every drop of which is charged with minerals. Salt, too, is a mineral. Why do they take it ? The fact is that they could not live a second but for minerals. The mineral iron makes their blood red ; the mineral lime constitutes the great bulk of their bones ; the mineral phosphorus supplies the thinking power of their brains ; the poisonous mineral, muriatic acid, helps digest the food in their stomachs ; the minerals soda and potash help digest the fatty parts of their food. When antagonistic medical parties could not find theolog- ical grounds for a fight, they usually resorted to the cry of "poison !" Even now, in this 19th Century, that word has a terror to most people, worse than that of "mad dog." It never seems to occur to them that it is a purely relational term. Viewed one way, there is no such thing as a poison. Viewed another way, everything is poisonous. Weight for weight, and equally compressed, the oxygen of the air is the most deadly poison known to man. A troy ounce of oxygen will kill more men, and in quicker time, than a troy ounce of any other known substance, unless it is the new alkaloid lately discovered and called strophanthine.* Yet we cannot live without using it. In proper quantity it is a necessity of life. Muriatic acid is a deadly, corrosive poison, and this, too, is necessary to our existence, being supplied to our system in the form of salt. As salt, its work is not done, however. Too much heat will burn and destroy us, and too little will freeze and destroy, while the proper proportion aids health and life ; so, too much or too little of any and all substances that exist acts in the same manner. Of some we need more, and of others less, to maintain health. Within the proper amount, nothing is poisonous. Out of the proper amount, everything is poisonous. This is the truth that has evolved out of the fight be- tween the disciples of Paracelsus and Galen. In both of these camps, skepticism in time began to spread as to the truth of the formula that similar cures similar. Slowly there grew a tendency, never, however, definitely expressed, to a belief that the reverse was true ; i. e., that Nature's method was " contrai'ia contrariis curantvr.^^ Such was the condition of things Avhen, in 1789, Hahnemann began his * Popular Science Monthly, vol. 11, p. 328. 142 The Evolution of Medical Science. translation of Cullen's Materia Medica from English into German, and when his mind reverted back to the fetish- system of therapeutics. He believed he saw a similarity- be tween disease-symtoms and the effects on healthy persons of such drugs as benefited them in such diseases. Now began another therapeutic war, that has scarcely yet died out. The regular army never asserted any special therapeutic doctrine in opposition to homeopathy. The rebellious deserters affirmed the universality of what they were pleased to call the law of similars.* They nick-named their opponents Allopaths, although they knew the title to be false. There never has been an organized body of men believing in Allopathy, and no one knows this better than homeopathic doctors. Eegular physicians to-day all know that some drugs do act as if in accordance with the homeo- pathic shibboleth. They also know that others act in just the contrary way. Small doses of ipecac will check nausea. That is Homeopathy. Large doses of Rochello Salts will check constipation. That is Allopathy. Sulphur will arrest the itch. That is neither Homeopathy nor Allopathy. Regular doctors use all these remedies, taking such as ex- perience proves to be good, whatever the theory by which they act.f Homeopaths of late have been doing the same, and their very best men are pointing out the dishonesty and folly of adhering any longer to the title, since it has become merely a means of deluding the ignorant public. The future must give Hahnemann credit for sounding the deatli-knell of polypharmacy and excessive dosage ; but he will derive no honor for reviving exclusive Homeopathy, which is merely a modified reversion to fetishism. The progress of Bacteriology is fast putting an end to such narrowly limited views, and this is aided by the light shed by Evolution on the problems of Pathology, t Modern therapeutics takes note of the fact that both sim- ilars and dissimilars are equally efficient, and that therefore Allo])athy and Homeopatliy only partially express the tinith that is at once both and yet neither. Electropathy, Hydro- * In the discuKsion which followed the lecture, Dr. W. S. Searle asserted that Homeopathy is a scientific system of medicine. No method can claim to he scientific, he declared, which remains a mere undigested accumulation of empirical facts. Science only becomes such when we have discovered the un- derlying law which determines the character and relationship of the facts. All such laws are universal, and such a law of cure Homeopathy claims to have discovered. The jjroof lies in its practical results for seventy years. tStille's Therai>eutics, vol. 1, ji. .'W. i American Naturalist, vol. 18, pp. 1 to i). The Evolution of Medical Science. 143 pathy, and a host of other pathies, each contains partial views of truth, and all are taught to-day at our leading medical colleges. At last we begin to see the great general principles gov- erning the actions of drugs. Foster, in his Physiology, points out four : " 1st. By dilating the blood-vessels and increasing the blood supply. " 2nd. By acting as a direct chemical stimulus on the protoplasm. "3rd. By exciting secretion in the cell through reflex action of the nervous mechanism belonging to the cell. "4th. By acting directly on the nervous centers of that mechanism."* To these might be added their specific effects in destroying germs, their anaesthetic effects in deadening feeling, their chemical effects in aiding digestive action, their osmotic effects in aiding secretion and excretiouj etc. Only within a century has true growth gone on at any decent rate. New and valuable drugs have multiplied through the services of chemistry, till now we can accom- plish results that the men of a generation ago would view with astonishment. Within ten years some of the best discoveries for easing pain, relieving fever, and curing various forms of disease, have appeared, and most of them are prepared synthetically, in the chemist's laboratory. Had bigotry and intolerance not interfered with the prog- ress in medicine during the long dark epoch lying between the Empiricists of Alexandria and the Scientific Physicians of the 19th Century, millions on millions of lives might have been saved, and billions on billions of hours of human agony quenched. Where we now are, they should have been, long before the time of Avicenna.f We would then have been where our children of a thousand years to come will be. In this hasty retrospective view of the development of Medical Science, you will observe that only the linear path of Therapeutics has been followed. We have traced the tree from its base to its apex, only incidentally referring to Peters' Physiology, p. 3C1. t Warfare of Science, p. W. 144 The Evolution of Medical Science. some of its branches. Evolution, however, as you are aware, is differentiation. To early man, therapeutics was all there was of Medicine. Practically, to most people in our own day this is equally true. To medical men, on the contrary, the vastness of the branches is almost appalling. Quite early, surgery began to differentiate, and cases that primitive ignorance thought to be curable by medica- tion were found to give way only to an operation. Steadily have such cases multiplied, and with the progress of knowl- edge more and more of such are discovered. Surgery itself has given off numerous branches to the care of specialists, until important facts have so multiplied that no living man can longer master them. At a very early date surgery gave birth to anatomy as a distinct branch of science, and the bad treatment this received at the hands of theology has already been referred to. Galen tells us that the first cultivators of anatomy constituted a distinct social caste.* They never wrote out discovered facts, but kept them within their own families by tradition. In his day, much knowledge had been acquired, thanks to the liberality of the earlier Egyptians. They had not, however, up to this time, been able distinctly to distinguish muscles from nerves in their various finer ramifications. They knew that the great nerves of sensation came from the brain. They knew the principal bones, muscles and viscera. They did not know of the solar plexus and its system of nerves. The study of anatomy gave birth to physiology as a nat- ural sequence. Errors in the former, led to the wildest kind of conclusions in the latter. Until the discovery of the relations of veins and arteries to eacli other and to the heart, but little that could be dignified by tlie title of science was possible here. Through all the dark years of Galen's supremacy this discovery was not made. Mondino in 1315, came near it. Vesalius, in the middle of the 16th Century, traced them out ; and for telling the world that Galen blundered he was persecuted most mercilessly, but fortunately escaped tlie fate of liis contemporary Servetus, part of whose heresy was the sanie.t Poor Servetus was a heretic to Christ as well as to Galen, and was burnt at the stake therefor. Later on, Sylvius discovered the valves of the veins, and their absence in the arteries, while * History of the Inductive Scieiices, vol. 2, p. 440. t Opp. Cit., pp, 445, 44. The Evolution of Medical Science. 145 Fabricus showed that all valves were turned toward the heart. William Harvey, at the beginning of the 17th Century, opened upon himself the flood-gates of theolog- ical abuse by making a remarkable discovery, while ex- perimenting with these valves. He demonstrated the circulation of the blood, which in those days was an exceed- ingly impious suggestion, as ic showed how men and animals could live without the incessant tinkering of the Almighty to keep them alive. From this point, physiology swept grandly on, and it was aided by innumerable discoveries in the new science of Chemistry. The laws of digestion, respiration, secretion, excretion, reproduction, nervous and muscular action, mo- tions of the chjde, etc., were soon discovered. On the establishment of Physiology, Pathology appeared, and the anatomical lesions of disease became a special line of study. Each new branch, as it came forward, reacted upon and aided in the advancement of all its predecessors, as well as, in time, of its successors. Inflammation, suppuration, ex- travisation, new formation, mal-circulation, degeneration, and kindred topics, were studied as to their causes and methods of cure. This gave rise first to Histology, and afterwards to Bacteriology, the last of which is at present making a great deal of stir in the earth.* I have not stopped along the way to show how therapeu- tics begat JNIateria Medica and Chemistry, nor how they in turn evolved Pharmacy ; but these, and many more, con- stitute branches from the developing tree. Beginning as an indefinite, incoherent mass of chaotic facts and fancies, slowly it has grown to its present august proportions, vuitil it now appears as a definite, coherent mass of useful knowl- edge, ditt'erentiated into a large number of quite distinct and orderly departments of science. Before the advent of the last named branch, the race had become conscious of the fact that, for some reason, cleanli- ness was necessary to comfort, and to freedom from diseases of a contagious character. The reason was quite unknown. Plagues and pestilences of various kinds had shown a sort of aflinity for the filthy, and while the scythe of death did not cut quite a clean swathe along such a line, it succeeded quite well for an approximation. Our deluded forefathers *Vide Cruikshank's Practical Bacteriology, Sternberg's Magnin, Belfield's Jlicro-organisms, etc. 146 The Evolution of Medical Science. for a long time failed to see this, and attributed all great epidemics to blasphemy, infidelity, and various forms of religious heresy. Even diseases that were due to the universal unchasteness of the people were charged to blas- phemy, Sabbath-breaking or heresy.* The very existence of such a disease in an epidemic form is proof to us to-day that priests and people, high and low, rich and poor, were, on a grand scale, guilty of immorality of the worst type ; and yet they blamed God for sending the disease as a pun- ishment for their not keeping the Lord's day holy ! To prove their penitence, they built hospitals and churches, dedicating them to Saints, and prayers ascended in public places for relief, while they still went on in their crime and died like rotten sheep. The sanitary condition of their homes is scarcely cred- itable. The working-classes, especially, were indescribably and abominably dirty. Here, for instance, is a pen-picture of the 16th and 17th Century homes of England, as given by the Editor of the North British Review many years ago : " In times gone by, and even later than Shakespeare's, our floors were the earth only, as in many cottages now, and we used the broom or brush little, and threw the garbage down, allowing it to lie and rot and become so vile that we invented the device of covering it over with straw so that it might be trodden down, as the cattle make the manure in the straw-yards. The earth of the floor was overweighed with putrid matter, and much of it came into the air of the room ; but the formation of nitre, or saltpetre, began, and oxygen accumulated rapidly, and rendered even these houses habitable in a way."t The author then goes on to tell how, after layer upon layer had been piled feet deep, and even human excreta piled in abundance in the mass, soldiers would be sent to a village on a pleasant day to compel all tlie inhabitants to go into the open air while they cleaned out their pens for them. By lixiviating this mass of filth, they got the saltpetre to make their gunpowder, as pay for their labor, t When a plague came upon these people or their cattle, they drew the sign of the cross on the doors, with tar, as a protection to the inhabitants. With the development of chemical knowledge. Carbonic- acid gas, carbon monoxide and sulphuretted hydrogen came Westeni I)nip;tcist, Jan. 15, 1890, p. r>. t North nritish lleview, vol. 44, p. 4s its place. Here a system of * Cruikshiiiik'a IJactoriology, p. l.V.l. The Evolutio7i of Medical Science. 149 sewerage connects miles of houses together, and the germs of intestinal diseases in abundance find their way from house to house, unless the plumbers have done their work faithfully and well. I say the germs of disease do this. Scientifically, I mean the spores or seeds of such germs as develop in this manner. The term germs, of course, is here used as synonymous with micro-organisms. Sanitary science insists upon an arrangment of closet, bath and wash-basin pipes that will allow no back pressure of gas from the sewer to force its way into the house and carry such spores.* Sewer-gas is not always deadly or seriously dangerous. This is proven by the fact that men work in it from week to week without impairment of health. f It is always injurious to some constitutions, and is sometimes so to a large number of people. The less of it, therefore, that enters a house, whether disease-laden or not, the better for the average health of the community. Scarlet-fever germs come from milk, are carried in clothes, toys, money, books, newspapers, etc. Dogs, cats, and birds, are now charged with transmitting them. Measles, smallpox, whooping-cough, and kindred diseases, journey from patient to patient in similar ways. Bed-bugs are probably very active carriers of contagious diseases. Many investigators are strongly inclined to blame mos- quitoes for transmitting intermittent and remittent fevers. You all know the sticky and transmissable character of lamp-black formed by a smoky lamp. You get it on your fingers first, and soon somebody observes a speck on your face. It is next borne to your clothing, and, whenever two surfaces touch, if one has it, the other gets a little. Dis- ease-microbes are like this, an impalpable powder that every breath of air can blow and every contact of svirfaces divide. Hand gives them up to hand, coat to coat, lips to lips, and even the points of the finest needles are fre- quently laden with and transmit them to the cloth sewn. So small are they that thousands in a single pile cannot be seen by the naked eye. As one grain of wheat will, in a season, produce fifty grains, so one germ, multiplying rap- idly every minute, will form legions in an hour. Of course. * Michigan Board of Health Report, 1882, pp. a^i to .3.30. Ibid, pp. 213 to 217. tin the discussion following the lecture, Mr. Charles F. Wingate, the Sani- tary Engineer, questioned this assertion of the lecturer, and aflfirmed that ex- perience jiroved all kinds of sewer-gas to be poisonous. Different constitutions, however, differed in their ability to resist these poisonous influences. 160 The Involution of Medical Science. like wheat, they do not multiply when dry, but only in proper soil, with proper temperature and moisture. Sanitary Science seeks to check the growth of these germs and to destroy those already developed. To fight an invisible foe is difficult work, but we are steadily improv- ing in our ways of doing it. The general public are little beyond the Middle Ages in their notions about how to give them battle. True, they no longer dej^end on phylters, charms, crosses, and prayers, for relief. They do, however, maintain faith in bad-smelling carbolic acid, tar, and other equally useless and abominable so-called disinfectants.* Let every person, within hearing of my voice to-night, learn that nothing will destroy the germs in a room, or save themselves from contagion, so well as a deluge of water such as would clean a sliower of lamp-black, and plenty of pure air, to blow them out of the room, while thorough dusting and sweeping, with wet brooms and dusters, is being done. You can kill germs, that are not too dry, by any means that will kill the hardiest plants or animals. Nothing short of this is of the least avail. f When your disinfecting has killed every croton-bug, bed- bug, fly and plant in your room, some good has been done in protecting yourself and children from disease. To buy a few cents'-worth of carbolic acid, chloride of lime, Piatt's chlorides, or any other disinfectant, leave it open in the room, and expect immunity therefrom, is to believe in the impossible. Such ideas belong to the age of magic. We but play the ostrich in doing this, and think ourselves saved from the enemy if our heads are covered. These disinfectants are exceedingly useful as auxiliaries to floods of water, or for the i)reparation of strong solutions, in which to cleanse infected goods. t To expect any other good from them is folly. Within the last decade progress has been made with great rapidity. Indeed, the gain is more than in one thou- sand years immediately after Galen's time. A doctor who took his degree ten years ago, and who has not striven to keep abreast of the times, is already an antiquated fossil. He knows nothing of the way in which the comi)arison of tlie anatomy of men and animals has shown how hundreds of diseases are due in great part to weaknesses inherent in * Mediciil News. Vol. 4r., ]>. 144. t National I?oar\; V. S. Agricult. Report, 18S1-S2, !>. L-XJit. The Evolution of Medical Science. 163 be any one of a dozen troubles that happen to have at- tacked the special organ or part that gives the name. Every physician has seen pneumonia that was what we call an extremely bad cold ; he has likewise seen cases that were la grippe, others that were scarlet-fever, still others that were measles, etc. The lungs were simply the weak organs which, in that particular patient, broke under the strain ; and, because it was the lungs, we called it pneumonia. Scarlet-fever, with one patient, will give rheumatism ; with another, pneumonia ; with another, Bright's disease ; with another, diphtheria ; with another, heart-disease ; with an- other, pleurisy ; with another, inflamed glands. As no two wagons, under very heavy loads, will break down in just the same place, so no two persons with the same disease will develop the same symptoms. Expose fifty men to a ducking, on a cold day, and let them go home with wet clothes, and you will soon see how diverse the effects of the exposure will be. The wise physician is aware of the complex problems every pathological condition presents, and governs his treatment accordingly. His patient may be likened to a ship in a storm, and surrounded by reefs and shoals. He is the pilot whose duty it is to carry that boat safely past rocks and sand-bars whereon it might be wrecked or stranded. Every rock and bar must be known to him, and the helm must be kept under his steady grasp. He cannot stay the storm ; but by his skill and courage he can save the ship until it is past. The foolish old woman, or meddle- some neighbor, or the foolhardy parents, friends or guard- ians of a patient, who give medical advice, are ignoramuses that do not know a single danger, bvit believe they have a remedy, or method of holding the helm, that will stop the storm itself. The physician's remedies are to protect the life at danger-points. If the family is heir to heart-disease or rheumatism, his medicine to cure scarlet-fever is an anti-rheumatic remedy. If the danger is kidney-disease, he eases in advance the strain on the kidneys. If weak lungs or scrofulous glands " run in the blood," his " cure " for scarlet-fever is a protection to these. See that insane idiot who says, " Oh, your trouble is the same as mine, and my doctor gave me so and so ; do try it ! " He is asking the patient to leave himself to the tender mercies of the storm, while he holds the helm in a way to avoid a rock 154 The Evolution of Medical Science. that does not exist in that family's sea. The stupid blun- derer thinks he is staying tlie storm of disease a thing no man has yet done, except partially in possibly two diseases only. Avoid him, if you value your own lives and the lives of your sick friends. Avoid, too, the doctor who never inquires into the disease-tendencies of your family, or the past troubles of the patient, and who has therefore few questions to ask. A family-doctor of long standing has mastered all these facts in advance, and no longer, needs to ask ; but a stranger who pretends to know with- out asking is a dangerous pilot. The proper practice of the art of medicine depends upon the Science of Medicine. The Science of Medicine is an Inductive science in all its parts. The part known as diagnosis is especially so. The doctor has no magic way of finding out what ails a patient, or what his latent ten- iencies are. He gets at his facts just as a detective does who wishes to run down a criminal. The more facts he gets, the more likely is he to be right in his conclusions ; and the fewer he gets, the more likely is he to err. A stupid physician will make a snap diagnosis on one promi- nent fact, and many of this kind of doctors depend upon the unskilled diagnoses of the patients themselves or of their friends. A single falsehood, or misstated fact believed in, will lead the most skilled physician into error, and condemn the patient to the wrong treatment. That false- hood weakens the whole chain of facts, and everybody knows that the strength of any chain is only the strength of the weakest link. A detective makes numerous guesses as to how a murder or a theft occurred, and finally adlieres to the guess that agrees with all the facts. This guess gen- erally is the right one. Let any person introduce mislead- ing cues, and he will be totally unable to right himself, until he discovers that he is being deceived. It is just so with a doctor. If he is told a falsehood, he cannot possibly discover what ails the patient until he lirst dis- covers that he has been misled. No doubt an occult power of getting at truth would be superior to this method, but we have discovered that the belief in occult processes is an ignorant superstition. During the dark ages, the pre- tense to occultism was greatest, and the eviden(!e of knowl- edge least. Then progress was at a standstill ; now it is rushing with dizzy speed. The masses of men still be- The Evolution of Medical Science. 156 lieve that doctors have some magic way of getting at a knowledge of disease, and a miraculous way of curing. To be able to do what nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand people believe their doctors can do, would require more knowledge than could be mastered in a thou- sand years, with a brain as retentive as that of a child of fifteen and logical acumen as fine as that of a Newton. Physicians are praised for things they never do, and blamed for results of which they are innocent. Where their work is most laborious, and their mental anxiety most intense, their pay, as a rule, is abuse only, and they are denounced and vilified without mercy. Every doctor has this experience. There are no exceptions. The denser the ignorance of the patient, the greater the abuse. And yet no class of men can anywhere be shown with a less selfish record than that of the physician. Medicine in all ages has attracted into its ranks the most self-sacrificing members of society. As a science it was born in altruism. To this day it offers the greatest opportunities of any department of life for the practice of the most ennobling graces of character. These con- stitute a primary caluse of its evolution. To pass this phase unnoticed, would be to do Medical Science scant justice. Medical men stand alone in the earth among all others, striving with their whole might to extinguish their own business. They preach temperance, virtue, and cleanli- ness, knowing well that when the people come to follow their advice their occupations, like Othello's, will be gone. They establish Boards of Healtli to arrest the spread of disease, while well aware that such sanitary measures steal money from their purses. How well they succeed, is shown by official statistics. The number of deaths from conta- gious diseases are directly proportioned to the certainty of the doctor being called. Nobody ever fails to send for a physician in typhus fever. Only six persons in a mil- lion now die of this disease. Many more used to die when no effort toward its suppression was made. Whooping- cough seldom frightens patients, and neighborly old ladies of both sexes give advice. As a consequence 428 in a mil- lion die of this disease. Measles, being a little more serious, needs the doctor oftener, and only 341 in a mil- lion die. Scarlet-fever is still more alarming, so that medi- cal advice is more in demand, and 222 in a million die of 156 The Evolution of Medical Science. it. Diphtheria frightens still more, thus assuring the doctor's presence oftener, and 168 in a million die.* It is thus with every disease : the fewer it kills, the more people fear it ; because, if they did not fear it, they would play the fool, and give it a chance to kill more people. If bakers, grocers, dry-goods men, carpenters, tailors, and members of all other lines of business, gave as much of their labor in charity as doctors do, poverty would instantly be wiped from the earth. Nearly one-half of their time and labor is given freely to the poor, without money and without price. All dispensary work is free. All hospital work is free. All that apply to the Society for Improving the condition of the Poor, are treated free. Every physician known to this lecturer has many families that from year to year are treated free. No one can be sick in any city in America, however poor, and not get medical care if he asks for it. Doctors do sometimes re- fuse to take special cases, because of the legal restrictions and responsibilities that, like Damocles' sword, hang over their heads. Such cases will be received in the dispensa- ries and hospitals, so that none need suffer. Let every other person, in all occupations, give nearly half his time and labor to the poor, and what a revolution it would work. Like a pair of Siamese Twins, Altruism and Medicine have always been linked together. The majority of the devoted heroes of science have been medical men. They suffered and died to redeem the race. *New York World, quotation from St. James Gazette, Feb. 5, 1890. EVOLUTION OF ARMS AND ARMOR BY JOHN C. KIMBALL COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. The Geologies of Lyell, Dana and Le Conte; the Botanies of Gray and Sachs; Owen's "Manual of Palajontology " ; Nicholson's "Ancient Life-History of the Earth"; Darwin's "Origin of Spe- cies," chap, iii, and "Descent of Man," chap, ii ; Homer's "Iliad"; Grose's "Military Antiquities" ; Meyrick's "Critical Inquiry into Ancient Armor"; Fanar's "Military Manners and Customs"; Demmin's "History of Arms and Armor"; Boutell's Translation of Lacombe's "Arms and Armor"; Scoffern's "Pro- jectile Weapons"; Chesney's "Past and Present State of Fire- arms"; Beckman's "History of Inventions," Vol. II., p. 535; Buckle's "History of Civilization," Vol. I., chap, iv. Vol. II., chap.ii; Hallam's "Middle Ages" ; Smith's "Wealth of Nations"; Grote's "History of Greece"; Lecky's "History of European Morals," Vol. II., pp. 2(52-290; Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"; Proctor's "History of the Crusades"; Scott's "Waverly" and "Ivanhoe"; Spencer's "Principles of Sociology," Part v.; Comte's "Positive Philosophy," Vols. IV., VI. ; Fox's "Book of Martyrs"; Proudhon's "What is Property?" Reports of the U. S. Secretaries of the Navy and of War; "The Army and Navy Journal"; "Transactions of the American and Foreign Peace Societies." (158) THE EVOLUTION OF ARMS AND ARMOR.* It is a well proclaimed, though not always a well prac- tised maxim of good citizenship, that the legislator, the reformer, the political economist, the voter, everybody who is to have anything to do with discussing and directing the affairs of society and the State, ought to have, as a prep- aration for it, a knowledge of history, that is, of what other men in other days have done and have tried to do in the same great fields. Equally important is it, also, as we are now beginning to see, that such persons should have, as a requisite for their fullest intelligent action, a like ac- quaintance with science, and especially with those depart- ments of science, as zoology and palaeontology, which relate to what animals and plants have done, and with their great interpreter, Evolution. Human history is but the last chapter in a vast volume, many chaptered, of the world's transactions, impossible to be understood without reading in its preceding ones what our ancestors older tlian man have been doing; human society, as Mr. Spencer has so admirably shown in his Principles of Sociology, is but the enlargement and further development of organisms spread all through the animal and vegetable kingdoms, on which Nature has been at work for millions of years. Tlie root and germ not only of man's body, as seen in the oldest vertebrate fossils, but of man's mind, and of all that mind does and can do both individually and socially, have existed in the world's great life-tree from the start, must have done so, according to Evolution, and have been continu- ally unfolding themselves, if not at first as flower and fruit, yet long ago as shoot and stalk. There is hardly an experiment humanity is now trying in mechanics, art, gov- ernment, labor, capital, education, sociology, and even eccle- siasticism, some of them with its own children as the materials, that Xature has not already tried at least the principles of, over and over, in the cruder forms of matter, and with the cheaper materials of animal and vegetable CorvKKJHT, 1890, l)y James H. West. 160 The Kvolution of Arms and Armor. structure. And, such being the case, who cannot see that to study these, wliich have succeeded and which have failed, and what have been the causes of their successes and failures, and what the philosophy is which lies behind them, wovdd save the statesman, the reformer and the citizen many a costly experiment on human beings, and would open the way for the intelligent choice of many an agency and path of progress now lying, it may be, right before their eyes, but which, as things are, they are grop- ing for in utter blindness, or trampling down in utter con- tempt ? One of the great questions that is before our country to-day, and that every country has to meet, one that in- volves millions of dollars and the principles, to some extent, on which is to turn the whole future of its civiliza- tion, and which in many respects is the most difficult that statesmanship has to deal with, is what its people shall do in the way of arms and armor for their protection and defense. And it is a problem, too, that Nature, not less imperatively than nations, has had to deal with all through the past. War and the wager of battle, weapons and the wounds of conflict, are not the accident and disease of her original economy, not a human lapse and folly, but a con- stituent element in her very system of things. The moment she set her creatures on earth, even in their lowest forms, exposed to the elements and compelled to get their own living, most of them, by preying on each other, it became necessary, if their lives were not at once to be extinguished, to provide them with some means on the one hand of assault, and on the other of defense, a necessity which is bound up inseparably with those two great princi- ples on which all organic evolution is based, the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest. Devices to meet it have played a part in her economy second only to those for alimentation itself; are a field in which she, too, as much as any statesman, has had to tax all her resources and lay under tribiite all her skill. The rocks below the earth's surface are a vast gallery in which, while tlie mus- cles, stomachs and brains of her children have perished, the arms and armor with which they fought have for ages been preserved, as in our museums above its surface are the swords, shields and eoats-of-mail tliat our human ancestors, now dust, wore to battle in their brave days of old. And The Evolution of Arms arid Ariaor. 161 the result of these long experiments as to what are fittest, and have helped their users to be fittest also, is not only of itself one of the most beautiful chapters in the Book of Evolution, but one that pours a great flood of practical wis- dom on the problems of our time as to the true principles to be followed in securing national, social and even religious survival and supremacy. The first effort of her Vulcan fingers was in the line of protective armor pure and simple, the encasement of animals and plants in a mere hard outside covering. It is what the exposure alone of their original protoplasm to water, sun and air, aided by the secretion of mineral matter on the surface, and intensified by the survival and repro- duction of the animals and plants which had it most, would tend naturally, in strict accordance with Darwin's laws, to produce ; and it is now seen to advantage in the sea-urchin and star-fish among Kadiates, in the oyster and clam among Mollusks, in the turtle and alligator among Vertebrates, in the eggs of birds, and, to some extent, in the skin and hair of all animals. It was a form, however, to which Nature could not con- fine herself, especially in the animal kingdom. If live things were to live, either on each other or on vegetables, they obviously must have some means of breaking through each other's hard covers and getting at their inside meat. The means came to them in the form of cilia, tentacles, suckers, claws, mouths, horns, jaws, tails, tusks, teeth, begin- ning, perhaps, in such mere thread-like extensions of the inner protoplasm as are now seen in the rhizopods, and culminating in the apparatus of such magnificent vertebrate carnivora as the lion and the tiger. But such weapons alone, with only the old protoplasmic bodies to wield them, would not have been enough ; would indeed have been of less value to them than even their old outside covering. To have them of any real use Nature had to develop, along with them, bones, muscles, nerves, senses, brains; and, in some of their owners, the habit and power of association, all that constitutes a highly organ- ized internal structure. These were organs and faculties which became, in their turn, a new species of armor still more interior; became at any rate what had the same use as armor, the quickness of eye that could discern the 162 The Evolution of Arms and Arvfior. foe, the activity of limb that could fly to it, from it and around it, the shrewdness of mind that could observe its habits and select the best points for its attack, and the in- stinct of co-operation that could join forces in coping with it, differing only in their fineness from the sharpness of the tooth and the strength of the claw. And thus were introduced the two great principles that Nature has used in all her arming, and that have played and are still play- ing a most tremendous part in her economy, their dis- tinction being not exactlj'" that of defensive and offensive weapons, for both, when need required, could be used de- fensively, but that the one had its chief value in its own outside strength, while the other depended for its efficacy on qualities connected with its possessor's inside develop- ment. Equipped from her arsenal with the varied arms and armor which embodied, some of them one of these principles almost exclusively, and some a mingling of the two, Nature sent forth her myriad creatures into their great life-battle, world-wide in its field, where the issue has been not only which of themselves, but which of their weapons and of the principles on which their weapons were made, would prove the fittest, and best help their users to survive. Dur- ing the long geologic ages they were all, and especially the outward kinds, enormously developed both in size and strength, and their underlying philosophy was tested in the severest way by contests alike with each other and with the world's equally ferocious natural elements. The Ortho- ceras, a huge cephaloid mollusk of the lower Silurian rocks, had a thick, hard, cylindrical covering, twelve to eighteen feet long and at its base a foot in diameter. The Dinichthys, a Devonian ganoid fish some thirty feet long, was protected about its head with a suit of massive articu- lated armor that a cannon-ball could hardly have crushed. Among the famoiis reptiles of the Jurassic and Cretaceous ages, the Icthyosaur, Megalosaur, Mosasaur, Iguanodon and others, some were fifty, sixty, and a hundred feet long, plated over Avith thick scales for defense, and armed for attack with claws hooked back like sickles, with long projecting tusks that shut down by each other like clasped fingers, and with sharp, glistening sabre-like teeth, some- times four rows of them, and two hundred in number, indeed " monstrous and prodigious things worse than fables The Evolution of Arms and Armor. 163 yet have feigned." And the age of Mammals had its Mastodon with tusks twelve and fourteen feet long, its Glyptodon with a solidified bony armor on its back nine feet across and weighing nearly four thousand pounds, its Megatherium with clawed feet a yard in length, and its Machairodus, a tiger whose open mouth was an arsenal set with natural swords. How terrible must have been the contests of such monsters with each other, and the slaughter made by them on their weaker and less protected neighbors, most truly "Nature red in tooth and claw with ravin"! How dif- ferent the scenes of their world from the peace and repose that Miltonic poets have loved to picture as the condition of the earth " before the advent of man and sin " ! The sea was alive with animal frigates, the land with self-mov- ing Krupp cannon, the sky with literally "flying artillery." The modern question between steel plate and steel shot, tried of late by the Merrimac and the Monitor, was tried of old as a principle between ivory tooth and horny scale by many a Megalosaur and Mosasaur, carnivore and pachy- derm, each increasing, as now, the force and size of the assailing weapon, as the other increased the thickness and strength of the defensive plate. The physical stuff of which a Nelson and a Napoleon, a Paul Jones and a Far- ragut, were afterwards made, cruised, perhaps, around the headlands of England, and marched, perhaps, across the wilds of Europe and America, ages before their day, as Dinichthys and Dinosaur, Machairodus and Megathere. Battles of Trafalgar and the Nile, of Marathon and Water- loo, deciding the fate of great animal kingdoms, were fought, to begin with, under far off Triassic and Mesozoic skies. And whether or not Tennyson's lines are true of the future, " And there rained a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue," they have been true of the past, the "airy navies" being those of such great reptile birds as the Pteranodon and Pterodactyl, the latter with a wing-spread of twenty-five feet. What has been the result of this long, ferocious war, as related to the various kinds of armor used by its combat- ants ? The records of the rocks conclusively answer. It has been the overwhelming of nearly all the races and 164 The Evolution of Arms and Armor. orders that were provided with its massive outside varieties, and the survival and supremacy of those that have been equipped with its inner and finer forms. Orthoceras and Dinichthys, Megalosaur and Megathere, Icthyosaur and Iguanodon, monsters armed with shell and scale, tooth and claw, enormous and terrible, have all without exception gone down in the great life-battle ; while those whose weapons were the finer skeleton, the keener sense, the quicker nerve, the larger brain and the stronger social in- stinct, faculties good for peace as well as war, and some that apparently have had no outward fighting-apparatus at all, nothing but inner shrewdness and wisdom, are the races that have been victorious, and survived. Even the armed ones whose descendants are still on the field, as the lion and the tiger, the eagle and the shark, have evidently held on by virtue of their quickened inner powers, rather than through their outward strength; or else, as with the oyster and the clam, by reason of their insignificance and unprogressiveness, rather than because of their hardened shells. And man, the one that has progressed most of all, that has become the head of the animal kingdom and the lord and master of the earth, he is the one that, out- Avardly, is the most unweaponed and defenseless of all ; the one whose claws are taper fingers, whose skin every mos- quito can puncture, and whose armor of thought has no size or weight whatever. What is the reason of this result, what the underlying causes why inward development should thus prove itself more effective in the struggle for life than outside strength ? They are not hard to find. To begin with, the animals that trusted to exterior arms and armor were less able to adapt themselves to the ever-changing conditions of the earth and of food supply, than those Avhose weapons were within. The very things which protected them against one set of elements made them often the more exjjosed to be overcome by another set, as the heavy fur, so warm lor AVinter, becomes an intolerable burden under the heats of Summer. The endowments that were efficient against one set of enemies, by reason of their bulk, were inefficient against another set by reason of their unwieldiness, as the huge frigates, so ])owerful against each other broadside to, are helpless against the lively little ram that rakes them turn- ing round. And as the struggle went on between thi'-ker The Evolution of Arms and Armor. 165 plates on the one side and more formidable jaws, claws, teeth and limbs on the other, their weight and size became of themselves in time their owners' worst foes, sinking them in morasses, stranding them on bars, exposing them to be overwhelmed with sudden floods, and at last bearing them down to earth and to extinction by simply their own huge- ness. On the other hand, with some disadvantages, the de- velopment of the animal's inner powers and parts had, in all these directions, a corresponding gain. When Nature invented her backbone, and put her limbs, flesh, senses, and so many of her soft and vulnerable parts, on its outside, it looked at first like a great military mistake, like the building of a fort and the putting of its garrison outside of its walls rather than within their protection. But what a tremendous part this very arrangement of it has acted in all her subsequent operations. The mineral matter its possessors needed to carry about was, in proportion to their size, greatly reduced by it, alike in weight and bulk. How flexible it has proved in the line of adaptations, ranging all the way from the fish in the sea to the bird in the air, from the snake that crawls to the man that walks, and from the uses of war to the needs of peace. What beauty and dignity it has gathered around it in man's kingly stature and in Avoman's queenly grace ; and how fitly, in the higher conflicts of civilization, it has become the symbol of the statesman's crowning attribvite, his " having back- bone." So with each of Nature's other steps in the same direction. What was the sharp tooth as a help, either in defense or attack, as compared with the sharp eye ? What the huge limb, clumsily brought down on its object, in con- trast with the quickened nerve which, in the same time, with a smaller limb, could rain a score of blows against the selected weak parts of its victim ? What the chance of the creature with the strongest claw and the widest range of wood and sea, in its contest with hunger and cold, as measured against one with the hand and mind to weave every fibre that grows into robes of warmtli, turn every force of Nature into weapons of war, and lay every land that blooms under contribution for food ? If the inner de- velopment lost sometimes in its direct fitness for fighting, it made up for it a tliousand fold by its larger fitness for peace ; and as peace, even in the wildest nature, is at least one of its normal conditions, is the time, even among 166 Tlie Evolution of Arms and Arraor. beasts, in which to prepare for war, it is not strange that what was fitted in part for each of these states should have proved, as a whole, the fittest to survive. Beyond this, just in proportion as a live thing was protected by outward armor, either against the elements or against its foes, the stimulus for its interior development wjis taken away, the nourishing qualities of its food went to its outside parts, and the freedom of its circulatory system, always needed in the making of a highly diifei'enti- ated organism, was sacrificed in the interest of its harder shell. It is not improbable that the starting-point of the whole divergence between the animal and vegetable king- doms, now so broad, was that the original protistic proto- plasm out of which they both came, identical in all other respects, was a little more solidified in the one case than in the other, as it still is in their germs, that early outside protection being fatal to all animal-life development. And when Nature surrounds any creature at its birth with an encasement that is a guard without effort on its own part from all harm, as with the snail, oyster and clam, or develops its teeth, claws and bulk so enormously by inheri- tance that their mere display protects it from all ordinary assaults, Avhat inducement does the creature have for in- terior growth, and what sustenance have left for it even should the need arise ? It is the animals whose very exist- ence depends on the completeness and activity of their internal equipment, on their quickness of motion, keen- ness of sense, and cunning of brain, rather than on their outside covering, it is these that will necessarily make the most of every variation in the direction of such ])0wers, using them more and more, and be the ones to mount up at last from moner into man. Historically, in the animal kingdom, it is out of the bodily weakest that have come the mentally strongest. Lacking talons, they have de- veloped talents ; unable to throttle, they have learned to think. Danger has been their school ; difficulty their teacher ; and, instead of yielding to the arsenal of outward weapons arrayed against them, they have turned them into helpers, sharpened their wits against the very teeth of tigers, made the ferocity of the hyena and bear contribute to their fineness of nerve aiul sense, and the portion of Nature's goods that Megalosaur and Megathere consumed with riotous living in the making of brawii, they have used with econoniv in tlie niakintr of brain. The Evolution of Arms and Armor. 167 Then, too, the imperfection of their outward armor must have had a very important influence in driving the weak into that mightiest of all military arts, mightier than any tusk or claw or individual accoutrement, co-operative effort. All animals even of the same species, organized to prey on each other, would naturally be foes at first, and inclined to live apart. Outward shelter meant only the continuance of this separation. "What society could the oyster and the clam have with each other ? What need of mutual assistance, the Icthyosaur and Megalosaur, fifty or a hundred feet long, and panoplied all over with thick plates ? It was only the unprotected that would be under the necessity of overcoming their individual enmities and combining against their protected foes ; only the outwardly weak who would be apt learners of the lesson that union is strength. Once learned it became not only a mighty weapon of attack and defense, but the teacher of innumer- able other things. The association it involved was a powerful stimulus to mind-development. Liking its bene- fits, they grew inevitably to like the benefit-givers, that is, their associates. And thus, under the wonderful alchemy of Evolution, out of the crucible of animal hate in this seething world of ours, stirred with tusk and claw, has come, as much as there is of it, the fine gold of brotherly love, the protective arms into which all weapons are at last to merge. As plants, in their relation to the world's great food- question, are necessarily the assailed rather than the assail- ants, being the prey of animals, but made to get their own living chiefly from unobjecting inorganic matter, their armor for the most part is naturally outward and protective rather than inward and offensive. It is what is found in the bark of trees, the rind of fruits, the shell of nuts, the beard of grains, the spines and thorns of many shrubs, and in the roughness and hardness of nearly all vegetation in its native state. And yet plants are not by any means en- tirely destitute of what may be called offensive arms, or wholly incapable, when assailed, of assailing in return. Species of them are found, here and there, like the sun-dew, the pitcher-plant, and the Venus fly-trap, which completely turn the tables on the animal kingdom, and, instead of being the eaten, are themselves the eaters, catching their 168 The Evohition of Arms and Armor. insect-victims with sticky fluids, spring-traps and imprison- ing doors, the ingenuity of which the best patent, corner- grocery fly-destroyer might well emulate. Anybody who has ever tried to work himself imperiously through a tangled thicket, or to rob a blackberry-bush of its shining progeny, or to climb a pear-tree for its juicy products, will be a not very incredulous skeptic as to the capacity of at least some plants for offensive warfare. AVhen a forest has been cut down and a multitude of new shoots are springing up, and one of them gets a little the start of the others, no human being in the arena of politics or society or trade ever used his faculties more combatively, to elbow out and kick out all competitors, than such a vegetable up- start does its limbs and roots to shade out and starve out its vegetable brethren. The forest and the swamp have their leafy denizens that are weaponed as eifectively with deadly poisons, offensive odors and biting flavors as any in the animal kingdom that wear scales and furs, or in society that wear tongues and clothes. And the small boy who has assailed the green-apple tree has, in his doubling up from it dur- ing the night afterwards, an evidence which neither he nor his mother will dispute, that the assailed orchard is not inferior to the assailed pugilist in its skill to strike back at its antagonist's most sensitive parts. There is the same difference, also, as to the fineness, beauty and organic rank of the weapons used in the vege- table kingdom, that is found in the animal world, and the same rivalry as to Avhich will prove the most effective in its struggle for existence. Their coarsest and ugliest forms were the ones with which Nature necessarily began. Dur- ing the vast periods of palaeontology the monsters of scale and claw were fully matched by those of leaf and bark. Trees were the grass on which fed Iguanodon and Dinocere ; tree-tops the grain that was reaped by Hadrosaur and Dino- there. Reeds grew to be sticks of timber, and club-niosses to be forests in size. With flowers not yet come at all, and the true woods only in a limited degree, the world's i)laut- forces went forth lor ages to their life-battles under the hueless cryi)togams as their banners and with the savage stigmaria and sigillaria trees as their lances and clubs, fought them too, amid the thunder of volcanoes, the rising and falling of continents and the fierceness of tro])ic suns as we never know them noAv. And the coal-measures of The Evolution of Arms and Armor. 169 to-day, their ancient battle-grounds, heaped thousands of feet thick with their dead remains, testify to the ferocity of their conflicts and to the grossness and strangeness of their weapons. The weeds of our own time, rough, tough, unsightly and bitter, are looked upon as the special enemies of man's race, a part of the earth's curse for his primal sin, and as exercising their disagreeable qualties out of mere deviltry and love of mischief ; and are warred against with all the unpitying sharpness of the farmer's hoe and the garden- er's hate. But weeds to begin with were the special friends of agriculture and man, the vegetable aborigines of the land and pioneers of civilization, and were armed thus with special reference to their work. When our modern earth was yet a wilderness built over the graves of its extinct geo- logical vegetation, and incapable of nourishing any culti- vated fruits, the "weeds " settled down on its great glacial furrows just plowed up, and began battling with its crude, inorganic elements to work them over through their own veins into fruitful soils. Go out on the edge of any desert to-day, and you will see some of their tribe still engaged in their old pristine war, throwing out their advanced guards and establishing their slender outposts each year a little further into the waste, too poor as yet to hoist over them the banner even of a flower, but winning what at last will wave with all Springtime's streamers and Autumn's signal- hues. And who does not see that their roughness, tough- ness and acridness are the only possible weapons with which they could have withstood the parching drouths, elemental starvations, and fierce animal hungers, of those elder days and outer realms, and so have won for their kingdom the first stages of its struggle for life ? Who, in remembrance of what they have done, and as a foregleam of that philophyty into which mankind is some day to broaden out, will not forgive them the stained fingers and smarting palms with which, in garden and field, they resist being toi-n from what is so truly their own hard-won soil ? Mingled, however, with these rough and repellant Aveapons of the vegetable world, its finer qualities of color, form and flavor have gradually come in, flowers on bush and tree, arching limbs and drooping boughs out in the stately woods, sweet and nourishing pulps in and around the seeds, and fragrant odors wafted on the evening gale ; these, moreover, not merely as ornaments to themselves or as 170 The Evolution of Arms and Armor. foods for other creatures, but as forces, also, which primarily they all are, in their own struggle for life, arms and armor in the same way as are the senses and the higher faculties that have played such an important part in the battles of the animal kingdom. With the finer qualities themselves, an ingenuity and skill have also been developed in their use and application, which seem sometimes to be almost human. Not a few of the arts and devices of mimicry, that are so wonderful among animals, have their counterparts in plants. How they huddle together in glorious companionship for defense against heat and cold. With what architectural wisdom they send out their roots and build up and balance their branches so as to hold and fortify their positions against gravity and wind. With what shrewdness, while some of them hide from animals and men, others find their protec- tion by following in their steps. And when domesticated and hedged in with fences, and defended with hoes, how winningly for more of such armor, do they, as flowers, put on their brightest colors, and as fruits clothe themselves in their richest pulps. Especially do their wisdom and care, not to say love, come out in what they do for their young. All plants, the same as all animals, seem to reach the best they are capable of in their position as parents, sonship being apparently the axil out of Avhich branches all good, vegetable, animal, human, and, if Christianity be true, even Divine. Un- able to protect their fruit with claws and wings, like beasts and birds, they do so, while it is immature, by making its color green, like that of their leaves, so as to hide it from view, and its taste sour and bitter, so that no ordinary creature Avould think of putting it into its stomach. But when it is ripe, and there is need of its being scattered away from its parent stalk to find room and warmth for its own further growth, they put on it, in direct contrast with their leaves, all the bright colors of the cherry, berry, apple, peach and pear, so as to attract the attention of passers-by, and make its outside luscious and sweet as an in- ducement for them to eat of it and carry it off, at the same time wra])ping its inside germ, and that germ's own special nutriment, in an armor which is ])roof against the digestive assaults of even a wild animal's stomach.* How 'Popular Science Monthly, vol. XXV., p. 4.'J3. The Evolution of Arms and Armor. 171 much is all this like the Imman mother keeping her darling boy inconspicuous at home during the first years of his life, but who, when the time comes for sending him out into the world to get his own living, takes off his old homespun, dresses him up in his best clothes, and puts a little money in his pocket, the sinews of war with which he is to pay his way to a new home and begin his battle of life, and beneath this, right around his heart, the armor of a Bible, or of principles and good advice, to keep him in his inex- perience from being at once the world's prey. Fruits like those of the hickory-tree, whose sweetness is wholly in their meat, are provided with a bitter outside covering, which, instead of growing bright and eatable with their ripening, simply opens, when, in the frosty Autumn, they drop from their parent tree, exposing a white inside shell very conspicuous for boys and squirrels to see and gather, but at the same time a veritable fort, built with all manner of intricate casements, salient angles, and retreating walls, that only nut-crackers and the sharpest teeth can storm and break through. The cocoa-tree, having a large heavy nut whose hard shell would be liable to crack open in falling from its high limbs to the ground, wraps it up before-hand in a soft cushion-like matting, as its defense against the hard earth. And more ingenious still, the cashew-nut, growing in tropical climates and much loved by monkeys, has in its immediate covering a pungent, acrid acid, which, touched, burns not only their tongues but also even their paws, so that not even a hungry monkey, after one experi- ence with its armor, can be tempted to fool with it again ; but, as an allurement to secure their aid in its dispersion, it has at the end of its stalk, and independent of the nut it- self, a most delicious edible tuber, which they can have and do have at the cost only of giving the real fruit a chance to grow, a contrivance equal to that of the old lady who presented the boy, whose integrity she was not quite ready to trust, with a roll of candy for carrying her package of sweet cakes safe to a neighbor, but at the same time wrote on its cover, " Wallop him well if you find it opened." What is the result of Nature's experiment here as to the two ways of arming her creatures ? As told in the broad pages of palseontology, it is the same as in her animal king- dom, the gradual evolution of its inner and liner forms out of and over those which are outward and coarse ; the 172 The Evolution of Arms and Armor. weapons of sweetness, beauty, grace and use, above those of hardness, hugeness, acrid juices, and outside strength. The flowering plants have more and more come to the front, the white lily and the fragrant rose left far behind, in their struggle for existence, the old hueless, odorless cryp- togams. The grains, with their great heads, have grown up over the graves of the gymnosperms, with their great bodies. The apple-trees, the pear-trees, and the peach-trees, with their rich fruit, have elbowed out the seal-tree and the scale-tree with their tough skins. And the graceful elm, towering up over the cottage roof, looks doAvn the chimney out of which curls up to it, as if in homage, the smoke of the carboniferous palaeoxon and the old hirsute neuropteris. It is a struggle, to be sure, that is not yet over, a war whose wilder participants are very far yet from being all subdued. But the master forces, and the qualities and reasons which make them masters, are plainly to be seen. The industrial age of vegetation has come in. The work of doing something for others has been found even among trees and shrubs a mightier weapon than any art of mere individual defense. Plants have learned, whole species of them, that it is cheaper to hire other tribes to wage their wars than it is to train up themselves to do it ; learned that vegetable gold, heaped up in the orchard and the field, will turn the edge of vegetable iron hammered out in the jungle and the fen. The honey that attracts the insect-tribes has done for the flowering shrub, in its struggle for existence, what no hardness, driving them away, ever did ; and the luscious outside of the fruit which feeds the birds has secured them against foes more effectually than any bitter rind that repelled them had the ])ower to do. What does the cherry-tree want of a gun of its own, when it has made it for the interest of the small boy to sit patiently with one all day keeping off the too eager robins, by giving him at night a quart or two of the red balls that it spends its own energies in ripening by the thou- sand ? What need does the wheat-field have of building fences against encroaching cattle, when it has allied itself with almost omnipotent corporations to surroiind its mil- lions of acres witli barbed wires, and secured dignified legislatures to build insurmountable legal posts to hold them up! How vain is it for the potato to distil a poison of its own against bugs, when out of its rich tubers it can The Kvolution of Amus and Armor. 173 pay patient human fingers to feed them day after day with imported Paris-green ? And how smilingly the serried ranks of the corn-field can straighten up their own spines and use their green blades only to parry the sunshine, while the farmer and his boy bend, their aching backs and ply their sharp hoes at their roots to drive away and put to death, as no skill in themselves could, their thousand weed-foes ? Ascending now into the kingdom of man himself, the evolution of what has played such an important part in the animal and vegetable worlds has certainly not been less prominent or less interesting in that of their head, and in his struggle for life. ^' Arma viriimque cano,'^ not unnatur- ally did the old Latin poet put the two together as themes to be unitedly sung ; the ar'ma perhaps logically first, as some- thing without which man, surrounded with the savage wild, and so weak in himself, never could have been man. His earliest weapons may indeed have been the nature-given ones that he had in his brute-estate, fists, nails and teeth, the ones that, in all emergencies, he falls back upon still, mingled perhaps with the bare sticks and stones that he picked up in the woods, " Anna antiqiia mantis, ungues, dentesque fiiere Et lapides et item silvarum fragmina, rami,'''' as wise Lucretius has it. But when, as our great anthropoid ancestor^ he came down out of his tree-life, he had, in his fingers able to grasp a club, the fingers which his fore- limbs, in grasping the tree, had developed into, some- thing far better with which to meet his foes than the claws with which he went up into it ; and he has not been slow to use his new powers. From grasping clubs and stones he has gone on to grasping repeating-rifles and dynamite-shells. There is no chapter of human progress more interesting and impressive than that of its arms-making, unless it be that of its arms-using. All tne resources of art, all the illumi- nations of science, have for ages been brought to bear upon it. Some of the most honored names of antiquity, though forgotten now, as those of Luno, Galen, and Andrea Ferrara, were the names of sword-makers and armorers. It was an occupation not considered unworthy of an Olympian god ; and one of the most brilliant pages of Homer is the de- 174 The Evolution of Arms and Armor. scription of a shield, as one of the most graphic in Walter Scott is that of a sword. Kings sat at its followers' feet ; the fate of empires turned on their skill ; civilization in its onward march kept time with the rise and fall of their hammers. And, though stained with blood and smoke and hate, their products have been plumed also with some of the noblest deeds of chivalry, honor, courage, self-sacrifice and manly devotion that human nature has ever reached. But amid all their multiplied devices as to form and mechanism, the two methods, the two principles which ran so conspicuously through the animal and vegetable king- doms, have been equally kept up in that of man, on the one side a stronger outside covering, whose efficacy was chiefly in itself, as the thick garment, the bull's-hide buckler, the brazen shield, the visored helmet, the plated greaves, the glittering coat-of-mail, the massive fort, the turreted monitor, and the steel-clad ship ; and on the other, something which involved, more directly, inward skill and power, as the club, the spear, the sword, the cross-bow, the catapult, the matchlock-gun, the rifle, the cannon, the ram, the torpedo, and behind them all the cunning, the courage and the union instinct of man himself. And in the struggle between them here, the same as among the plants and the brutes, the result has been the supremacy of the inward over the outward, and a progress ever more towards their finer and more inward forms tis the ones on which at last wholly to rely. The old Bible story of Goliath and David, the one a giant six cubits high, armed with a coat-of-mail of ''five thousand shekels in weight," and a spear " like a weaver's beam," the other a ruddy youth armed only with a sling and five small stones out of the bi'ook, and his own skill, has been the story of the ages. The barbaric nations have always relied most on outward defenses, the civilized ones on those that require inward skill ; and victory the world over has sided with the skill. The weapons with which the lloman soldier carved his way to universal empire against all the shields, greaves, breast-plates and forts of his foe, were the short two-edged broadsword, nineteen inches long, and the famous " pilum," four feet in length, himself protected only by liis own stout heart and a very light defensive armor. The slender spears of tlie ancient (ireek infantry, twenty-four feet in length, and the lances at a later day of the old feudal The Evolution of Arms and Armor. 175 cavalry, projecting ten feet beyond their horses' heads, again and again bore down in battle all the massive jno- tective defenses that their opponents were panoplied with. The best steel-plate armor of the Middle Ages, forged with marvelous skill, and completely covering the person, was no match for the arrows, live feet long, of the English yoe- man, hitting the target every time an eighth of a mile off, and on the victorious fields of Creey, Poitiers and Agin- court shooting down their mailed opponents at the distance of two hundred yards '' as readily as if they were naked men." If now and then the strength of the armor caught up with that of the arms, as at a battle in Italy during the latter part of the loth century, where they were so nearly matched that the two opposing armies fought fero- ciously for seven hours without having a man killed or wounded on either side, it was only at the very next battle to have a new assailing weapon introduced to maintain the old supremacy, as, in this case, musketry at the battle of Pavia,* before which all the gorgeous panoply of chivalry went down as completely as the fields of bearded grain before the driving summer hail. Waterloo was the last great fight in which bodily armor was used, Napoleon's cavalry wearing it, and up to that time with some success ; but in the charges there made his iron-sheathed cuirassiers went down like rows of pins before the quick-moving Eng- lish horse dashing in upon them with only naked swords and naked hands. The contest now is between massive forts and steel-clad ships, with ever thicker and thicker plates, on the one side, and mathematically-aimed mortars and steel-wrought rams and cannon, and projectiles them- selves shot-loaded, cannon fired from cannon, with ever more and more size and force, on the other. But with mortars dropping shells from above at the rate of one a minute into forts three or four miles away, and torpedo-boats creeping * Beekman ; questioned, however, by Buckle and others. Mortars and can- non lor gunpowder were invented nnich earlier, but being made in part of wood and even of leather were of little account. I'avia was, perhaps the first battle at which troops in large numbers were armed with the more efficient musket. It took even then a quarter of an hour to load and fire one, a striking contrast with our sixty-shot-a-minute repeating rifies. The use of the mortar was dis- covered by accident, a clumsy fellow making powder in tlie common household utensil, allowing it to explode and knock him across tlie room. The same objec- tion was urged at fir-t against the use of all firearms, and even of cross-bf)ws, that is now mnde against dynamite-bombs, they were too democratic and too equalizing for honorable war. Chevalier Bayard "is said to have exclaimed with reference to them, " ("est tmr hotitp qii'itn /lomrnr tie rceiir unit pxpos^ a prrir pnr Kiip misrrnhlp fr)q>ip)irllr." And it is a singular fact that he, tlie hero of a hundred knightly battles, met his own death at last by a stone shot from an arquebus. 176 The Evolution of Arms and Armor. under plated frigates from below as readily as eels under a plank, and projectiles driven with smokeless powder thi'ough live inches of steel backed with fifteen of oak as easily as a boy's teeth pass through slices of bread and butter, and dynamite-guns throwing from the shore at marks two miles otf five-hundred-pound explosive-bombs that tear up the heart of old ocean itself for a hundred yards around, who can doubt the result ? It is a result, moreover, in all these cases, which has not stopped with teaching and helping on the superiority and evolution of an ever finer and finer weapon alone. It has taught and carried with it also the superiority and evolu- tion, behind the weapon, of an ever finer and finer man. It has done it, first of all, in the artisan who makes the weapon. Rifles that shoot sixty balls a minute, and cannon that send hundred-pound shells through twenty inches of solid oak and steel, do not grow naturally, like teeth and nails, out of the soldier's own body. They have to be invented and wrought out by a man back of the soldier. They involve, in their maker, art and science, skill of hand and skill of brain, immense amounts of them. And what is more, they involve in him honesty and truth. There is nothing which detects cheap workmansliip and base alloys quicker than the acid of war. We tolerated shoddy in our sliops, in our homes, in our churches, easily enough while peace reigned on our soil ; but when it came to sending it to our soldiers on battle-fields, America's outcry of rage brought its dealers to a very sudden halt. Kotten timbers have small chance of passing the inspection- eyes that fifty-ton broadsides of iron direct against them. And when you touch off dynamite-guns, that exert a pressure of a hundred tons to the square inch, varnish and putty and tlie men who make them are apt to fly very high and very far, leaving back of the soldier only solid steel and solid workmen. Equally, too, finer armor has evolved, in the soldier himself, an ever finer and finer man. It is no longer, as it oiu;e was, physical strength alone that counts in war ; no longer tJie more a brute tlie more a soldier. Gun])0wder made bodies equal, and began the process of having battles turn on brains. It is a process that has never sto])ped. With rifles like those now made, as delicate in tlieir machinery as chronometers, and with cannon that have to be aimed at foes as mathematically as The Evolution of Arms and Armor. 177 telescopes at stars, it is obviously impossible to trust clod- hoppers with their use. New weapons involve precisely the same necessity for a more highly organized solaier that new teeth and new claws did of old for a more highly or- ganized animal. It is not the lighter in the mass, as it was in ancient Greece and Rome, but the fighter in the man, that makes an army's strength. With each more intricate arm more responsibility rests on the individual soldier,* not on his captain or his corps, for its efficiency ; the more need, therefore, there is of his individual training. Bayonets haife had to learn not only how to thrust but how to think. Battle-fields, which hitherto have been supposed to necessi- tate the most absolute despotism in command, and to be the last places where personal liberty could be allowed, are having the way opened through their new weapons to taste for themselves what they have won so long for peace. And the armor which began with a sharp animal spine is mount- ing up step by step to that quality in the soldier's soul which can say, in all its sharpness, the grand word I. It is not only individuals and bnite races, however, but tribes and nations also, that use arms and are combatants in the struggle for existence ; and as such, they are going through the same experiments as to the best ways and means of doing it that animals and individuals have tried, only on a larger scale. Originally a tribe's entire corporate body was a soldier going out to battle as one man. Every male member of it was accustomed to the use of arms alike in war and the chase. Fighting was considered to be the only employment worthy of a man ; and honor and leader- ship and wives, and the best of everything, waited on his courage and success. But gradually nations found tliat, to fight well, something more was needed than brute courage and the rude weapons that each man could make for him- self. Food was needed, and finer weapons, and resources to fall back upon when the struggle was long, the tribes which had the most of these being the ones that finally survived. And so a differentiation took place, the inevit- able process in all Evolution, some of the members devoting themselves exclusively to the raising of food and clothing, and others to the manufacture of arms, and with * See H. Ij. Abbott's article in March Foriim (1890) on War uiuler Xew Con- ditions. 178 The Evolution of Arms and Armor. these, gradually, to all the employments needed for social nourishment, while a third part were trained specifically as soldiers. Thus inside the nation were started the soft industrial arts, the fluid, nutritive, growing, organizable parts of the body, and, on its outside, the hard military protective shell, precisely the same state of things that existed in the earliest forms of individual life. And along these two lines, away up into the civilization of to- day, has been all national development, these as methods of protection distinguishing countries in precisely the same way that they do animals and plants. On the one hand is outward military encasement, as with all the great nations of Europe, Orthocerates and Glyptodons that stretch over vast territories ; Megalosaurs and Machairoduses whose dimensions are those of States. Forts and frigates are their shells and scales ; long rows of sharp sabres and glit- tering bayonets their teeth ; vast armies their ponderous jaws ; Krupp-cannon and Gatling-guns their talons and claws, and "The bursting shell, the gateway rent asunder, The rolling musketry, the clashing blade, And ever and anon in tones of thunder The diapason of the cannonade," the wild-beast cries with which they leap upon their foe. On .the other hand is interior development, as, in some de- gree, with our own land, the skeleton of a better social organization for the uniting and upholding of the body as a whole, the nerves and arteries of telegraphs and railroads for the quicker and closer communication of part with part, the muscles and ligaments of industry and business lor the obtaining of better nourishment, and the eyes, ears and brain of more schools, more arts and sciences and more cliurclies, for the gathering of knowledge and the growth of mind. AYhich of these methods is it the part of true statesman- ship to empliasize and use ? There is a tendency even in t)ur own land to fall back on tlie method of outward force. "We get alarmed ever and anon at what we call our de- fenseless condition, at oiir small army, our rotting gun- boats, and our dilapidated forts. We picture to ourselves what a terrible thing it would be if some little country witli a big cannon should declare war against us ; and follow with boyish pride the excursions of our costly show-frigates The Evolution of Arms and Armor. 179 into ports where our protective commercial policy has driven from the seas every flag of ours needing protection. And this very Winter the proposition is before our Congress to vote the nation's money by the score of millions for the building of a steel-clad navy that shall match those of the old world. But if there is anything to be learned from the long experience of the mighty past, alike animal and human, is not the question's true answer largely, if not entirely, the other way, an answer that tells us to go on as we have in part begun, and as the real genius of our country prompts, letting Germany, Eussia and France follow the lead of the Dinichthys and the Megalosaur in heaping up outward armor, while we seek to develop as the man-nation of the earth by unfolding from within ? It is, indeed, true that the man-animal of the earth has -been a fighter, one of the worst ; and that all the world's great historic nations have been fighters, and terrible ones, too ; but the poir^ to be remembered is that they have got their best means of fighting, got the real qualities which enabled them to come off victors in their fights, by cultivating the arts of peace rather than those of war. "A nation of shop-keepers ! " exclaimed Napoleon, contemptuously, as he looked across the English Channel; but one day, in his dealings with the shop-keepers, he found, very uncomfort- ably, that among their wares they had a Waterloo. How was it in the recent struggle on our own soil between the North and the South ? The South was the military part of the nation. It had the most accomplished generals. Its children had been trained from their youth up in the use of arms ; and in courage and in direct fighting qualities it certainly was not inferior to the North. But the North had the freedom, the wealth, the inventive genius, the mental training, the higher interior development, all those qualities which are the outgrowth of peace. It called them at once into action ; where it wanted a new rifle, new war-ship, new sanitary device, called on its rear guard, back of all other rear guards, to invent it. The rear guard never failed to do so ; and the resvilt was just as certain with the first gun at Sumter, as with the last at Appomatox Court-House, was wrought out by the school- mistress and the aproned mechanic quite as largely as by the brave general and the baimered soldier. It has beeu said 180 The Evolution of Arms and Armor. that the nations which shorten their swords lengthen their borders, historically a fact. But, ultimating the same principle, we are now learning that the nations which go still further, and shorten their swords into nothing at all, lengthen their borders still more, and at the same time lengthen their lives. Wherein is the wisdom of voting mil- lions of dollars for forts and frigates which in a few years will be as passe as cross-bows and coats-of-mail, and when the genius that, by its other, liner inventions, is to make them so, is growing of itself in our laboratories and Avork- sliops ? It is the people hereafter who can raise Ericssons, not Napoleons, send to the field the best manhood, not the biggest mortars, boast the completest social, not soldierly organization, that can laugh at their foes. " Damn the torpedoes ! " shouted the grim old naval hero of our civil war, as he took his unarmored flagship into the hottest hell of the fight at Mobile Bay ; and well the old Hartford might despise them, for within its wooden walls were iron- clad hearts, and above it waved Liberty's banner, a^^ it was sheathed all over with a cause that gunpowder could as little blow up as it could omnipotence itself. And no matter though every sea were to be filled with explosives, and every bay with dynamite, let America carry stalwart manhood on her decks, and unfettered liberty at her mast- head, and the sheathing of a righteous cause at her prow, and, if need demand, she can go into the hottest hell of the world's battle, exclaiming again, with the sacred profanity of her dear old Farragut, " Damn the torpedoes ! " Of course this does not mean that the country should rush all at once from its policy in the past over to the opposite extreme ; does not mean that in the interests of peace it should wipe out the army and navy and beat into ])low-shares the swords it now has, or that it should abate in any degree its reverence for the brave soldiers on its own soil, and all though the ages, who by their use have filled history with heroisms and the world with salvations. For peace, when it comes, will be the result of evolution, not manufacture; and evolution here, as everywhere else, must have the root and stalk of the past on which and from which to untold; and to cut down the armor-part of the l>ast would be to cut down the very tree on which, as things look, its flower at last is to bloom. But it does mean that we should recofrnize what has been the bent and strain of The Evolution of Arms and Armor. 181 Nature in all her kingdoms and all her ages, and ourselves work with her in the same direction. It does mean that, without destroying what now is on her armor-tree, we should join with her, so far as we do anything, in cultivat- ing its finer industrial branches, as good alike for peace or war, not spend our millions in merely crowding it with bigger ones of the old type that will be of value for neither state. It is in this way, by a simple and natural unfolding from the past, not cutting loose from it or sticking to it, that will come the supreme stage in the evolution of arms and armor, that in which Avars will be waged with no guns, no forts, no ships, no outward explosives at all; with no need, therefore, even of the arts that made them, but with missiles only that are forged out of mind. So far as fighting of some kind is concerned it would indeed be a fool's security for humanity to suppose that its days are over, and that peace in the sense of harmony is close at hand. Problems are before it to-day more perplexing than any that the past has ever known ; passions at work in it fiercer than ever fired hearts in the jungle with rage ; inter- ests at stake with it more conflicting than any that a Mar- athon or Waterloo decided, and there is no possibility of settling them without contests. It is their very greatness and intricacy, however, that are going to make it all the more a matter not of sentimental choice but of military necessity, to meet them with weapons of a corresponding substance and temper. It is a process that has already begun, a new bud that, like all buds, is springing directly from the axil of the old war-tree. The best general, even now, is not he who fights the most battles with guns, but he who so maneuvers his army as to win victories with the fewest actual conflicts ; not he who, when a battle comes, takes part himself in the deadly charge, but he who sits quietly in his tent with a map before him, directing charges with a pencil's point, and neither sees nor sheds personally a drop of blood. Literature in all ages has had its words that were half-battles ; eloquence its vibrations of air that have shaken the world wider than parks of artillery; religion its love-whispers that neither Greek phalanx nor Roman legion could withstand, and before which empires have tumbled down as readily as savages before canister and grape. Paws and claws, if not yet extinct, have 182 The Evolution of Arms and Arr/ior. climbed up from the feet into the forehead, and from weapons that scratch and tear into weapons that think and plan. It is brains to-day, behind the cannon, that are the world's real battle-fields ; ideas that are battering down strong-holds which shot and shell, armored ship and gap- ing mortar have knocked at in vain ; ink that is solving questions of State that blood has only confused. And the process is bound to go on, till nations shall wage all their wars with logic and reason, diplomacy everywhere take the place of generalship, battles with powder and armies be as vulgar as those with teeth and fists are to-day, and civilized countries as little think of going about the world armed with forts, and showing off frigates, as civil- ized individuals do now of going about society with bowie- knives stuck in their belts and revolvers gleaming from their pockets. And this is what every citizen can help along ; is what every soldier should rejoice in, as he does now in the introduction of every finer and more effective weapon ; is what the great poet of England, who sang so grandly the Charge of the Light Brigade, has also sung as the charge of all the ages, "Move upward, working out the beast, And let the ape and tiger die." With it will come the world's real struggle to see which are its fittest nations to survive ; a war more thrilling and with more chance for real heroism, generalshij), and glory, than any ever waged with outer weapons and garments rolled in blood; and in it the great military nations of Europe are preparing to fail, through precisely the same causes that overthrew the monsters of the geologic ages and that have meant failure in all time. Their vitality and food-substance are going too largely to the outside shell. Internal social organization is being neglected. They are not keeping up with tlie world's changing intel- lectual climate. And, continually rivalling each other in the size and strengtli of their armaments, they will drop down at last in the fight liketlie Iguanodon and Glyi)todon, overcome simply by tlicir own enormous weight, leaving the great scientific, industrial and thought-using man- nations to examine tlieir bones, organize over them tlie new civilization, in which ''the war-drum throbs no longer," and hold the future. The Evohition of Arms and Armor. 183 " Dream not that lielm and harness Are signs of valor true : Peace liath higher tests of manhood Than battle ever knew. *' Henceforth to Labor's chivalry Be knightly honors paid ; For nobler than the sword's shall be The sickle's accolade." The lesson, however, does not stop with statesmanship. Keligion is a fiekl where precisely the same principle is at issue. What are creeds, forms and great ecclesiastical systems but the outward armor in which men have sought to protect the inward spirit of religion ? What are many of the churches and denominations of the past but mon- sters of the theologic ages, rivaling those of geology in their fierceness ? What the rack, the stake, the thumb- screw, the inquisition, and, later, all the awful imagery of eternal suffering, but the teeth and claws and jaws of the old brute-world reappearing on earth in subtler and sharper forms ? Their use has no doubt been honest and natural ; their hardness and cruelty have been thought a necessary means of defending and perpetuating their inside truth. But how futile they have been ! How many of the old dogmas are now as dead as the old brutes ! How certain are all the institutions and all the churches, whose trust is in any outward letter or outward form, sooner or later also to go ! And for the same reason, the use of their vitality in the wrong direction ; the impossibility of anything thus hardened to adjust itself to the world's ever-changing spirit- ual climate, and the pressure at last on their believers, under the effort to make them ever stronger and stronger against their foes, of their own dead weight. On the other hand Christianity itself lives, the great spirit of all religion lives, because an element within it has always acted on the other principle, refused from the start, as with Jesus, to encase itself in any words or forms, used its Divine food for inward growth, adapted itself to the world's progress, and relied, when assailed, for its real defense, on the inner Aveapons of reason, spiritual insight and the power of truth. When religion first started, ages since, from form to faith, from outward authority to iiiAvard insight, and from one vast body to a multitude of little sects, it did indeed seem, from the ecclesiastical standpoint, as great a mistake as 184 The Evolution of Arms and Armor. when the animal kingdom branched off from a shell to a back-bone, and from a Megalosaur to a Microlestes. But the wisdom wliich has been vindicated of her children in the kingdom of animals will just as surely be vindicated of them in that of spirit. And if the friends of religion want to defend it most effectively of all, is it not plainly along the line of its interior development, rather than along that of building it into creeds and fortifying it with logic, that their work should be done ? " Than tyrant's law or bigot's ban More miglity is tlie simjjlest word, The free heart of an liouest man Than crosier or the sword," Going now a step further, does not the same principle hold good with regard to morals, right, reform, and that greatest of all organisms, society itself ? These things are precious beyond all price, have grown up to their present condition through enormous toil and suffering, would mean, in their loss, what never, perhaps, could be re- stored ; and so it is not strange that men should seek to protect and promote them with rigid precepts, with stern prohibitory laws, with great bodies of police and with all the weapons of courts, jails, scaffolds and penal legislation. It may indeed be impossible yet to abolish such things alto- gether, as the safeguards of society. Nevertheless, even while using them, must it not be acknowledged that they belong to the Triassic and Mesozoic rather than to human social States ; are Nature's methods in the oyster and the clam, the lobster and the lion, rather than in the man ; are the use for defense, of shell and scale, tooth and claw, instead of sense and soul ? Whatever the good tliey do, their defects are the same as have been found in all outside arms and armor, from tlie brutes up. The moral vitality, alike of the individual and of society, goes into their ])ro- duction and support, away from inward growth. The stronger and better they are made for any one period and condition of things, the less easy it is to adjust them to the world's changes, and the less lit they are for those which follow. What is the effort to put down increasing crime by increasing laws, an experiment that every unfold- ing social State goes through, but a renewal of the old contest between stronger scale and stronger claw, stouter The Evolution of Amis and Armor. 185 iron-plate and stouter gun ? It is a contest sure to result at last in a dead weight of legislation, too large for society to carry. Crime in it, as the assailing force, will continu- ally get ahead, the same as in the struggle between tooth and scale in geology, between thieving and law in England a century ago, and between landlord-legislation and ten- antry-violence in Ireland to-day. And even were such efforts successful, were laws to be made so wise, and a police-force established for their enforcement so strong, as to suppress absolutely, for the time being, all vice and all crime, how inevitably would they lead to a reliance on these agencies alone, and to a relaxation of inward culture that in the end would stop growth and turn society back towards its mollusk-state. Take the use of prohibitory laws in behalf of temperance, whatever their value, a real value in some respects, it must be confessed that just in proportion as they are enforced, the other and finer agencies of the cause, which should act on the drunkard's moral nature to strengthen that, are liable to be dropped, leaving him, while safe from drink simply because he can- not get it, a prey all the more to other, worse vices, whose means of indulgence no laws can stamp out. What children are the weakest and surest to fall, when they grow up and go out into the temptations and trials of actual life ? Those, notedly, who have been sheltered most carefully by home walls and parental care from all contact with evil, rather than those who have been strengthened inwardly, it may be in the very midst of temptation, to take care of themselves. What is the source of all Phariseeism, all hypocrisy, all obedience to the letter and not the spirit of right, social states worse sometimes than open vice ? It is the attempt to make people righteous by precepts rather than by principles ; to protect virtue by an armor of rigid rules instead of by trusting to its own larger development ; so that wisely did the old Apostle to the Gentiles exclaim : " The law worketh wrath." The truth is, there is only one sure way of arm- ing either society or the soul against their foes, the way taught by all the ages, from those of geology up, that of completer inward equipment, putting nature's moral lime into the Ijack-bone of principle, rather than into the shell of statute-books ; building more school-houses and more reformatories in the place of more scaffolds and more jails ; 186 The Evolution of Arms and Armor. developing more eyes and ears, with which to see and hear the right, rather than more teeth and claws with which to put down the wrong, and organizing not so much a better police as a better people. It is this which is the funda- mental idea of Christianity ; this, what it means by its doctrine of faith as opposed to law ; this, that it has come back to in all its great reformations, from that of Luther down ; this, the goal at which it joins hands with science ; this, very singularly, that is the real meaning to-day of a word almost too hateful for utterance, the blossom in society of religion's most cherished teaching and the outcome in morals of Nature's divinest struggle for life. Its shortest expres'sion, " liiglit its own best weapon," is a Damascus-blade that what battle-tires have tempered and battle-blows hammered out ! Not poetry alone, is it, but sober fact, that "Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just." To put on "the breast-plate of righteovisness," " the shield of faitli," "the sword of the spirit" and "the whole armor of God," is the injunction of Hoplology not less tliau of Scripture. And it is as true of social safety, as of national defense, that "Were half the power tliat fills the world with teiTor, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of ai-senals and forts.*' The whole subject, thus looked at, is a good illustration of how, tlirougliout the entire universe alike of matter and mind, and often amid the greatest apparent contradictions, it is possible that one increasing purpose runs. There is nothing in Nature w^hich at first sight is more dishearten- ing than the awful warring of its creatures one against another, provided for, as it is, in their very structure; nothing which to many persons so militates against tlio idea of a loving God as the awful cruelties of that struggle for existence into which, with no choice of theirs, all organic beings are plunged ; nothing Avhieh could seem less the purpose of things, especially Avhile the monsters of the geologic ages were being brought forth ever more and more terrible, than that the meek and the righteous should inherit the earth. Yet Avith the points of tooth^and claw, "red in ravin," as j)ens, and the blood of her myriad creatures dying in battle, as ink, she lias been writing all The Evolution of Arms and Armor. 187 the time the first pages of a philosophy under which of necessity all fighting must end ; and at the very anvils of war, with her monsters, brute and human, as smiths, has been forging the weapons ever finer and finer that alone can overcome violence, and which only the righteous and the meek inheriting the earth can wield. And in all the marvels of eastern magic is there anything more wonder- ful, more unexpected, more beautiful, than the story that not on a tree transplanted out of Paradise, or from a seed sown in the gardens of sentiment and nourished in the hot- house of the church, but on the rude stalk of war, rooted in the dust of slaughtered myriads, spined and petaled with the sharp points of tooth and claw, sword and bayonet, and budding in the red of battle-fields, there should bloom at last, in the midst of a hushed and waiting earth, by strictly natural laws, the snow-white flower of universal peace, the story that is told by Evolution in this chapter of her great book entitled '* Arms and Armor " ? EVOLUTION OF THE MECHANIC ARTS. BY JAMES A. SKILTON Author of "Evolutiox of Society." COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. Spencer's "Principles of Sociology"; Tylor's "Primitive Cul- ture" and "Early History of Mankind"; Crosier's "Civilization and Progress"; Joly's "Man before Metals"; Evans's "Ancient Stone Implements in Great Britain" and "Bronze Implements in Great Britain"; Whewell's "History of the Inductive Sciences"; Ewbank's "The World a Work-Shop, or the Relationship of Man to the Earth" ; Ward's "History of the Ancient Working People" ; "The Hand, its Mechanism and Vital Endowments as Evincing Design," Bridgewater Treatise, by Sir Charles Bell ; Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations"; Lubbock's "Fifty Years of Science"; Janet's "The Materialism of the Present Day " ; Routledge's "Dis- coveries and Inventions of the Nineteenth Century"; Tyndall's "Advancement of Science" (Inaugural Address, 1876); Franklin A. Seeley's "An Inquiry into the Origin of Inventions," "The Development of Time-keeping in Greece and Rome," and "The Genesis of Inventions." EVOLUTION OF THE MECHANIC ARTS.* In starting out with an exhilarating sense of freedom upon the broad, wild prairie of a nearly new topic, it is in- teresting to note that we are by no means without compass or means of guidance. Our great Master, Herbert Spencer, from the beginning has provided a place in his S3''stem of philosophy for the mechanic arts and their evolution, by establishing and declaring the principles of their psycho- logical genesis. Fiske and Romanes have followed Mr. Spencer ; and therefore if we at any time lose our way, we have only to return to the safe starting-points these pilots have fixed for us in the new psychology. Considering the world as a work-shop, and man as the mechanic who is to run the shop, the particular bogey by which we are met, the moment we begin to study the evolu- tion of the mechanic arts, is the carpenter idea of Creation. Even that idea places the mechanic and mechanical princi- ples in command of the situation at the very outset. But as there is a way of " protesting too much," so there is a way of conceding too much. At all events the evolutionist, if he would put his subject on a sound basis, must beware of this concession, as applied to the Infinite and Eternal Energy and its work, and reserve the ofiice of the supreme carpenter and mechanic of the world to be conferred upon Man himself. The mechanic arts, together with religion, the family, the tribe, the city, law and government whether of status or contract and civilization itself, ancient and modern, all had a common origin and a common expression, at the family-hearth and altar-fire, which was also a forge, located in the inclosure which was at once a house, a shop, and a sanctuary. And tracing back our American civilization to one of its origins, we find it in hundreds of New England structures still standing, that have been all of these at one and the same time, within the memory and knowledge of persons here present. * COPYKIGHT, 18!H), by James H. West. 192 Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. Doubtless our topic omits the static side of mechanics in treatment, while it preserves it in memory, and confines itself to the dynamic side of mechanics. But we may properly take a brief glance, first, at man, the mechanic Avho is to run the shop, for the purpose of giving him a ''Civil Service Examination" as to his qualification for his work ; and, second, at the world considered as his workshop, for the purpose of taking a quasi inventoiy of the materials and forces with which he is to do his work. Without man, the mechanic, the world-shop would have been useless, and would have gone to wildness and waste. Considered merely as an organized and vitalized machine, he is, in himself and alone, a most fit and rich subject for many essays. The soundest principles of construction, endurance, economy, capacity and variety are illustrated in his body, Avhich, according to evolutionary theories, both in its individual and racial history, has been built up from a single cell, to and with which other cells have been added, integrated, differentiated and specialized, until it has become a machine of marvelous efficiency and power, operated by the consumption and at the cost of the smallest amount of material or fuel, made capable at the same time, for long periods, of making its OAvn repairs, supplying its own local loss of substance, and to some extent of organs, keeping all its parts lubricated and in working condition. It is, in fact, a pattern piece of automatic mechanism, that is to the skilled mechanic an object of profound wonder, interest, instruction and suggestion. All other forms of animal life also have their mechanical structures and relations to the world, all of which are of profound interest and great value ; and many of which show greater special poAvers than any that are given to man. In fact, when we consider the size and strength of many animals still extant, as well as of those that formerly existed, their teeth, their claws, their ferocious natures, their special superiorities, the won- der is that man and his lineage ever survived in the contest with the wild beast and with the still stronger forces of Nature itself. Mr. Kimball has already taught us, in his admirable essay, that, notwithstanding these, and all tlie terrible implements of war forged by man, and even in accordance with natural and necessary law, the meek are to inherit the eartli. Biit we may still be permitted to inquire a little more fully into the genesis of the title to that inheritance. Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. 193 Compelled, because of his weak and relatively helpless generic condition, not only to take to the woods, but to the trees, and to find means of protection and defense outside of himself and his own natural powers, man and his primor- dial types, by the very necessities of arboreal life, devel- oped not only the liands, but the arms, with their co-ordi- dinated capacities of flexure and rigid fixture in an infinite variety of positions, the chest, the bony frame, the back, leg, and other muscles and parts, in which largely reside the mechanical capacities of man and his other adaptations to societary life. It was the continual grasping of the limbs of trees, doubtless, that gave to the hand its opposing thumb, whereby man is able to securely hold the club, the hammer, the spear, the lever, and also the scepter of the world, of which these others are each the analogue and prototype. The same necessities furnished man's primordial types with thumbs on the feet as well, which still appear in one stage of human embryological life, but disappear before birth. Under the influence of changed conditions resulting from the abandonment of his perch in the trees for terra firma, man, standing and walking erect, has discarded the thumbed foot, and thereby co-ordinately increased his equip- ment for the various motions required for the performance of mechanical functions, and for making and managing im- plements, tools and machinery. Long before our ancestors had abandoned the trees, they had learned to use clubs, stones and other missiles, with the same hands and structures that enabled them to swing from branch to branch and carry on all the operations of arboreal life. From the use of clubs, spears, arrows and other sharp-pointed sticks, in war and in the chase, to the use of sticks as levers, wedges and cutting-tools of all sorts and kinds, for the purpose of upturning stones in their search for snails and other food, for digging up roots, open- ing shell-fish, preparing their weapons, building their places of abode, etc., etc., the progress was regular, and evidently systematic, not simply in the external sense, but in the co-ordinate development of brain function and mass, and the beginnings of thought and reason. Indeed, it seems clear that the enlargement of the brain of the human being, which is recognized as having been gradual, must have had its initial impulse and opportunities through what I may 194 Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. call the mechanical life of primitive man, beginning as he did with the primaries of mechanics, under racial limita- tions akin to infancy and its helpless conditions. And if man's cerebral development began with, and in any essen- tial way was accompanied by, liis advance in mechanical practice and knowledge growing out of such relations to the world, it is evident that in his continued progress and development on the earth his mechanical relations to things, both as individual man and as societary man, must be con- tinued; or, not continuing, he must relapse toward the primary condition. Hence the necessity for artificial and scientifically adapted modes of physical exercise for those otherwise unable to obtain a uniform action and develop- ment of their bodily functions. Many men seem to forget this, and, attempting to get away from the earth and their mechanical relations thereto, seek in the office, the study, the counting-room, the pulpit, the professorial chair, to live an intellectual or brain life apart from a physical and mechanical life, with the inevitable result of a loss of power, not simply of nuiscle, but also of brain, accompa- nied by an unmistakable tendency to perish, or to relapse into primeval conditions. Indeed, while the earlier Gospel teaches that the meek shall inherit the earth, and tlie Gospel of Evolution teaches that the militant man is to give place to the industrial man, we still make the claim that the man who understands his mechanical relations to the world, and follows that understanding in practice, is that meek man to whom that inheritance belongs. It is not alone in religion that a monastic, spiritualistic tendency prevails. All men recognize that it is necessary that trees and plants should have their roots in the earth in order to obtain therefrom their sustenance and means of life-maintenance. But some men seem to think that the law does not apply to men that there is a degrading element in the very touch of material things. For tlieni the old fable contains a lesson : The son of Mother Earth could not be overthrown so long as his feet rested upon tlie ground ; and the first step in his overthrow consisted in lifting him from the eartli, whereupon he was easily con- quered. The same is true of civilized man considered as a son of the earth ; and to maintain his position of supremacy it is absolutely necessary that his meclianieal relations to the world and to things should be comprehended, maintained Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. 196 and increased in scope to the utmost. From this point of view, it appears that the "greasy mechanic" may not fall far short of becoming the true prince of the race. But in considering man in his present bodily and perfected machine form, we have passed by the germinal conditions out of which the machine grew, with brief notice, and may therefore have missed important principles, more easily detected when the less complex, more homogeneous and total primitive conditions are carefully inspected. Beginning with the Amceba, as it wraps itself round and gradually includes the small nutritive fragments it meets with, even before there are either prehensile or digestive organs, Mr, Spencer finds that " The fundamental attribute of matter is resistance," and that "The fundamental sense is a faculty of responding to resistance." He further says : " And while, in the environment, associated with this attri- bute of resistance, are other attributes severally distinctive of certain classes of bodies, in the organism there arise faculties of responding to these other attributes faculties which enable the organism to adjust its internal relations to a greater variety of external relations faculties, there- fore, which increase the specialty of the correspondence. We see this not only in the rise of the senses that are affected by the sapid, odorous, visible, and sound-producing properties of things, but also in the series of phases through which each sense advances towards perfection. For every higher phase shows itself as an ability to recognize smaller and smaller differences, either of kind or degree, in the attributes of surrounding bodies ; and so makes possible still more special adjustments of inner to outer relations." (Prin. of Psy., p. 331.) Through these processes of ad- justment, and out of the fundamental faculty of responding to resistance, touch eventually develops into the five senses co-ordinately with their special organs, with limbs and other associated members, including the cerebellum and eventually the cerebrum, and the mind as a totality. The line of subsequent advancement proceeds in continuation of the antecedent, as agriculture, the arts, and social life, in the factory, the shop, the highway and the kitchen, are developed. We cannot here follow Mr. Spencer step by step through what he calls directive changes and executive changes, the one characterizing Science and the other Art ; nor 196 Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. through changes of the subjective order and developing faculty in man, interesting as it might be to do so. But, being germane to our subject, we should notice the relations of mechanisms to man in his system of psychology. He says : " All observing instruments, all weights, measures, scales, micrometers, verniers, microscopes, thermometers, etc., are artificial extensions of the senses; and all levers, screws, hammers, wedges, wheels, latht s, etc., are artificial extensions of the limbs. The magnifying glass adds but another lense to the lenses existing in the eye. The crow- bar is but one more lever attached to the series of levers forming the arm and hand. And the relationship which is so obvious in these first steps, holds throughout. This being perceived, a meaning becomes manifest in the fact that the development of these supplementary senses is de- pendent on the development of these supplementary limbs, and vice versa." (Frin. of Fsy., p. 365.) Romanes, in his diagram, places carnivora, rodents and ruminants at Ko. 2Q in the ascending scale of animal devel- opment, opposite No. 26 in the scale of products of intel- lectual development, which is stated to be " Understanding of mechanisms " ; monkeys and elephants at No. 27, oppo- site to No. 27 in corresponding scale, "Use of tools"; and birds at No. 25, corresponding to which is '' Recognition of pictures. Understanding of words. Dreaming"; and he thus scales the highest capacities of each. My own birds I see every day showing understanding of mechanisms, or qualifications for the grade of No. 26, one grade above that allotted them by Romanes. Dealing with the root principles of mind and the "cor- relations between muscular and mental evolution," Romanes says : " The wonderful intelligence of the Elephant may be safely considered as correlated with the no less wonderfid instrument of co-ordinated movement wliich he possesses in his trunk ; while the superior intelligence of the Monkey, and the suprevie intelligence of Man may be no less safely considered as correlated with the still more wonderful in- strument of co-ordinated movement which has attained to almost ideal perfection in the human hand.". . . "Tims the two faculties are, as it were, necessarily bound together. Biit here another consideration arises. They are thus bound together only up to the ])oint at which the adajitive movements are dependent upon the machinery supplied by Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. 197 INature to the organism itself. As soon as the power of discrimination has advanced far enough to be, not only con- sciously percipient, but deliberately rational, a wholly new state of things is inaugurated. For now the organism is no longer dependent for its adjustments upon the imme- diate results of its own co-ordinated movements. From the time that a stone was first used by a monkey to crack a nut, by a bird to break a shell, or even by a spider to balance its web, the necessary connexion between the ad- vance of mental discrimination and muscular co-ordination was severed. With the use of tools there was given to Mind the means of progressing independently of further progress in muscular co-ordination. And so mavelously has the highest animal availed itself of such means, that now, among the civilized races of mankind, more than a million per cent, of his adjustive movements are performed by mechanisms of his own construction. Wonderful as are the muscular co-ordinations of a tight-rope dancer, they are nothing in point of utility as compared with the co-ordinated movements of a spinning-jenny. Therefore, although man owes a countless debt of gratitude to the long line of his brutal ancestry for bequeathing to him so surpassingly'ex- quisite a mechanism as that of the human body a mech- anism without which it would be impossible for him, with any powers of mind, to construct the artificial mechanisms which he does still man may justly feel that his charter of superiority over the lower animals is before all else secured by this, that his powers of adjustive movement have been emancipated from their necessary alliance with his powers of muscular co-ordination." This emancipation of man's adjustive powers from the limitations of muscular co-ordination, and their relegation to his powers of nervous organization, brings him into co- ordination with those instruments mentioned by Spencer, which "are artificial extensions of the senses," and those levers, screws, hammers, etc., which *'are artificial exten- sions of the limbs." Through this new correlation comes man's power not only to understand, but to master, the world and all it may contain. In other words, through this new relation Man becomes one member of an equation, which is the mathematical expression or co-ordination of which the other term is, practically, the whole of Nature Avith all its known and all its yet undiscovered wealth of ])Ossil)ility. 198 Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. It is evident that we must seek for the beginnings of the mechanic arts in the brute workl below man. Darwin says : "It has often been said that no animal uses any tool; but the chimpanzee in a state of nature cracks a native fruit, somewhat like a walnut, with a stone. Kengger easily taught an American monkey thus to break open hard palm- nuts, and afterward of its own accord it used stones to open other kinds of nuts, as well as boxes. . . . Another mon- key was taught to open the lid of a large box Avith a stick, and afterward it used the stick as a lever to move heavy bodies. ... In the Zoological Gardens, a monkey which had weak teeth used to break open nuts with a stone ; and I was assured by the keepers that this animal, after using the stone, hid it in the straw, and would not let any other monkey touch it. Here, then, we have the idea of prop- erty ; but this idea is common to every dog with a bone, and to most or all birds with their nests. The Duke of Argyll remarks that the fashioning of an implement for a special purpose is absolutely peculiar to man ; and he con- siders that this forms an immeasurable gulf between him and the brutes. It is no doubt a very important distinction, but there appears to me much truth in Sir J. Lubbock's suggestion, that when primeval man first used flint-stones for any purpose, he would have accidentally splintered them, and would then have used the sharp fragments. From this step it would be a small one to intentionally break the flints, and not a very wide step to rudely fashion them. . . . The anthropomorphous apes, guided probably by instinct, build for themselves temporary platforms ; but as many instincts are largely controlled by reason, the simpler ones, such as this of building a platform, might readily pass into a voluntary and conscious act. The orang is known to cover itself at night with the leaves of the Pandanus ; and Brehm states that one of his baboons used to protect itself from the heat of the sun by throwing a straw mat over its head. In these latter habits, we probably see the first steps toward some of the simpler arts ; namely, rude architecture and dress, as they arose among the early progenitois of man." It was in answering tlie question, ''How did social evolu- tion originate ? *' that i\Ir. Fiske proceeded to make his note- worthy contribution to the study of the subject, in which he claimed tliat increasing intelligence in our early ancestors resulted in a prolongation oi the period of infancy among Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. 199 their progeny that infancy being occupied in building up the nerve and brain substance which were to be the organs of that intelligence, increasing them in mass and functional power from generation to generation. In reaching this con- clusion he mentions, but objects to, Mr. Darwin's view, "That men were originally a race of meek and mild creatures like chimpanzees, and not a race of strong and ferocious creatures like gorillas, and were accordingly forced to combine because unable to defend themselves singly." Putting the question in similar form, I venture to ask : How did the mental evolution characteristic of man originate ? And to suggest as the answer, that it originated in the ge- neric, or racial infancy and relative weakness of the early progenitors of man, long continued, and, through natural selection preserving only those who, fleeing singly to the trees, found others of their kind seeking the same refuge from common dangers which they were thenceforth to meet and combat in common, or in associated numbers, loosely organized and captained by the strongest and most intelli- gent of the band. The tree thus became a place of abode, in fact a home, and a house of which the leaves fvirnished the roof, the limbs the upper chambers, and the smaller branches the cradles for their young. It would seem that the real strength and promise of the human race have lain and still lie in relative racial infancy and weakness. Constantly surrounded by wild beasts foes so much stronger than themselves we may well, and sympathet- ically, understand how the mothers of that early time watched over their children by day, and especially how they must have forbade them to be out late o' nights in the streets of their arboreal villages and cities ; and, thus keep- ing them at home, how they cultivated from generation to generation as we do now what we know and appreciate as home and societary life. My own recollections of the maternal slipper do not go back so far as that ; nor have my archaeological studies yet qualified me to accurately de- scribe the instrument used on such occasions by prehistoric mothers ; but there is evidence to show that something was efficiently used, and that it may have had an influence in giving man his upright attitude. It does not, then, seem to me a mere matter of fanc}' to consider the period of arboreal or tree-home-life as the strictly infantile part of racial development ; the subsequent 200 oolutioii of the 3Iechaitic Arts. period, during whicli the trees wore more or less abandoned, the feet placed with the heel bearing firmly on the ground, the erect walking position assumed, and during which calves were being grown on their legs, as the time of adolescence ; and the still later period in which we yet live, as the time of perfecting a manhood not yet perfected. This suggestion, it appears to me, furnishes a clew to actual history ; for when we come to consider modern in- vention, we sliall realize the absence, and the need, of a suitable explanation of its genesis as well ; since the con- stantly recurring fact shown in these days is that inventions are not made by the strong, the rich and the powerful, but by those who ai-e seeking to become so by growing out of their subordinated and comparatively weak individual and social position. The history of this infancy and adolescence is chiefly written, as we may now believe, in every bone, muscle, nerve, tissue and structure of the human body, including the brain ; and the history of this manhood will be found written in the moral, intellectual and social develojiment of the race, largely in the ages to come, since we are still in a comparatively primitive stage, having as yet merely begun the work of mastering Nature. To briefly catalogue, now, the world-shop and its contents, it may be recalled that in previous essays we have had it explained to us how, through the action of the rudimentary forces, the world not only became what we see it in its physical form, but also how it became a reservoir or store- house of forces and materials, so disposed, arranged and adjusted as to make the earth a workshop sufficiently com- plete, had we been here then, to warrant us in looking about us expectant of seeing the workman and mechanic standing near at hand, with sleeves rolled up ready for his job. Everywhere, and in everything, the earth is fairly throbbing with energy, either static, to be let loose as by the touch of a hair-trigger, or dynamic, to be utilized and controlled by the movement of a lever. Gravitation is an engine everywhere and at all times at work in the solid earth, in the Avater, and even in the atmosphere. To this power is added the ])owers of wind, water, heat, cold, and so on to tlie end ; to all of which is added almost inexhaustible and cheaply produced animal ])ower, controllable by man, and itself inlierently directed by an intelligence only in- Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. 201 f erior to that of man, yet easily controllable by him, so long as he remains a man and does not descend to a level below the beast of the field. As to materials for the hand of the mechanic, of min- erals we have iron, and all the other metals, of the qualities of which, and of their alloys, we have only begun to dream ; coal, and other fuels, of which we are yet only intelligent enough to get in extreme cases some ten per cent, of their dynamic capacity ; innumerable rock and stone formations suitable for a variety of xises ; and earths and plastic sub- stances, capable of being softened, molded and hardened, all of which are so disposed as to be readily accessible and reducible for mechanical treatment and uses. Next to the storehouse of minerals, stands the vegetable storehouse, containing wood and timber of infinite variety. Other forms of vegetal life furnish fibrous substances for ropes, material for wicker-work, basket-work and straw- plaited wares, and especially hemp, cotton and flax; to these add gums, dyes, medicines, and also a practically un- limited variety of foods already discovered and brought into use as fuel for the human mechanic engine ; besides which, the earth contains enormous possibilities, evidently unlimited, for the production of other vegetable foods of which we now know nothing, since we have hardly begun the improvement and development of Avild plants beyond their wild stage, and mostly depend upon those handed down to us by our barbarous ancestors. Next we have the storehouse of animal supplies, scattered, like the vegetable supplies, abroad throughout the world, made accessible wherever man can live, and especially adapted to his needs in each of his many habitats. The animal-supplies come from the many kinds of land animals, fishes and water animals, birds, insects, worms, including the silk-worms, and all kinds of products dei'ived therefrom. Permeating all these, in sk}^, air, water, solid earth, tree, plant and animal, we have that mysterious energy with which we are only now becoming acquainted electricity; which may well seein to be a power stolen from the gods themselves, so incomprehensible, so omnipotent, so omni- present, so all-penetrating and pervading is it. To these make that most important addition fire, im- portant in its relations to the family hearth, to religion and the altar fire, but especially to the mechanic arts, and with- 202 Eoolutlon of the Mechanic Arts. out which civilization, progress, society and even life itself would be, for most of us, unlivable if not unthinkable. We can only glance at this subject, but it ought to have the adequate treatment of an entire essay, so important, so in- teresting and so fascinating is it. To us, as to the ancients, fire seems almost as elemental in character as air, Avater or sunlight ; but to primitive man, what a revelation it must have been ! With its aid, doubtless, he first cooked his food, warmed his body, cut down small trees, divided them and their branches into clubs, pointed his weapons of war and the chase, as well as his rudimental implements, and made his primitive boat. While, doubtless, as now, when it became the master, fire was terrible to him, in his hands it must at times have become terrible to his enemies, human, part human, or wild beasts of the forests. Seem- ingly, man must have lighted his first fire from the great interior earth-forge, to which access was had through vol- canic action, or from natural conflagrations of electrical origin. Once having knowledge of its value and power, we can see how by mechanical means or friction he might seek it, and eventually succeed in producing it, under the stress of isolated situation,' and struggle between cold and death on the one side, or heat and life on the other. In a lecture of brief space it is impossible to take up in detail special branches of the mechanic arts, and show the principles of the evolution methods working therein. But while, as has been stated, little or nothing has been written on this subject, it cannot be said that nothing has been done to illustrate tliat evolution. In the National INIuseum at Wasliington you may find evolutionary principles aj)plied to the collection and arrangement of articles illustrating separate branches of tliis art, so that within a half-hour you may see and examine original specimens of all that has been made and done by man in particular arts, from the earliest known periods down to tlie present year. In aj)- pliances concerned with transportation on land, you will find the band of the original traiis})Orter, Avhich, being placed across her forehead with the two ends extending over across her back, was first used to secure the burdens to be transported tlicreon, by tlie primitive or savage mother, woman and bui-dcn-bearer (she was tlie original trans- porter); and from that article you may follow every step of advance up to the most perfect locomotive-engine and Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. . 203 vestibule-train that our civilization has produced. The same is true as to water-transportation appliances, com- mencing with the log-raft, and the dug-out, and ending with cuts '^nd plans of the three-pipe steamship-flyer, which makes the trip from America to Europe inside of six days. So also in Aveapons of war and of the chase, fishery ap- pliances, household implements of every kind and type, wood-working tools, metal-working tools, stone-working tools, musical instruments, and many others. Here we have the plan of the museum of the future, one of the functions of which will be to put us quickly in pos- session of a knowledge of what has been done, and of how it has been done, leaving us more of the precious hours of life in which to find out what can yet be done. The lesson everywhere taught in this way will be that invention and human progress are practically one. Probably in no other place in the world is there such a store and treasure-house of facts showing that the progress of man and civilization is, and only is, along the lines of secondary evolution, or that kind of evolution to which di- rection is given in part by the human mind, as is to be found in the Patent Office at Washington. It is not too much to say that here are to be found counterparts to every prototype to be found in the history of primary evolution. A digest of patents in any and every branch or class of in- ventions, in the order of their dates, is not merely a study in evolution, it is evolution itself ; for not only are new species being originated, but also new genuses, new classes, and new orders of inventions, all covered with evolutionary earmarks. Whenever any invention is made, the first thing to be done is to obtain a list of all the patents in tliat and closely related classes ; and, studying them backward, but with evolutionary principles in mind, we find the true rela- tions of the new invention to the old. And only when these are ascertained, embodied in the specifications and claims, and accepted by the Office, can the respective rights of the inventor and the public be ascertained. What, then, is the genesis of invention ? At the first, brute animal strength and natural mechanical forces are the dominant powers in the world ; and what better could weak- ness do than escape to the trees for refuge, and, once secure there, for the time being, seek to reinforce weakness with intelligence by taking time to think ? It was Aveakness 204 Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. that drove primordial man into the trees ; it was also weak- ness that led him to seek for the first accessible assistance outside of himself, which would be perhaps a cocoanut used as a missile, but more probably a club, later to becflfme a lever, and eventually to move the world, or at least subdue and master it. Invention, then, is the initiative energy out of which man, society and civilization have grown, and with- out the persistence of which they cannot continue to ad- vance. It is certainly tlie basis of freedom and of peace : in the beginning, of that kind of peace for which one has constantly to fight, but in the end a peace assured, and blossoming into acknowledged freedom. The primordial club eventually becomes the scepter, and in modern times degenerates into a mere badge of social order, in the police- man's locust ; it also differentiates and continues to differ- entiate, until, through the lever, the inclined plane, the wheel and axle, the screw, the pulley and the wedge, it develops into all kinds of machinery and mechanism. In this differ- entiated form it still represents the badge of authority by which man reduces the forces of Nature and inferior men to obedience to his will. The pen, even more than the scep- ter, is our modern badge of authority. If it is true that "the pen is mightier than the sword," it is because the pen is, typically at least, the lever, and, like it, had its origin in the club out of which the sword also was developed. Bouvier defines '^Invention" to be: "The act or opera- tion of finding out something new ; the contrivance of that which did not before exist." But what is the nature of the "act of finding out"? what is newness ? and what is the nature of that contrivance which "did not before exist" but yet is made up of elements that have existed from the foundation of the world ? By the Courts, invention, as an act, has been defined in Ransom v. Mayor of New York, to be, " the finding out, contriving, devising or creating some- thing new and useful, which did not exist before, by an op- eration of the intellect." After these simple explanations, you find yourself floating on a wide ocean of definition, where every particular invention is a law unto itself. Walker, the most recent elementary writer and authority, says, "Novelty and utility must indeed characterize the subject of a patent, but tliey alone are not enough to make anything ])atentable ; for tlie statute })rovides that things to be patented must be invented things, as well as new and Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. 205 useful things. The courts have therefore declared that not all improvement is invention and entitled to protection as such, but that, to be thus entitled, a thing must be the product of some exercise of the inventive faculties." Jus- tice Matthews of the Supreme Court, dealing with a device held not to be an invention, said in 1885, it " seems to us not to spring from that intuitive faculty of the mind put forth in search for new results or new methods, creating Avhat had not before existed, or bringing to light what lay hidden from vision ; but, on the other hand, to be the sug- gestion of that common experience which arose sponta- neously, and by a necessity of human reasoning, in the minds of those who became acquainted with the circum- stances with which they had to deal." To which Walker adds : " The ideal line which separates things invented from things otherwise produced has never been completely de- fined nor described. There is no affirmative rule by which to determine the presence or absence of invention in every case. But there are several negative rules, each of which applies to a large class of cases." The practice universally is, to judge each case by itself. To be sure, there must be novelty, there must be utility ; but both those terms are loosely interpreted, and give us no certainty of definition. Etymologically, to invent is to "come upon" the word being derived from in and venire. So, to discover is to un- cover. But neither of these terms fully describes or em- bodies the idea for which it stands. Invention is more than mere creation it is a dual process : it involves an act of the mind in conceiving the idea, and an act or series of acts, external to the mind, either actually or amounting to an embodiment of the idea. Our word "create" means, literally, " to beget." In the accovmt of creation in the Bible, the Greek word used in the Septuagint, which has largely influenced our English translation, is a form of the word poieo, which means to compose, as a writer or poet composes. It belongs to the order of mind, thought, and their constructions. If we were to import the word directly into our language, we should say : " In the beginning God poietised the heavens and the earth," i. e., composed them out of the divine mind. We thus have a statement in some degree in harmony with the evolution view. This word, "poietised," would express, as it seems to me, the idea of invention, considered as an act, better than any recognized 206 Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. English word, since it involves a ncAv mental composition and the substantial reduction of that composition to prac- tice. In other words, invention is something more than a creation, if to create is to beget and bring into being ; since the begetting and bringing into being are of the offices of the body, while invention is a function of the mind, assisted by the body only. It is also something vastly different from a mere happening, or "coming upon," the idea involved in the Avord now in use. Mr. Seely suggests the word " eurematics." He has dealt with this subject in two papers read before the Anthropo- logical Society of Washington, printed in the American Anthropologist, under the titles " The Development of Time- keeping in Greece and Rome," and " The Genesis of Inven- tion." He says in the former : " My guide in this inquiry will be the principles in eurematics, that inventions always spring from prior inventions or known expedients, and that they come in response to recognized wa7its. . . . The want may originate in some crisis or event having no apparent affinity in character with the want it engendered, or the in- vention that sprang to meet it. And these are not mere accidents : they are the natural course of what I venture to call the fixed laws of eurematics." The word eurematics (eurekamatics) as thus defined has already found its Avay into tlie Century Dictionary. It does not, however, quite fit the niche prepared in this essay for the proper descriptive term. Etymologically and deriva- tively it means ''well-nosed," and carries the definition of "finding," or "discovering," as of a dog finding his prey or a buried bone, and neither of begetting or creating, nor of composing by constructive thought or plan, or " poietising." Tlie word poieties, or poiematics, seems best to express the true idea, since the mind must be the start- ing-point of the fixed laws of invention, and the proper word must cover or express the mental composition or con- struction actually required in the development of an inven- tion, whetlier of a new macliine, a new product, or a new art. Further, a recognized ivant is primarily a recognized need growing out of relative weakness ; and such a state of Aveakuess, or relative infancy, is therefore the primary status, or base, of all invention, as it is of all mental progress. Historically, it is the outsider wlio does the inventing, Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. 207 not the insider. It is not the man of the guikl who makes the new machine that surpasses the old, but the man whom the guild will not admit and woiild destroy. The new in- vention, in fact, undermines the guild, by displacing its machinery or method ; consequently the guild is always conservative, and always the last to accept improvements or to appreciate them. The books are full of cases in point and proof. Although, as Mr. Kimball has shown, the tendency of the improvement of the implements of war is to the destruc- tion of war itself, the lever and the mechanic arts do not alone and unassisted destroy war and contention. As yet they only modify and change them into business competi- tion and rivalry. Between great factories and little ones, the struggle for life continues. Some are equipped with old-fashioned machinery, and others with machinery con- taining all the latest improvements; and the old estab- lishments find their property depreciated in value, their products more costly to make than those of their rivals, and the inevitable destiny of the old machinery is the scrap- heap and that of the company the court of bankruptcy, un- less at a late day it is able to recover itself by calling on the inventor for still later improvements. Of course there can be no incentive to anyone to make inventions and improvements unless, Avhen made, they can be held in possession and kept from rivals by means of a good title, or sold, subject to such title, for a proper consideration. The principle involved is not merely a prin- ciple of selfishness, but one of right and justice of prop- erty in fact which even the dog with his bone recognizes and protects, and without which we should probably to-day be still in a savage stage of society. But imperialism which is of the sword has impressed something of its own character upon the nomenclature, the administration and the body of the patent law, thus invading the field of the mechanic arts, with the natural effect of mutilating and deforming them. The word monoj>olij, implied in the patent right, is odious because under that title kings disposed of the sole right to sell the necessaries of life to their favorites, Avho thereby oppressed the people. " Letters Patent " was the name given to the documents that sanctioned the monopoly. In securing his patent, and in protecting it afterwards, the in- 208 Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. ventor is involved in a persistent struggle to enable him to retain possession of rights that belong to him ah initio and dejure. The right conferred by letters patent, as it now exists in law and equity, is in fact merely the right to defend his right after he has armed the Government that grants the letters patent under its seal, and every man as well, for attack upon him, by disclosing the nature of his invention and his methods of working it it is the in- ventor, the creator, of civilization, against the world. Of course, if the inventor chooses to use his invention in secret, and its secret use is valuable, he can make his own terms as to sales of products provided his right of secrecy is not invaded by violence. But only a few inven- tions are of value when used in secret, and therefore in general that right is not protective and has no value. The difficulties in the way of securing and protecting property rights in ideas brain products; the fact that, notwithstanding these rights are founded as deeply as any others in the Constitution, the Government itself has been the great violator of these rights; that only within the last ten years the United States Courts have held that prop- erty in inventions could not be taken by the Government without compensation ; and that not till recently could the Government be brought into Court to answer for the torts of its own officers against patentees or patent property, or to answer for violation of a contract express or implied, are important and should, with many other branches of the topic, be dealt with at lengtli. The reasons why, and the way in which, the Patent Office is doing more for our civilization than all the colleges and all the cluirclies, together with important necessary improvements in the l)ateut law and its administration in tlie Patent Office, and in tlie treatmen of patents by the Courts, should be con- sidered. \\\\i the limits of this essay permit only this brief mention of these important sub-topics. The final conclusion of it all is, so co-ordinated has the advance of society with brain action become,-^ tliat the nations whi(th protect property in ideas will survive ; all others will evidently perisli. Desiring to provide something in the nature of object- lessons for tlie instruction of the Association and. its guests, I phuie before you the four noble volumes of the Patent Office Gazette for 1888. These volumes contain Evohition of the Mechanic Arts. 209 something like 1500 pages each, or 6,000 pages in all, con- sisting only of what may be called the cream of invention and Patent-Office work for the year, separated from the skim-milk. These 6,000 pages contain only the claims of the patents, and one figure from the drawings of the patent intended to aid the understanding of the claims of the inventor. Including design patents, the patents for that year were upwards of 20,000, involving an average issue of 400 patents or more per week, not counting the applications for patents not issued. These volumes are made up of weekly issues of the Patent Office Gazette, containing from 125 to 150 pages, costing ten cents each, or $5.00 per year. It is, as you will recognize, a marvel of cheapness, perfec- tion and rapidity of execution, that in itself makes the Patent Office Gazette a worthy badge of the evolution of the mechanic arts, since the whole of the work is mechani- cal, i. e., done by machinery. Contrast with these four volumes the volume (a small book of 519 pages) consisting of the Patent Office reports for 1851, and you will begin to obtain a glimpse of what has been done in the evolution of the mechanic arts during the last forty years. In the year 1851, 872 patents were granted ; frequently now, 500 patents are issued in a single week, and on an average more than 800 are issued every two weeks. If I could set before you in a row the Patent Office reports and Gazettes, you would have the means, if inclined to phi- losophic speculation, of mapping or plotting out the various social, political, business, military and other cataclysms that have happened in this country during the past forty or fifty years, together with the intervals of peace and gen- eral uplift to the table-lands of national and individual prosperity. Prior to 1855 was the day of small things ; the patents issued per year did not average 1,000. An in- crease in prosperity is indicated in the number and size of the volumes and the number of patents issued during 1854, 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858 ; then an ominous drop, pitching toward 1861. From this there was no recovery before 1864. Beginning, however, in 1865 and 1866, there was a rapid in- crease in the number and size of the volumes and number of patents issued, in accordance with the increase of national prosperity. From 1872 to 1879, inclusive, the two annual vol- umes about equalled in size and contents one of these large quarter-yearly ones. Then, following the adoption of specie 210 Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. payments, a sudden increase occurred, maintained with fluc- tuations of one kind and another down to the present time, the variations in the number of patents issued being lat- terly made up by the increased number of claims in each patent, showing improved work on the part of patent solic- itors. The patents issued for 1880 in round numbers were 14,000; in 1881, 16,000; 1882, 19,000; 1883, 22,000; 1884, 20,000; 1885, 24,000; 1886, 22,000; 1887, 21,000; 1888, 20,000 ; and 1889, 24,158, the highest annual number yet reached. Tlie number of the last patent issued in 1889 is 418,664. The present numbering commenced in 1829, prior to which 5,380 patents had been issued, commenc- ing with only three patents issued in 1790. At the end of 1871 the number of the last patent issued was 122,303 ; the last number in 1881 was 251,684, the number of patents issued more than doubling in ten years. At the present rate of issue, the number of patents at the end of 1891 will again be more than doubled in ten years ; or in other words, more than half of all the patents granted by the Government will have been issued within ten years; and out of about 460,000 patents issued, something like 335,000 will still be alive or unexpired. Lack of space alone enables me to resist the temptation to follow up these statistics with a statement of some out of the mass of interesting facts that aye involved in tliQse few figures. As by far the larger part pf these inv^n^ions are mechanical, and relate to mechanical arts on the dynamic side, and those that relate to the arts on the static side almost invariably touch dynamic meclianism somewhere, it becomes evident at a mere glance that the prosperity and development of our civilization are intimately connected with the work of the inventor and the evolution of the me- cliauic arts. It is also evident that if our patent system should be abrogated, the incentive to invention being thereby removed, it would be such a disaster to civiliza- tion that we could better afford to sink one-half of the country to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. In comparison Avith tlie great volumes exhibited it is not much to brag about, b\it I am glad to be able to show you a Patent-Oihce com])ilation, giving the names of women inventors to whom j)atents h;id been granted by tlie Govern- ment, from 1790 down to July, 1888. To be sure, an in- spection of this book shows that their minds run decidedly Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. 211 to bustles, liip-pads, and things of that order; but as women seem to be coming in these latter days back into contact with actual sublunary and business affairs, it may be expected that in future their influence will be felt to a much greater extent than ever before in this field of human endeavor. It remains to consider: 1. What are the effects of Machinery and Inventions in agriculture and manufactures ? 2. Have they benefited the laboring classes? 3. What are their effects on .the increase of wealth ? 4. What are their effects on the progress of civilization ? 5. What are their effects on the development of the human body ? and, 6. What are their effects on the development of the human mind ? Here are six distinct topics, each worthy of treatment in an entire essay, but which can receive only the attention of a few words. In considering each of them it is necessary to keep in mind the distinctions between the abstract and the relative, between what ought to be and what can be, between what is right and what the laws, the courts, the customs and the methods of society and business sanction. Here, as elsewhere and always, the first thing to seek is : The Kingdom of God, and His righteousness ; whereupon you may be sure that " All these things shall be added unto jou" provided you understand the "Kingdom of God and His righteousness" to mean the supremacy of abstract, natural and divine justice not such justice as man admin- isters, but such as God administers and would teach man to administer. This by no means begs the question, but indicates that the true answers to the six questions depend on how much justice can be practically realized at human hands. The answer to the first question is : That, in agriculture particularly, it depends on how the machinery is used whether it is used in accordance with the natural law of its use in the ultimate, divine system of things. If quicken- ing or facilitating production by the use of machinery in- volves exhaustion of the soil, then the seeming bemefit is a disaster, since the farmer is inevitably removing, parting Avith, or destroying, his capital, and will see the time when his desolated farm Avill drive him into exile and beggary, in punishment for his injustice yes, his crime committed against his land, the storehouse of the supply of life. An 212 Evohition of the Mechanic Arts. additional crime, another injustice, can be committed against land and all that concerns agriculture and its true prosperity, nay, is being committed at this time, the evidences of Avhich are being written all over tlie face of the lands of our fair country, built into our cities from foundation to turret-stones, stamped indelibly upon our political, moral and religious life, formed into the very intellectual substance of our people, and co-ordinated "with our entire civilization. I refer to that use of tlie machim ry of transportation by land and by sea, by railroad and by steamship, through which the agricultural interests of Kew England, of the East, and of the occupying race of men and their civilization, are being destroyed, and inferior aliens in race and civilization are being put in possession in their places. Already destruction has begun to reach as far West as Micliigan, where land valu' s have seriously declined ; and it is destined to continue its westward march across the continent, unless we promptly learn the true lesson of the use of machinery in relation to land and its products. It is this desolation of the land and the masses that is enriching the few the railroad kings. As to manufactures, a similar principle holds good, but wnth variations peculiar to that branch of industry. Thvis, machinery and invention may be used in su(;h a Avay as to consume and destroy wealth elsewhere and otherwise pro- duced; but inevitably the effect of their proper use is to increase wealth understanding that wealth means weal; that it is not confined to movable capital ; and particularly that it includes the labor of the wealth-})roducer, who is the mechanic, or has to do with the mechanic arts. The answer to the second question, then, must be that inventions have benefited the laboring classes, most where justice most prevails, and least Avhere it least prevails. Consequently, we find that in such countries even as Eng- land, it is doubtful if they have benefited the entire labor- ing class affected by the ])articular machinery and invention considered, though individiud benefits have been realized.. \n America, it is certain that the cotton-gin strengthened slavery, degraded the laborer, utterly demoralized the owner of the cotton-gin, mentally, morally and politically, led up to rebellion, and still promotes disorder, cruelty, and, in the last analysis of cause and effect, even whole- sale tyranny and murder. An essay might well be written Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. 213 for the purpose of tracing the effects of the cotton-gin, and the absence of co-ordinately developed mechanical arts, in the South, upon the character and history of the typical Southerner, and upon the past and future welfare of the entire country. At this writing I hear of a single typical case of benefit to the laborer, where a man known to me is now earning one hundred dollars per month as a mere attendant upon the machinery employed in making illumi- nating gas, who forty years ago would have done well in securing steady employment at 87 1-2 cents per day. And there are many college graduates who are not earning or receiving so much. In fact, the laboring class has obtained the advantage over all other classes except the large cap- italists by beginning agitation and discussion years since. It is time for these other classes to take up agitation and discussion, for their salvation is now at stake. They are between the upper and the nether mill-stones. The fifth question concerns the human body. Accord- ing to the teaching of Spencer, Darwin and Romanes, already quoted, the connection between advancing brain and muscular co-ordination having been severed by machinery, and the day of a new kind of advance through mental and supplemental material, or natural mechanical co-ordination, having finally come, chiefly in our own time, but little developmental change of plan or structure of the human body is to be expected or is possible, altliough, doubtless, rounded perfection of development, harmony and beauty of outline, as well as general increase of strength and endurance, and certainty and length of days, may be looked for. It remains to consider the effects of machinery and inventions upon the human mind, and upon the progress of civilization in the ages to come. Can anyone who has followed the history of the primordial germ, in its progress from a mere <' faculty of responding to resistance " as its " fundamental sense," up to man with all his mental capacities, believe that the mental evolution of man is to stop now, when he has but barely entered upon that advance which is independent of muscular co-ordination ? It is this emancipation of his adjustive powers which has brought him into correlation with the universe, through the additional senses, limbs 214 Evolution of the Mechanic Arts. and mental powers, conferred upon him by mechanisms. Can almost infinite development take place in mechanisms and in the mastery of man over Nature, and man himself in his mental constitution, out of which they must grow, remain stationary or not develop accordingly ? Ko. Nor can any language now at command express that possible advance, for language itself has to keep step in the grand march. Only obscure mathematical formulas can embody it. Placing Nature, with its limitless capacities, on one side of the equation, we must put man on the other, with limitless answering possibilities of mental development ; for is it not the work of the human mind to realize those capacities ? The equation thus formed being in the nature of a vitalized equation, no development can occur on one side of the sign of equality without rising simultaneously on the other. The nature and direction of mental advance would seem to be clear and necessary. In dealing with the natural forces involved in the Evolu- tion of the Mechanic Arts, the tendency must be to bring the human mind more and more into, or towards, harmony with that Infinite and Eternal Energy in and through which all forces operate, and by means of which all things have their being and their mode of action. We may therefore place a simple but perfect trust in the belief that in some day of a far distant age Man shall indeed become fit to be called a Son of God. EVOLUTION OF THE WAGES SYSTEM. BY GEOKGE GUNTON Author of ""Wealth axd Progress," "The Principles of Social Economics," "The Economic Heresies of Henrv George," etc. COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. Spencer's "Principles of Sociology"; Rogers's "Six Centuries of "Work and Wages " ; Gunton's "Wealth and Progress"; Gron- lund's "The Co-operative Commonwealth" and "Caira"; Edward Kellogg's "Labor and Capital " ; Mulhall's " Progress of the World in the Nineteenth Century," and "History of Prices"; Levi's "Wages and Earnings of the Working Classes" ; Grant's " History of Factory Legislation"; Brassey's "Work and Wages"; Wade's "History of the Middle and Working Classes"; Eden's "State of the Poor"; Tooke's "History of Prices"; Howell's "Capital and Labor"; Walker's "Wages Question" ; Bastiat's "Economic Har- monies"; Young's "Labor in Europe and America"; C. Osborn Ward's "History of the Ancient Working People." (216) EVOLUTION OF THE WAGES SYSTEM.* This is essentially the era for testing systems. The time was, and not long since, when the laboring classes, and even the more intelligent advocates of industrial re- form, regarded the capitalist as responsible for all indus- trial disadvantages to which they were subjected ; whether it was a reduction of wages, the refusal to grant an increase of wages, or whatsoever, the individual employer or employers in general were held responsible. We have now reached the stage however where that mode of discus- sion is largely dispensed with. Among the more intelligent laborers, the subject is no longer discussed on purely per- sonal grounds, but is considered from the standpoint of the constitutional tendency of existing economic and social institutions. In a word, the discussion of the industrial question has been transferred from the sphere of individual responsibility to that of economic and social law. This is a great advance towards a scientific consideration of the subject. It compels the laborer to look beyond the employer for the cause of the industrial hardships he encounters. Accordingly, to-day, all shades of social re- formers, though they differ upon everything else, practically agree that tlie evils of society are due to the inherent nature of our industrial system as a system. The tyran- nous exactions of the ''heartless employer," the fraud of the " unscrupulous trader " and the vicious practices of the speculator are all pointed to as the necessary results of the present industrial organization of society the wages system. It is held, and this view seems to be increasing, that the system of wages is a system of bondage, that the existence of wage-receivers implies the existence of capital- istic masters, that it is a system which enables the rich to grow richer by increasing the poverty of the poor. In short, that it is essentially a system of industrial servitude * COPYKIGHT, 1890, by James H. West. 218 Evolution of the Wages System. and social degradation, differing from slavery only in name ; that it is necessarily inimical to industrial development, the growth of individual freedom and a progressive civiliza- tion. Consequently, the hand of the social reformer with- out regard to his constructive tenets is everywhere raised against the wages system. Whether he be Anarchist, Nationalist, Green-backer, Land Nationalizer or Socialist, the first step in his march towards the millennium is the abolition of the wages system. It may be frankly admitted that the wages system is an essential part of the capitalistic system of production, and an indispensable feature of modern industrial methods. But is it necessarily an evil, economically or socially ? is the first question to settle. If the wages system is inhe- rently inimical to progress, nothing can justify its perpet- uation. The prime question for the statesman and social philosopher to consider is human progress. All industrial conditions, social influences and institutions should be promoted or restrained according as they contribute to this end. There is nothing too sacred to be abolished in order to promote social advancement. If socialism is necessary to progress I am a socialist. I am in favor of revolution if revolution will do it. But Avill it do it ? Is socialism necessary to progress ? are questions that must be satisfac- torily answered before such methods of reform can be justified. Whether or not the wages system is inimical to progress and tends to prevent the growth of individual and social freedom can only be determined by a comprehensive study of the evolution of the wages system. This involves the consideration of (1) the meaning of wages and the dis- tinctive economic characteristics of the wages system. (2) The origin and historic development of the wages system and the influences which promoted its growth. (3) The rela- tion of the wages system to material improvement, individ- ual development and a progressive civilization. THE MEAXIXG OF WAGES AND THE DISTINCTIVE ECONOMIC' CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WAGES SYSTEM. Wages may be defined as the price of labor or service. Since price always implies a sale, the price of labor is necessarily a stipulated amount given by another to the laborer for his service. Thus wages are not, as is often assumed, what the laborer produces, nor the value of that Evolution of the Wages System. 219 product, but that which is actually and consciously given in exchange for the service per se. Therefore, for the same reason that there can be no price without exchange or sale, there can be no wages unless labor as such is bought and sold. It will be observed that this definition of wages includes the incomes not only of laborers who work by the day, by the week, or by the month, but the income of all without regard to sex or social status who sell their ser- vice as service. Wages include all stipulated incomes, whether great or small, which are received in direct pay- ment for personal service. The distinctive feature therefore of the wages system is that it distributes wealth in the form of fixed or previously stipulated payments. It differs from the individual self- employing system in two ways. (1) Because the man who works for himself sells only the product of his labor, while he who works for wages sells only his labor or service. (2) Because the amount the self-employed laborer receives is determined by the quantity he produces, while that of the wage-receiver depends entirely upon what another will consent in advance to give for his labor. It may be said that the slave-system was a stipulated-income system for the laborer. Indeed, one of the most prominent objections urged against- the wages system is that it is a species of slavery. It is held that the slave worked for the master and so does the wage-laborer ; the slave received what the master gave him and so does the wage-laborer. The slave did not own the product of his labor, neither does the wage laborer. Since the wages system is the outgrowth of slavery, it naturally possesses some of the same characteristics ; but it has also some radically different features, and it is these different features that distinguish it from slavery. It is true that under both systems the laborer receives his income from the employer ; that under both systems the product belongs to the employer and not to the laborer. But here the similarity ceases and a new element enters the industrial relations. Under the slave system the laborer was a commodity, while under the wages system it is only his service that is bought and sold. Thus, under the wages system, instead of buying and selling laborers as under slavery, the employer buys service and sells prod- ucts. By this change the price was transferred from the 220 Evolution of the Wages System. person of the laborer to his labor ; thenceforth he ceased to be a commodity and became a distinct social as well as an economic factor, which constitutes a radical difference between the two industrial systems. It is further urged that vmder the slave system the master was compelled to give the laborer as much of the product as would furnish him a living, and under the wages system he does no more. This is true, with the radical difference however that, under slavery, what should consti- tute the laborer's standard of living was determined by the arbitrary authority of the master, while under the wages system his standard of living is determined by his social habits and new desires, which may be and are constantly increased according to the extent and complexity of his social relations. Thus while under both systems the labor- er's income is determined by his standard of living, in the transition from slavery to wages the standard of living was transferred from the sphere of rigid despotic authority to that of social law, where it becomes susceptible of indefinite expansion. THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE WAGES SYSTEM. If we examine the state of society in France at the close of the ninth century, we find little but industrial and social confusion. After the death of Charlemagne, society was practically resolved into its original elements ; political government and everything like social and indus- trial order practically disappeared. In the reorganization of society under feudalism, the center of all allegiance, authority and ambition was transferred from the emperor and petty king to the person of the feudal baron.* With the establishment of the feudal system and its more perma- nent social life, a greater desire for the display of wealth and social power rapidly developed among the barons and their more wealthy vassals. The ambition of every lord to outdo his neighbors in pageantry and make the baronial hall rival the king's castle, which was so common in the tenth and eleventh centviries, naturally stimulated the growth of new wants, tastes and social habits, the satisfaction of which necessitated the production of more wealth. As these in- fluences extended, })opulation increased, and towns began to * Ffallain's History of t)it' Middle Ages, Vol. I., cli. ii. Also Guizot's History of Civilization. Evolution of the Wages System. 221 develop which naturally became the centers of industry and trade. With the growth of the towns, which became quite pronounced by the middle of the eleventh century, the social influences which had previously been confined to the lords and their vassals began to operate among the laboring classes. Through this concentration of population and industry in the towns, several socializing influences began to operate. In the first place, in their daily occupations, domestic life and religious services, the laborers were con- stantly forced into more frequent and varied social rela- tions, and these naturally tended to create among them the growth of new tastes and social habits. Under these conditions the laborers not only became familiar with and interested in each other, but they also acquired a more in- timate acquaintance with and stronger desire for the use of wealth. Although the towns, including the laborers, were still the property of the barons, the new desires and wants thus developed gradually took root, and bore fruit in the character of the people, which finally became too strong for either baron or king to resist. Indeed it was by the character thus produced that the free cities were developed, where the seed of industrial and political freedom was planted which ultimately overthrew the feudal system and laid the foundation for modern civilization. If time would permit, it would be interesting to follow the struggles of the laboring classes from the ninth to the fifteenth century, during which time they evolved from serfs, the literal property of the baron, to wage receivers with distinct industrial and social rights.* Suffice it to say that despite all the efforts of the barons and kings to oppress, plunder and enslave the laborers, before the middle of the eleventh century they began to obtain charters which not only gave them commercial privileges, but also secured to them the right of electing their own magistrates, judges, sheriffs, etc., and levying their own taxes. By these charters, which became very numerous by the twelfth century, the towns or free cities were practically trans- formed into little Republics. As early as 1020, the city of Leon received its municipal charter from Alfonzo V. of Spain. The charter of the city of London was granted by Henry I. in 1101, and those of Noyon, St. Quentin, Loan, * Principles of Social Economics, Part I., ch. v. 222 Evolution of the Wages System. and Amiens by Louis VT. of France about 1110, Hallam tells us that << before the death of Henry V. (1125), almost all the cities of Lombardy and many of those of Tuscany were accustomed to elect their own magistrates and to act as independent communities in waging war and in domestic government." And in England, according to the same author, "From the time of William Ilufus (1087 to 1100) there was no reign in which charters were not granted to different towns for exemption from tolls on rivers and at markets, those lighter manacles of feudal tyranny, or commercial franchises, or of immunity from the ordi- nary jurisdiction, or lastly of internal self-government."* The increasing wealth and prosperity of the towns was a constant source of envy to the barons, who, we are told, "plundered them on every occasion without mercy or re- morse." Therefore, in order to maintain their existence and the freedom and wealth they had acquired, the towns Avere forced to assume open hostility to the barons. As a means of swelling their numbers and sustaining themselves in this struggle, the burgesses made the towns a place of refuge and safety for all who should come to reside within their walls. And as an additional inducement they con- ferred the right of citizenship upon all who remained there one year, even though they were runaway serfs from the neighboring baron's estate. Thus the towns not only pro- tected the property and promoted the progress of the bur- gesses, but they offered protection and freedom to all who w^ho would flee thither from the clutches of their feudal masters. By such means they naturally attracted to them the most energetic and characterful portion of the people. With this opportunity for improvement and freedom con- stantly held out to even serfs of husbandry, the barons were gradually compelled to provide better conditions, grant more privileges, and some freedom, in order to prevent tluMii from fleeing to the towns. And by the middle of the four- teenth century, we are told, the villeins of England had largely become hired laborers. In other words, the laborers had developed from serfs (slaves) into wage receivers. Since the middle of the fourteenth century, the struggle of the laboring classes has been distinctly one for wages, as shown by the continuous legislation upon the subject Hallaui's History of the Middle Ages, Vol. I., pp. IGC-ICO and !'.; also Vol. II., p. 78. Evolution of the Wages System. 223 since the famous statute of laborers in 1350. The first hundred years of the distinctively wage period was one of marked improvement in the condition of the laborers. Wages, which in the middle of the fourteenth century were but three pence or less a day, were doubled by the middle of the following century. Although, through causes which I cannot now stop to explain, this rise of wages was arrested* for several centuries, they were never forced back to the previous state. With the rise of the factory system, how- ever, the same influences which produced the progress of the fourteenth century, again began to operate, and the wages system received a new impetus. And with all the disadvantages, and they are many, it must be admitted that the industrial and social progress of the laboring classes, and indeed everything that makes for civilization, has been greater than ever before. With this evolution of industrial and municipal power came also political representation. As early as 1188, we find, the cities of Spain acquired the right of representa- tion in the Cortes. In England, the burgesses received a general confirmation of their charters, which, with many new privileges, were declared inviolable by Magna Charta in 1214. This was publicly confirmed thirty-two times be- fore the middle of the next century, and in 1265 the bvir- gesses obtained representation in parliament. With the growth of industrial freedom and general advancement toward wage conditions their power over the monarchy gradually increased, till, in the reign of Edward III., parliament demanded the right to appoint the king's coun- sellors, and finally to make and unmake kings. There is another fact worthy of note in this connection; namely, that in the same way that, with the development of the laborers from villeinage to wage receivers, and with the rise of wages and improved social conditions, their political power increased, so with the arrest of the rise of wages and social improvement, in the middle of the fifteenth century, their political power decayed. And it was not until the subsequent rise of wages under the factory sys- tem that any real revival of the political power of the masses took place. It will thus be observed that, historically, the evolution of the wages system is an integral part of the evolution of * Wealth and rrogress, Part II., ch. v. 224 Evolution of the Wages System. social freedom ; that it originated in tlie social and indus- trial centers which developed character ; that it was born of the very struggles for individual rights, and that the history of the wages system is the history of all the industrial, social, political and religious freedom modern civilization affords. THK kp:lation of thk wages system to material IMPKOVEMENT, SOCIAL FREEDOM, AND A PROGRESSIVE CIVILIZATION. Although it is generally admitted that the wages system is superior to the slave system which preceded it, those who regard its abolition as necessary to progress insist that, instead of being fundamentally different from slavery, it is but a modified form of it, and therefore the final aboli- tion of slavery and the establishment of industrial and social freedom involves the abolition of the wages system. Those who take this view, and they are very numerous, lay great stress upon the fact that, under tlie present system, the laborer is an employee. To them the very stipulation of income means limitation of freedom. Of all the ob- jections urged against the wages system this is probably the most universal, and is regarded as the most funda- mental. They think the only conditions under which social freedom is possible is where the laborers employ themselves. This idea underlies all the impractical schemes ever attempted for introducing the social millennium. The scheme of early communism, the socialism (New Christian- ity) of Saint-Simon, Fourier and Owen, the Christian socialism of Maurice and Kiugsley, the scientific socialism of Rodbertus and Karl Marx, the land nationalization of Henry George, and the military socialism of Bellamy, are all practically based upon this assumption. The fallacy in this position arises from a misconception of the idea of freedom. Freedom is not a mere theoretic form, but a sturdy fact. It does not consist in the formal l)erinission, but in the actual power, to go or to do. Nothing can give social and political ffeedom but wealth ; the freedom that wealth affords does not depend upon whether the laborer works for himself or for another, but it depends entirely ujwn how much wealth he receives. There is no power in Nature, Society, or Government that can make a poor man free. Poverty is the essence of weak- Evolution of the Wages System. 225 ness, it is the source of slavery, and the background of all despotism. I repeat, it is not the fact that the laborer's in- come is stipulated that limits his freedom, but the fact that it is small. The difference between the Pennsylvania miner and the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad is not in the form, but in the size of their incomes. A stipu- lated dollar gives more freedom than a stipulated cent. Let it never be forgotten, then, that it is the quantity and not the form of wealth that gives freedom. Can the amount of wealth the laborer receives be in- creased under the stipulated-income wages system ? I answer yes, emphatically yes ! The evidence of history is conclusive upon this point. When the statute of laborers was enacted (1350), wages in England were three pence (six cents) a day, or about the same as they were and still are in Asia. Since that time they have risen many hundred per cent., and all under the wages system. And what is more, the rise in wages has increased as the wages system has become more general and permanent. Indeed, all the advantages of modern civilization, the discovery of the art of printing, the use of steam and electricity, the develop- ment of the factory system, the right of religious freedom, representative government, the development of the arts and sciences which enable the common laborer to obtain comforts, luxuries and freedom formerly unknown even to the wealthy, have come under the wages system. Nor is this progress in spite of the wages system, as some would have us believe. On the contrary it is largely due to it. The growth of material prosperity and intel- ligence among the masses was an indispensable condition to this development. The art of printing has finally given us our cheap books and the daily press, which would have been impossible without the growth of intelligence among the common people which enabled them to both purchase and to appreciate literature. Nor would the mechanical inventions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the de- velopment of the modern factory and railroad have been possible but for the increasing consumption of the products by the masses. The wages system promoted this progress in many ways. In the first place, the stipulation of incomes tends to increase their permanence, and the certainty of getting a living. In proportion as the income of any class becomes 226 Mi'olution of tlie Wages System. stipulated it becomes less contingent and accidental. To the extent th^t this ocfcurs, material substance becomes more certain and less precarious, which is the first step towards social and intellectual development. So long as the laborer's living is uncertain, he is in a more or less con- stant state of anxiety and suspense which tends to make progress in the higher phases of social life impossible. Certainty of a living is the first condition to social ad- vancement. Another feature of the wages system is that it concen- trates laborers and specializes their occupations. This is regarded as gne of the worst features of the wages system, whereas it is in truth one of the best. By concentrating the laborers, it forces them into closer and more frequent intercourse with each other, which is indispensable to any appreciable degree of social development. Nothing can develop man's intelligence, character and freedom but con- tact with his fellow-man. It was because the free cities supplied this element that they were the nurseries of progress. It is true that in subdividing and specializing industry, the laborers become more and more a fractional part of the productive process. But instead of this being a disadvantage it is a positive advantage. With the specialization of labor, laborers become more and more interdependent upon each other, as for instance, in the ordinary factory to-day one laborer cannot work unless they all work. The effect of this is to make the laborers all have a common interest. The prosperity of one is the prosperity of all. Whatever welds people into a class, socializes them; and whatever socializes man expands and develops him. In proportion as men become interdependent with their fellow- men they become interested in them. In proportion as this process of social differentiation increases, our interests and sympathies broaden, our altruism is developed and the welfare of our neighbor becomes identical with our own. So long as man can succeed without the aid of his fellow- men he will remain indifferent to his neighbor's welfare. The only way to insure that man Avill help his neighbor is to make his neighbor's well-being necessary to his own. Tliis is precisely what the wages system does. It takes tlie laborer from his isolated hand-loom or cobbler's bench, or Evolution of the Wages System. 227 his little patch of land, and puts him into the factory. When it does this, it relegates him into a large specialized class, in doing which it makes him an inseparable part of a larger human aggregate. His interests are no longer isolated; his success is bound up with that of his fellows, and all the socializing influences of close intercourse and common interest at once set in. He then sees that he can- not fly away and leave his class, and therefore directs his efforts towards lifting that class. This is a fact which many of our leading writers and statesmen have not yet fully recognized. It is a common thing to see the editors of the daily press advising the workingmen to save their pennies and become capitalists, to leave their class and become employers. Such advice is very much like telling every boy that he can be president of the United States, a thing that never was possible, and is becoming more and more impossible as the population increases. So the advice to the laborer to leave his class becomes more impracticable as civilization advances. The tendency of industrial progress is constantly to- wards a relatively smaller number of employers, and more and more towards a stipulated income in the form of sala- ries and wages. The laborer feels this if he does not see it, and instead of trying to take wings and fly from his class, he endeavors to organize it. He sees that with the divis- ion and concentration of labor and stipulated incomes, the amount of wages, the number of hours' labor a day, the sanitary and other conditions under which he works, are not fixed separately for each laborer, but that they are regulated on a large scale for all. Consequently, in order to improve his own condition, whether by raising his wages, reducing his hours of labor, increasing the educational advantages for his children, or whatsoever, he is forced to demand the benefit for his class, as the only way of getting it for him- self. This fact has brought the labor organizations into existence, which have done so much to raise the wages and improve the social and political status of the laboring classes during the present century. There is nothing so saving to the human race, nothing that so surely promotes the advancement of civilization, as that which makes it necessary for millions to rise to- 228 Evolution of the Wages System. gether. No reform is worth fighting for, no statesmanship is worth considering, that does not tend to improve the con- ditions of the millions. I have no interest in any indus- trial or social scheme, in any civilization, or in any religion, that will save only a few. I believe in the survival of the fittest, but I also believe in making all fit to survive. There- fore to say that the wages system is opposed to freedom because it tends to create a laboring class, is to entirely mis- understand the trend of social progress. Indeed, that is one of its most redeeming features, without which improve- ment among the masses would be hopeless. Wages cannot rise, nor can political freedom or social character be de- veloped by anything which does not increase the economic interdependence of the people, and weld them together in social classes. Whatever makes men more interdepend- ent makes them more human, more altruistic; and more free. The savage has the minimum of interdependence ; his exist- ence mainly depends upon his muscle and upon accidents of his situation, and he is in almost perpetual terror. He has no freedom ; he can travel but a very limited distance, and is in constant fear of enemies in the form of wild beasts or wild men or wild elements. In the civilized countries where the wages system is most advanced and the greatest industrial interdependence prevails, man can travel around the world in perfect safety, because under those conditions everybody has an interest in protecting the freedom of his neighbors. That is why in the long run democracy is safer than despotism, because it includes more interests, more activities, more responsibilities and more reciprocal rela- tions. Another feature of the wages system is the tendency to promote more constant employment. Wages are an indis- pensable phase of the capitalistic system of production. There is no fact more conclusively established in the history of industrial progress than that with the development of the wages system, the division and specialization of labor and the interdependence of the laborers, has come the con- centration of capital in large enterprises. Nor is there any fact more conclusive than that the concentration of capital in fixed plants and large enterprises makes a marked in- crease in the permanence of employment. That periods of industrial depression and enforced idleness have accompa- Evolution of the Wages System. 229 nied the development of the factory-system is a fact too obvious to be questioned. These, however, as I have else- where shown,* are not inherent in the wages system, but are evils which sound economics and wise statesmanship may and should eliminate. But even with the blundering economics and blind statesmanship hitherto so prevalent, the permanence of employment has steadily increased with the development of the wages system and factory methods. For the proof of this you only need compare the statistics of able-bodied pauperism (enforced idleness) of the six- teenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, with that of the last thirty years. How to deal with the unemployed was the chief indus- trial problem that perplexed the English statesmen from the middle of the sixteenth to the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The statute books of that period bristle with enactments inflicting pains and penalties varying from the stocks to the scaffold, thousands being imprisoned, branded with red-hot irons, and not a few put to death, as the penalty for being "sturdy beggars," which condition enforced idleness made necessary, f Indeed, the history of the English Poor-Laws and the Act of Settlement under the Tudors and Stuarts is the history of futile attempts to deal with involuntary idleness. With the development of the factory system and the concentration of capital, however, this evil has been stead- ily diminished ; not from any generosity on the part of the capitalist towards the laborer, but because permanence of employment became indispensable to the success of large undertakings. As industrial establishments increased in size, involving millions of dollars, slight errors of manage- ment result in more serious losses. Indeed, it is a law of * Prill, of Social Economics, Part IV., ch. iv (Industrial Depressions). t In the first year of the reign of Edward VI. (1547) it was enacted (chapter iii) that " if any person refuse to labor, and live idly three days, he shall be branded with ared-hot iron on the breast with letter V, and be adjudged slave for two years of the person who informed against him. It is further provided that the master may cause his slave to work by beating or chaining him ; if the slave absconds for fourteen days he is condemned to slavety for life, and if he runs away a second time, he can be put to death." It is said that " every part of the kingdom was infested with robbers and idle vagabonds who, refus- ing to labor, lived by plundering the peaceful inhabitants." In Elizabeth's reign, " rogues were trussed up apace, and there was not ut The Theological Method. 267 the main increase has been in the most recent times, the application of machinery to labor and of steam-power to machinery, the principal factors in the increase, a comment on the threadbare fallacy tliat "all wealth is the product of labor" that cannot be too carefully observed. There is significance in the fact that the growth of industry and wealth has been most remarkable in quarters least subject to the control or influence of the Roman Catholic church, in quarters where the Protestant virtues, as Cardinal NeAvman calls them, personal independence and self- respect, have had the fullest swing. The industrialism and wealth of modern life have flourished not merely in contempt of the original church, but in part because (no thanks to her) of her fatuous opposition. The immense development of mechanical skill is eldest daughter of that scientific spirit with which the Mother Church had no com- munity. It has come of an insatiable curiosity for which she has had no favorable word or smile. The uttermost dis-service done by that Church to industry and wealth and labor and the general social stains of mankind was through her monstrous opposition to its intellectual life. Had not the Jew and the Mohammedan kept the flame of intellect- ual life in Europe it seems as if it must have gone out in smoke and stench forever. The Christian branch of the Semitic stock was without flower or fruit when the Moham- medan and Jewish branches of the same stock were all abloom with promise or loaded doAvn with intellectual fruit. "Persecution," says Lecky, "came to the Jewish nation in its most horrible forms, . . . but above all this the grandeur of that wonderful people rose supreme. While those around were groveling in the darkness of besotted igno- rance ; while juggling miracles and lying relics were the themes on which almost all Europe was expatiating ; while the intellect of Europe, enthralled by countless supersti- tions, had sunk into a deadly torpor in which all love of inquiry and all search for truth were abandoned, the Jews were still pursuing the path of knowledge, amassing learn- ing, and stimulating progress with the same unflinching confidence they manifested in their faith. They were the most skilful physicians, the ablest financiers, and among the most profound philosophers ; Avhile they were second only to the Moors in natural science," freely aj)propriating their results and giving them such currency as tht^y could 268 JEvolution and Social Reform,: in Western Europe. It was Jewish wealth that broke the arm of Christian persecution. Not till the Jew's money was absolutely indispensable to Kings and popes, for the prosecution of their crusades and wars, did the stress of persecution cease. The system of credit and exchange which is inseparable from the industrialism of the modern world was developed by the Jews, if the letter of exchange was not of their device. They were the first to make a liberal use of this device. We are tluis brought face to face Avith tlie matters of interest and usury. The social reformer whose panacea for all the ills which modern industrialism is heir to or has originally developed is the prohibition of interest, has the Bible, Old and New Testament, at his back, and equally the unanimous authority of the Christian church for seventeen centuries. The last authoritative utterance of the church was in the eleventh century, and it was as hostile to usury or interest as any previous utterance. I say "to usxiry or interest," for it is only the finesse of modern Christianity that has made out any difference between the two. Usury in the Bible means just interest, no more, or less ; and usury meant interest all down the Christian centuries till some three centuries since. Three per cent, was as much usury as ten, and equally disallowed. But in spite of papal in- terdicts the giving and receiving of interest, called usury, went on, and at length all cliurchly opposition ceased. The church hardly attained unto tlie wisdom of the school- mistress, who said to the refractory boy, wlio would not budge, "Then stay Avhere you are, for I will be minded." But it concluded to let the refractory usurers stay Avhere they were, and say no more. Protestantism was much ahead of Eomanism in its abandonment of the futile oi)po- sition. Jolui Calvin had some good horse sense with all his theological barbarities. He was a paternalist in Geneva, if there ever was one, but he refused to prohibit interest by law. lie was mucli less slavisli in his bibliolatry than many who succeeded him. Moreover, he was one of tlie very first to expose the absurdity of Aristotle that "money is sterile." Tlie attitude of the church in this regard will be differently api)reciated according as one believes all in- terest-taking to be wrong, or believes its giving and taking to be the ha])i)iest device of industry and commerce in the modern world. I am myself decidedly of the last opinion. The Theological Method. 269 The principal operation of the Theological and Ecclesi- astical method is not, however, to be sought in the appli- cation of specific precepts and examples of the Scriptures to the social world, but in the diffusion of a spirit of com- passion and good-will and brotherhood. Nothing was more fundamental than the institution of slavery to the social structure of the pagan world. Nothing is more creditable to Christianity of the first and middle period than its oppo- sition to this institution, an opposition by which it was ultimately destroyed. I know the gibe that it was Chris- tians who could not be slaves in Christian eyes, not men. It somewhat dims the splendor of the church's work in this direction. But all were welcome to the church, and its recruits were largely if not mainly from the servile class. So, with its anti-slavery, there went along a social democracy which has always been the glory of the Mother Church not allied with political Democracy, because to this the church's doctrine of passive obedience is a fatal blow. Of social equality and fraternity the old church was a much better conservator than the reformed. It is so to this day. It is Protestantism that has rich men's churches, to which poor men cannot come. How good it is in every Catholic church in Europe to find rich and poor upon an equal foot- ing, it is generally footing and not sitting, the fine lady and the peasant, the merchant and the artisan at elbow- touch ! What a monstrous thing that in democratic Amer- ica Catholicism contracts the aristocratic taint of pew-owning and renting, though happily as yet the poor have not been cTriven out into unlovely chapels or the unlovelier streets. Another splendid service of early Christianity to the industrial world was in its enhancement of the dignity of labor. It was a piece of happy fortune that Paul, combating the disorder and the idleness of a world expecting daily Christ's return, said, "He that will not work shall not eat," a copula Avhich has lost none of its validity in the course of 1900 years. But it was the Benedictine monks who, making labor a rule of their order yet not a counsel of per- fection, gave an immense enhancement to the dignity of labor in men's eyes. Nor would it be easy to exaggerate the labors of the monks as pioneers of civilization, tamers of the wilderness, founders of universities and towns, and as exemplars to the general world of sturdy industry. You must not think that I have wilfully omitted Ameri- can slavery from my consideratipn. Strange as it may seem. Las Casas, one jof the most benevolent of Spanish Catholics, 270 Evolution and Social Reform: was the most conspicuous inaugurator of slavery in tlie new- world. It must be confessed that the Christianity which supported slavery in the United States was much inferior to that which weakened and destroyed it in the early church, and, notwithstanding frightful instances of cruelty in ancient slavery, our own of yesterday was much more debasing. But though the American churches were^ as James G. Birney said, the bulwark of slavery, the bulwark was one from be- hind which the Anti-Slavery party drew its noblest strength, from Garrison and Whittier and Green and May and Chan- ning and Parker, down to the humblest of the rank and file. The bible strength of the Pro-Slavery party was an Old- Testament custom ; the bible strength of the Anti-Slavery party was the spirit of compassion and humanity which warmed the heart of Jesus with a pure and heavenly flame. There can be no doubt, I think, that Garrison was a better interpreter of Christianity than Wilbur Fisk, finding an argument for slavery in the Golden Rule; for should we wish our neighbor to seek our liberty at the risk of endanger- ing the safety of the Union and of the Methodist church ! For all the Wilbur Fisks, and there were many, it was the Puritan conscience of the North, which the Bible and Chris- tianity had nourished, that broke the axe in the destroyer's hands. "The poor ye have always with you," Jesus said, a prophecy that has had complete fulfillment from his time to ours; but when he added, "And whenever you Avill you can do them good," there was a mocking echo from the experi- ence of nineteen Christian centuries "Good?" "Alms- giving no charity," wrote Daniel Defoe, almost the first to see that this was so. And perhaps it was not so in the order of society in which Jesus lived. Alms-giving may then have been the only possible charity. It is certainly the charity of the New Testament, and of the early and the later chxirch to our own time. And there can be no doubt that the Christiini charity which provoked the Em- peror Julian to stir up the pagan lieart to something like it, saying, "It is o\itrageous that tlie Christians should support not only their own destitute but ours," there can be no doubt that this charity was very sweet and beautiful in c()m])arison with the hard indifference of the pagan world to suffering and misery. In the ages before organized char- ity we nnist honor the spontaneous charity of men. But of one thing we may be sure : It never yet diminished ])Overty. Especially when the church elevated mendicancy to a virtue, The Theological Method. 271 that and indiscriminate charity brought forth a dreadful brood. It was understood that poverty and mendicancy were necessary raw material for charity, and as such they were encouraged. Without poverty and mendicancy the occupation of the saintly alms-giver would be gone. Lat- terly it has been borne in upon us that, if charity is a neces- sary evil, it is an evil that cannot be too seriously deplored. Does the evil of intemperance pauperize so miich ? But in the reform of charity, which began within the memory of my younger hearers ; in the battle with indiscriminate alms- giving; in the endeavor to help those who help them- selves, to organize friendly visiting, to establish a sym- pathetic and humane relationship between the rich and poor, it cannot be denied or doubted that the church has furnished a full quota of the tireless laborers. Nor can it be denied that it is the spirit of Christianity, the spirit of the man Jesus, which is fundamental to their work. It was Edward Denison, a young preacher in London's miserable East-End, who was one of the first to make the startling affirmation, ''Charity is a frightful evil," and who made "no direct help" and "compulsory labor for all beggary" the sine qua nans of charitable reform. It was John Richard Green, the great historian, but then a London vicar, who declared that six- penny photographs had done more for the poor than all the charity. How so ? By nourishing the home sentiment, by strengthening the family bond. ]So Eussian ikon so conse- crating as that row of poor cartes-de-visite upon the mantel- shelf, the old mother's in the country, the father's dead and gone, the baby's over whom the sods are green, the boys' far off in strange new lands. And it was Arnold Toynbee, another churchman eager, bold, and strong, in whose honored name Toynbee Hall was established to embody the idea of personal human sympathy and fellowship as the highest and the best that can entice the social helpers of our time. Sci- entific charity is not enough. I can imagine that charity might be so scientific that a wise man would prefer the old alms-giving way. It might pauperize more, but it Avould humanize more. What we want is a charity that shall be Scientific in its method. Religious in its spirit. Otherwise your scientific charity is a locomotive without fire and water, without steam. But most of all we need a vital human sympathy, such as Jesus felt, with every child of God how- ever miserable or depraved. I am persuaded that the more we know him for what he was, the more will his sym])athy and his compassion be an insi)iration to our good endeavor. 272 Evolution and Social Reform : and a shame upon our shameful hesitations and withdrawals in oiir contact Avith the ignorant and poor ahd weak. And if the truth were known, the jjoor need not the rich more than the rich need the poor to teach them a neighborly- spirit, to teach them the rudiments of generosity. Last, but not least, I am expected so do the syllabus and Dr. Janes inform me to say something on "the fool- ishness of preaching"; no, something about ])reaching as a means of social reform. The "Theological Method" is, in short, the method of Preaching; the method of direct relig- ious and ethical appeal to the individual. I should not my- self think of calling this the Theological method. I should prefer to call it the Ethical method or the lieligious. For it is evident that we can have abundance of direct religious or ethical appeal to the individual without any theological implications. Felix Adler and William Salter have no theol- ogy to sjjeak of, and they would smile or frown to hear thSir method called the Theological method; but of ethical and religious a])peal to the individual there is in them no lack. There is a theological method in preaching, and it may or may not have persuasive moral force with men. If the God whom it presents to men's imagination is a God of justice, mercy, truth and love their contemplation of this image will be very apt to quicken in their minds and hearts those Avonderful realities. But it is different when the God is different. The effect of preaching upon social life is certainly an unknown quantity. It must be such from the nature of the case. We cannot get at the facts. A great deal of Chris- tian preaching has had for its object, not the improve:nent of society, or even of the individual, but the salvation of souls, tlie imj)rovement of men's chances for tlie heavenly world. And it has endeavored to stir them u]) to believe certain incomprehensible doctrines, or to avail themselves of certain sacraments, as the sure means of effecting their eternal good. A great deal of this ])reacliing, logically en- tertained and carried out, would be ruinous to the social order and the individual life. It is the preaching that mo- rality lias nothing to do with salvation ; that the blood of Jesus cleansetli from all sin. "Only believe" that it is .so and it is so. Estimated logically, the doctrine of the Atone- ment is a horribly immoral doctrine; nevertheless its opera- tion has not been habitually immoral. But this fact goes not to the credit of the doctrine but to the credit of human- itv, which is infinitely better than the creeds. Men have The Theological Method. 273 not seen the doctrine ; they have seen a good man suffering for humanity, a good man laying down his life for his friends, and that has touched their hearts to finer issues. But with all the theological preaching, all the preaching of total depravity and eternal hell and the atonement and the trinity and election and predestination, and so on, there has been a great deal of moral and religious preaching. Some of the most theological preachers have been sternly ethical. Calvin, for instance, did in no wise waste himself entirely in theological speoiilations. He attempted to regu- late the social life of Geneva down to the last particular. People should even go home and go to bed at such a time. A great many preachers have been social reformers. Theo- dore Parker preached a sermon on the dvities of milkmen, and Archbishop Tillotson preached one on the duty of mothers to suckle their own children. All the ages down, there has been a great deal of ethical preaching with the theological. The theological has made the more noise. It has oftener got into books. But it has not done anything like so much good as the other. That has often fallen into good ground and sprung up and borne fruit thirty, sixty and a hundred fold. The idea of conversion has been very prominent in the Christian world. Without a conscious conversion many have insisted that no one can have any hope of everlasting happiness or be a Christian here. Now, that preaching has effected a great many very real conversions I am not in the least inclined to doubt. It has converted the drtuikard and the licentious from their evil ways. It has persuaded those Avho have stolen to steal no more. It has sent men and women home to be better husbands and wives ; more kind, more tender, more thoughtful, more forgiving. But I do not believe that the best effect of preaching has been by its conversions sharp turnings-round of men from bad ways to good. I believe that its best effect has been to bathe men in an atmosphere of holiness, to induce in them a habit of noble expectation with themselves, to keep them in the constant presence of beautiful and exigent ideals, and most of all in the presence of that ideal of tenderness and com- passion and sincerity which was embodied in the life of Jesus of jSTazaretli, the carpenter's son. The Keligious method of social reform, as I prefer to call it, is tlie method of personal character. The i)reaching of the Christian church has been one aspect of tliis method. It has had many great allies, the theatre; the novel; the 274 Evolution and Social Iteform. newspaper sometimes ; biographies of noble men and wom- en, and, better still, the personal influence of such. And that for which it works is the one thing without which no social reform can have permanence or essential worth. So- ciety will never be much, if any, better than the individuals of which it is composed. If we could have a perfect social scheme to-morrow, with men and women just as they are now, it would soon degenerate to the average level of the individuals of Avhich it is composed. There must be a con- spiracy of the outward and the inward. We need and must have better social forms : so far the Socialist is right. We must have less governmental meddling, less interference, less protection, more local and individual responsibility : so far the Anarchist is right, though childishly absurd in glorying in a name w^hich has stood for lawlessness so long that the taint will stick to it forever. We must know the laws of political economy and the social structure, in order that Ave may obey them : and so far the Scientific method of social reform is right, and we must gi^'e to it our earnest heed. But the Religious method of social reform is greater than all these. It is the method of personal righteousness and truth and love. It is the method of men and women devoted to lofty personal ideals. Without this the other methods Avill not much avail. Without the others this might work a wondrous transformation. Society Avould hardly recognize itself if all men and Avomen should obey the laAV of righteousness so far as it is knoAvn. It Avould think that it was ''Kingdom-come." But if with better social regulations, and fewer injurious restraints, and larger scientific knoAvledge, Ave cou.ld have a general consecration of the indiAadual life to Avhat it belicA^es and knoAvs to be the highest, then slio\ild Ave truly see the glow of a millen- nial daAvn. Individually it may be that Ave cannot do much for the better social regulation, or the lessening of inter- ference and restraint, or the increase of scientific knoAvl- edge. But indiA^dually Ave can each present one man or Avoman to the CA'er-groAving company of the good and true Avlio has a right to march Avith them to certain A'ictory, though it may not be for us to taste the fulness of its joy. EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL REFORM II. THE SOCIALISTIC METHOD. BY WILLIAM POTTS AuTHOB OF "Evolution of Vegetal Life," etc. COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. Spencer's "Principles of Sociology"; Cbas. Booth's "Labor and Life of the People" ; Mill's " Chapters on Socialism'" ; A. K. Owen's "Integral Co-operation"; Groulund's "The Co-operative Commonwealth" and "Ca Ira'"; Graham's "Creed of Science" and "The Social Problem"'; George's "Progress and Poverty" and "Social Problems"; R. T. Ely's "Recent American Social- ism" and "History of French and German Socialism"; Moore's "Utopia"; Bellamy's "Looking Backward'', Aug. Jacobson's "Higher Ground" ; Edward Kellogg's "Labor and Capital"; T. Edwin Brown's "Studies in Modern Socialism" and "Labor Problems"; Rev. and Mrs. Sam'l J. Barnett's "Practical Social- ism"; Besant"s "All Sorts and Conditions of Men," "Memorial of Arnold Toynbee, and Toynbee Hall," "Rational Communism" ; Dr. Schaeffle's "The Quintessence of Socialism"; Karl Marx's "Das Kapital"; Kirkup's "An Inquiry into Socialism" and "Socialism" (in Ency. Brit.); Dr. Theo. D. Woolsey's "Com- munism and Socialism." (276) EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL REFORM.* II, THE SOCIALISTIC METHOD, Communism, Socialism, Nationalism, Anarchism and Ni- hilism are terms with which we have grown familiar within a few years. All of the movements to which these terms are applied had their origin in the old world and under con- ditions of society and laws wholly different from ours. As they appear on this side of the sea there is a certain ele- ment of unreality in them of which in thought we cannot readily divest ourselves, the arguments by which they are supported being so completely out of harmony with the conditions with which we are familiar. We hear more and more of these movements in this country, mainly from three causes. First, because on the average the wage-earners are relatively much better off than formerly, and are naturally and properly anxious for a still greater amelioration of their condition; secondly, because there is a rapidly growing interest in social questions, and desire on the part of the better educated and more pros- perous to find the safest and most effective means for the improvement of the position of the whole ; and thirdly, because these two conditions afford the stimulus to enthu- siastic and often untrained dreamers to unload their new and fantastic or old and exploded schemes upon eagerly listening ears, or the opportunity for the soldier, or perhaps I should more properly say the sailor, of fortune to float his leaky craft for a time upon the swelling wave of popu- lar interest. Mr. Laurence Gronlund, one of the high- priests of the socialistic movement here, Avrites of certain of Fourier's anticipations, "These very soon commenced to fire the American heart, and like a mighty wave they passed over the whole settled part of the United States from east to west, and, indeed, their dying embers did not expire till fifteen years later." Certainly a remarkable state of affairs. "Mr, Chairman and Gentlemen of the Board ! " said a poor- law guardian in the north of Ireland, " The eyes of Eu- rope are upon us. The apple of discord has been flung in * Copyright, 1890, by James H. West. 278 Evolution and Social Reform : our midst, and if it Le not nipped in the bud, it Avill burst into a conflagration wliicli "will deluge the world." That the advocates of most of these schemes should at the present time seek to establisli them by means of an appeal to law is a natural result of a want of knowledge of the past and, therefore, a want of knowledge of the methods of evolution. It is not seen that institutions result from the development of society, and that society is not the result of institutions. It is not realized that law s of value only as it is an expression of the sentiment of the people by whom it is established, and moreover that some things might be approved by the majority which it would be the extreme of unwisdom to put into the form of law. Statute law is useful and something requisite, but it is dangerous, and it should only be resorted to when it is necessary. Anarchism strictly means a condition of existence with- out Government. As a system, if we may use such an ex- pression, it appears to have had its origin in Kussia, as did also Nihilism which has been practically confined to that country, and both are the result of a natural revolt from the extreme governmental tyranny of which Russia has been always the theatre. The term Nihilism first made its appearance in one of Turgueneff's novels, and its chief apostle has been Tchernychevski. It is the outcome of a feeling that practically all existing social and govermental conditions are radically wrong, and that there is no hope for improvement excepting through their utter destruction. In relation to that which is to come after this destruction, there is no common agreement. Anarchism, or anarchy, of which Bakunin is the most pronounced prophet, is extreme Individualism. According to its advocates there should be no power above tliat of the individual. All action must be voluntar}-, and personal action must be uncontrolled. This conception comes from apprehending Government in its old sense, as something imposed from without. The modern idea is that Govern- ment is merely an agency of the jjeople for specific pur- poses. 8ome things which are necessary that social order may exist can only be secured by an agency acting for the whole. There are numerous other things which can be best done by such an agency without inflicting a more than counterbalancing damage, and it is mere waste and wanton The Socialistic Method. 27d injury to the commonweal not to nse this agency to the best advantage. It is difficult, I may say practically impossible, to sep- arate and define distinctively the terms Communism and Socialism. Both terms are used, and have been used more jiarticularly in the past, to indicate the governing principle of certain voluntary and local establishments, and both are used, and especially at the present time, to indicate action by the State by the official power whatever it may be. Of both there have been and are all conceivable degrees, from Brook Earm and the Fourierite Phalansteries, to the Socialistic State of Lassalle, Karl Marx and the Inter- national. Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn-law Rhymer, thus expresses his idea of a communist : "What is a Communist? One who has yearnings For equal division of unequal earnings : An idler or bungler, or both, he is willing To fork out his penny and pocket your shilling." Now this, though a perfectly true pictvire of a multitude of Communists or Socialists, is wholly false as regards many others. As the line which separates Communism from Socialism cannot be discovered, so the line is frequently indistinct between these and Anarchism ; or, rather, many persons consider tliemselves both Anarchists and Socialists, although, as I shall try to show a little later, nothing could be more incongruous if we take the modern sense of Socialism as Collectivism or NationalisTii. There are four descriptions of persons who are to be noted as together composing the body, the members of which classify themselves under these various titles : First, a large number of uninstructed persons filled with the spirit of unrest, and mainly desirous of bettering their personal con- dition in any way that may be handy ; secondly, another large number of persons, also uninstructed, but sympathetic, who seize upon any scheme which seems to offer a prospect of promoting the general good ; thirdly, a smaller number of persons, who are ready to play the demagogue for their personal advantage at the cost of any cause which they can make tributary to it; and fourthly, a small number of thinkers and students who are generally familiar with the teachings of history but are for the most part guided by their feelings. 280 Eoolutlon and Social Reform : There is no matter in wliicli it is so necessary or so diffi- cult to hold one's self in check, as the matter of social re- form, nor is there any field in which more harm may be done. The evils of the past have been so great, the sufferings of the present continue so serious, that one's sympathy becomes im- mediately involved, and unless he is able to hold a tight rein upon it it is sure to run away with him. The Socialist tells us at least he tells me that the social reformer is not a real social reformer until he is mastered by his feelings ; until he has permitted himself to be swept away by his indignation and is unable to see anything but the matter before him. To this I reply then is he a danger to the people, a pest to mankind, and society is bound to protect itself against him as it is bound to protect itself against any person of unbalanced mind. For I take it that there will be no dissent among sane persons to the state- ment that the intellect is the crowning factor in human nature, that upon the clearness of intellectual action depends human development and human progress, and that an intellect clouded by passion is an unbalanced intellect and dangerous to its possessor and to the community, even though the passion may in the beginning have been inspired by an impulse the most benevolent ; and indeed, most because of this, since it is likely then to become most in- tense and to be most disastrous in the consequences of its Berserker rage. Modern Communism and Socialism had their origin in France, but Socialism ha,s made greatest progress in Ger- many. Any deductions, however, drawn from the amount of the socialist vote in the late election for members of the Keiclistag would be misleading, since this was largely the result of a temporary combination. In France Socialism was a natui-al ])art of the revolt from tlie tyranny of the ancient regime, stimulated rather than re])ressed by tlie large amount of liberty acquired through the Revolution, which led those with untrained minds, or with minds sud- denly emancipated, to believe that all things could be obtiiined by means through which so much liad been ])ro- cured ; and in Germany it has been largely the reaction against arbitrary military rule and prescriptive exactions. The Socialisni of the old days was in the main a voluntary organization of comnmnities in which the rights of the in- dividual were merged more or less permanently in that of The Socialistic Method. 281 the Community. They were practically co-operative asso- ciations of an extreme type. Of such, with certain qual- ifications, is the Familistere at Guise. The Socialism or Collectivism or Nationalism of to-day is absolutely antipo- dal to the voluntary co-operative society. The latter is what its name implies, a free partnership for the common good. On the other hand, State Socialism, which is the Socialism of Lassalle and Marx, and of their disciples in England and America as well as in Germany and. France, is in its essence the apotheosis of force. I am aware that these disciples will not be disposed to admit that this state- ment is true, but philosophically it is absolutely incontro- vertible, as I shall try to show. Among Socialists you will find the most tender souls, hearts throbbing with good-will to all mankind. There is nothing exceptional or astonishing in this ; it has been so in all the ages, and in the private recesses of the home it is often the finger of devoted love which touches the key to the most dreadful doom. The Inquisition was the work of those whose intentions were of the best, who wished to save mankind from eternal torment : the bloodiest wars in all history have been wars prosecuted by enthusiasts in the name of religion. Mr. Bellamy, it is said, Mr. Gron- lund, Mr. George, and others, are animated by a pure desire for the good of mankind. Shall we say because of this reason, we must agree with their thought and indorse their plans ? The world has been full of enthusiasts all the ages down. The world has suffered for them, it has bled for them, it has died for them. Does it make no difference whether the enthusiasm is a wise enthusiasm? whether it is in line with the drift of the divine power, or wh ther it is athwart or against the current ? Shall we say that it is enough that the leader claims to be inspired by the Holy Ghost ? and must we follow him whither he leads, though it may be into miasmatic labyrinths, into morasses from which the race, if it emerge at all, must painfully again fight its way outward to the light as in ages now long buried in the past ? Ah ! how large a part of the ])athos of human life all the ages through do we find in the un- numbered multitudes of tender souls, crushed by the wheels of the car of human progress in the vain effort to retard their revohition or turn them into a different path ! That system of administration which centralizes the con- 282 Evolution and Social Refo-nn: trol of social functions must, by tlie necessity of the case, be absolute militarism, or be an absolute failure. And be it remembered always that for the pur])ose of doing one i)ar- ticular thing in one particnilar way at one particular time and in one particular place the army is the ideal organiza- tion, and the more complete it is as a machine, the more absolutely individualities must be curbed ; while for the purpose of doing an infinite variety of things in an infinite variety of ways, at all times and in all places (and this is life), the army is the worst possible ideal. State Socialism, or Collectivism, or Nationalism, proposes in general that land and capital shall be taken possession of by the State ; that all production for distribution, and all distribution, shall be under the supervision and control of the State ; that every member of the community shall draw from the State his compensation, whatever it may be, for services performed ; and that money and interest shall cease to exist. There may be minor qualifications of these conditions, but I think tliat which I have given will be ac- cepted by collectivists as an approximately correct state- ment of the end which they have in view. The more ad- vanced and consistent of them hold that the scheme necessarily implies international union upon these matters. According to some the establishment of the Socialistic State is to be gained by violence ; according to others it is to be reached by a peaceful revolution. According to some the expropriation of private property is to be made at once and witliout compensation ; according to others a com- promise is to be effected upon some system of terminable annuities, annuities payable in goods, or orders similar to those payable for services, but terminating within a limited number of years. Now wliat follows, of necessity, from this scheme ? A vast centralized organization- according to some under an Emperor and State hierarcliy, but according to most writers under a pure democracy- must have control of all labor and of all distribution without distinction or exception. And this means vastly more tlian can be conveyed by these words. It means the control of all varieties of em])loy- ment, the determination of Avhat is to be pnjduced, wliere it is to be ])roduced, how it is to be ])ro(luced, liow miu-li is to be ])roduce(l; the determination tlierefore of the number of laborers, of where tliey sliall labor, and at what they The Socialistic Method. 283 shall labor, and how long they shall labor ; the control of all religion so far as it shall be manifested in institutions ; the control of all instruction so far as it shall be outside of the home. For example : An unwillingness to engage in the production of food, successfully manifested, must pro- duce famine. The teaching of doctrines contrary to the scheme in vogue would be equivalent to the spreading of anti-slavery doctrines in the South in the days before the war. To tolerate it would be to expose the State to inev- itable destruction. Some systems propose to pay alike for all kinds of labor, others propose to pay in some propor- tion to the value of services, this value of course to be de- termined by the same officials who indicate the kind and extent of the labor. Mr Bellamy proposes to pay all alike, but to require shorter service in certain kinds of labor than in others. The individual becomes of necessity the servant of society, or of those who for the time being represent society, and must obey their behests. He becomes the slave of the State rather than the servant, for service may imply voluntary contract, and there is nothing really vol- untary in the attitude of the individual under the proposed system. He may submit to the inevitable, but it is the in- evitable and he has no choice but to submit. From a phalanstery or any local socialistic body he may escape, but there is no escape from the international socialistic State except out of the world. If there is any way in which the socialistic State can be carried on without the exercise of this control by the au- thorities, I am unable to conceive it. And how are the persons to be selected who are to exercise this control ? By popular suffrage ! Imagine it if you can. Think of what is the present result of popular suffrage tempered by all that can be done to qualify it, and think of wliat it would be were all the interests of life dependent upon it ! Our main reliance to-day is and must be upon the sturdy in- dependence which has been fostered by our mvdtifarious individual development, which cliallenges merely official authority at every point. The Socialists tell us, " Oh, but under our system the best men would be chosen to perform the various functions." To this remark there is really no reply. One must simply gaze in mute despair at the speaker and feel of his own head to ascertain whether it is still upon his slioulders. 284 Evolution and Social B.efoi'Tn : The success of Socialism implies a tyranny as much more dreadful than any that the world has liitherto seen as our civilization is more complex than was the civilization of the past. Imagine if you can the possibility of such intellectual lives as that of Emerson, or those of which we have just lieard told in this course of lectures, the lives of Youmans and Gray. Imagine such a system organized a thousand years ago, and imagine it successful. ^Modern civilization becomes at once an impossibility. The knowl- edge of the new world and of all that has come of it, nay, the very knowledge of the existence of the Western Hem- isphere, must be blotted out. But I am drawing too heavily upon your imagination at least I have reached the limit of my own. One can picture to himself the experiment attempted, but he cannot think of it as enduring for a moment. The very leaders of the movement would be among the first to revolt against its decrees. Their strongest characteristic is their unwillingness to submit to the condi- tions surrounding them, their assurance that they are right and that the majority are wrong. Think of Ferdinand Lassalle or Karl Marx or William Morris submitting to be ordered in all his affairs by a petty officer placed in au- thority over him by the multitude which he glorifies ! Some of them would be burned at the stake rather than yield one jot of their inde])endence. I have alluded to Mi'. Bellamy because for the moment he is the rejjresentative of the Socialist movement in America, and he is said to have sold more than 300,000 copies of his book. He has attempted a picture of an ideal society, as Plato in the "Kepublic," Sir Thomas More in the " Utopia," Campanella in '' The City of the Sun," Lord ]iacon in the "Xew Atlantis," Cabet in the "Voyage to Icaria." It is })rincipally noteworthy for the horror Avith which it inspires one who cluM-ishes the old idea, "Give me liberty or give me death." His fitness for tlie discussion of such a i)roblem as that Avhich he has undertaken to treat is amusingly illustrated by his management of the marriage question. He hugs himself witli delight at the improve- ment of the race which is to result from the fact that the finest men are to marry oidy the finest women, wholly ob- livious of the fact that imless he revolutionizes human nature he simply leaves all the rest and residue of the race to many and multiply after their kind, and, if there is any The Socialistic Method. 285 force in liis argument whatever, to intensify the evil which they represent. He has recently issued a platform of what Nationalism at present demands, including among these things Civil-Service Reform and other matters which have about as much to do with Nationalism as a system as they have to do with Conic Sections. The socialistic movement rests largely upon the supposi- tion that the rich and the poor are distinct classes, per- manently fixed under the present order. In certain coun- tries in a rough sense this has been true, but only in a rough sense, and even there it is becoming less and less true. In this country it is simply nonsense. Anyone who has knowledge of the facts is aware of this. It has long been proverbial that 90 or 95 per cent, of all capitalists fail in business, and the number of families Avhich have retained large property through several generations is extremely small. In tlie city of Worcester, Massachusetts, of thirty persons who were leading manufacturers in 1840, fourteen failed and fourteen died or retired with property. Only three of the sons now have property or died leaving any. Of seventy -five of the same class in 1850, forty-one failed and thirty died or retired with property. Only six of the sons now have property or died leaving any. Of one hundred and seven of the same class in 1860, forty-three failed and sixty died or retired with property ; of the sons only eight now have property or died leaving any. Twenty-eight out of the thirty manufacturers of 1840 began as journeymen. One hundred and sixty-one out of one hundred and seventy- six manufacturers of 1878 began as journeymen. As an intelligent commentator puts it, "The truth is, that the capitalists of to-day are themselves the workingmen of twenty-five years ago, as the workingmen of to-day will be the capitalists of twenty -five years hence." The demand of interest for the use of money is one of the matters against which Socialists and also some good people who are not Socialists most loudly inveigh. Now, simply remarking that a great part of what is called in- terest is merely a premium on insurance against loss of the principal, and the remainder a very small charge for a very great assistance given to the borrower, I want to call atten- tion to the fact that not one person out of one hundred thousand has any adequate knowledge of the relation of 286 Evolution and Social Reform: the actual to the tlieoretical in the matter of interest. The legal rate of interest in tliis State, and in passing I desire to express the opinion that the fixing of a legal rate, excepting as a standard to which to appeal when there is no rate by contract, is an injury to the community, the legal rate in this State is six per cent, per annum. Now, it is undoubtedly the common, thought that a sum of money can be invested at this rate, and allowed permanently to accumulate at compound interest. What is the fact ? Suppose one dollar, one single little gold dollar, which is the smallest of all the golden seeds which produce this crop of interest, to have been invested at the beginning of the Christian era, and allowed to compound annually at six per cent, until this day. If you will consider the sum thus accumulated as turned into gold, and this gold placed where the sun now is, it would form a solid mass extending in all directions beyond the eartli's orbit amass more than two hundred millions of miles in diameter. From this one dollar there would have accumulated in eighteen hvmdred and ninety years a sum of wliich the market value of all property real and personal which exists upon the globe, or which ever could exist thereon at any one time, would be an almost imperceptible fraction. Now compare this with what has actually ever occurred in the way of accumulation and you will obtain some faint conception of the relation of theory to fact. What has become of this interest then ? It has been stolen, it has been lost, it has been burned by lire, it has been drowned by water, it has been destroyed in battle : you will find it in houses and in shops, in pictures and in statues, in roads and in bridges, in the grass which covers the field, in the present grain which in the past did not exist ; in the erect carriage and wide capacity of your men, in the delicate complexions, the gentle voices and manners of your women. In fine, interest is merely one slight inducement to that habit of thrift and that effort for extended powers and opi)ortunities which have made the man of our age and race a different creature from the cave- dweller and the wandering savage. It has been one of the potent agents of human evolution, qualified and often rendered nugatory by ojjposing forces. The two factors which are mainly responsible for tlie development and advance of civilization are the accumula- tion of capital and the existence of com])etition, that hete 7ioire of the Socialist. A i^rcat increase of interest-bearing The Socialistic Method. 287 capital greatly strengthens the position of the laborer by increasing competition among the capitalists. The avowed object of the Socialist is of course to ameliorate the condition of the less prosperous part of mankind and to establish equality, and his main argument for the policy of Collectivism is that it will stimulate pro- duction to the highest point and greatly cheapen it, as well as eqvialize distribution. Equality is his ideal, not liberty. I<"ow, I think it is sufficient to say in regard to this matter of cheap production that we have got past that star. Tlie enormous improvements in processes which have come with the inventions of the past hundred years, together with those now in progress will, I think, within twenty-five years have forever removed from the field of debate the question of production sufficient in amount for the needs of all. The questions that remain are, (1) "What shall be the character of the products, good or bad, durable or otherwise, artistic or slovenly and commonplace? which can only be settled by individual development; and (2) Equitable distribution in such manner as shall promote and not repress this development. And is it true that through equality progress is to be made, and that without it the lower must remain the lower to tlie end of time ? To me history tells exactly the oppo- site story. The effort of the Socialist is directed toward the establish- ment of uniformity, while the whole drift of the universe is, and always has been, from uniformity toward diversity. In my judgment the proposed cure for the ills of mankind is impossible of application, and if it were possible the cure would be twenty times worse than the disease. Mr. Henry George is not a Socialist excepting in the matter of the ownership of real estate, and in that he is prepared to make a compromise and simply take the A^alue of land instead of taking the land itself. These are his words : "The Standard advocates the abolition of all taxes upon in- dustry and the i)ioducts of industry, and the taking, hy taxation upon land values, irrespective of improvements, of the annual rental value of all those various forms of natural opportunities embraced under the general term Land. "We hold that to tax labor or its products is to discourage industry. We hold that to tax land values to their full anuiunt Avill render it impossible for any man to exact from others a ])rice for the privilege of using those bounties of Natiu'e in -which all 288 Evolution and Social Reform : living men have an equal right of use ; that it will compel every individual controlling natural opportunities to utilize them by employment of labor or abandon them to others ; that it will thus l)rovide opportunities of work for all men, and secure to each the full reward of his labor ; and that as a result involuntary poverty will be abolished, and the greed, intemperance, and vice that spring from poverty and the dread of poverty will be swept away." Truly a consummation devoutly to be wislied ! I should feel more confidence in Mr. George's prophecy if I had not unfortunately read his explanation of financial crises, which seems to me the most elaborate and consistent mis- statement of an economic question which it ever entered into the mind of man to conceive. It is a most admirable demonstration of wliat a courser a hobby may become when he takes the bit between his teeth. Mr. George's theory, of course, is that these crises are the result of private ow-nership of land, and of land speculations. l$o^\ I cannot imagine anyone who has passed through two or three of these crises, and wlio has really been familiar with the course of events, advancing any theory so preposterous. A crisis, a panic, is a very simple matter if you keep in view the peculiarities of hu- man nature, which curiously enough are seldom taken into account by tlie Socialist, extreme or limited. The order is simply tliis : a period of commercial calm provokes the development of business enterprises ; this development increases capital and stinuilates confidence ; confidence in turn begets credit and tliis reacts upon production ; the re- sulting production still further stinuilates credit, and strong and weak alike are induced to spread themselves to the utmost upon the strength of public confidence ; tliose who have been most successful and who are most shrewd now feel that it is best to make sure of wliat they liave acquired, and begin buying real estate which has long lagged behind l)ersonal property in the advance ; its value of course rises ; at tlie same time the system of commercial credits has readied the state of tension which is typified by tlxe Prince ]vui)ert's drop of tlie jjliysicist, of which break oif but tlie tiniest point the whole mass will fly into the finest ])OAvder. Somewhere a hollow shell breaks, a bank or a merchant fails, financial institutions stop lending, the notes which fall due cannot be extended the credit system ex- ])lodes, and the members of the community, weak and strong alike, are involved in a common ruin. The Socialistic Method. 289 The theory of the different relation of man to land and to other possessions is not new ; it is the universal prop- erty of all civilized communities. That which is most new on the part of Mr. George and his immediate fol- lowers is the deliberate assvimption and statement that the practical spoliation of the present holders of real prop- erty would be just, would be in the interest of mankind and agreeable to the gods. The first consideration is that land cannot be increased in amount, while the race is constantly increasing in num- bers. Most true; and it is likewise true that with ad- vancing civilization land increases rapidly in productivity, while population as rapidly diminishes in rate of growth. There is not yet the slightest evidence that the one will ultimately become too small for the other. Mr. George claims that land was at one time common prop- erty, and that it has gradually fallen into private hands through more or less of fraud and violence. This is also most true, and I think that it would seriously puzzle the author to pitch upon any kind of property what- ever the possession of which has not in some degree and at some time been tainted with fraud and violence. In the sense in which Mr. George's statement with regard to real property is true, the same statement is true with re- gard to personal property either as to the articles themselves which constitute such property, or as to some of the labor which at one time or another was involved in them, or as to the raw materials of which they are composed which at some time were a part of the land, the ''natural opportuni- ties " which Henry George says have been appropriated by fraud and violence. Indeed, according to the Scriptures, ''from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent taketh it by force." Because land was at one time in a certain sense common property (which also it is to-day) Mr. George claims that it is so now in every sense, and that the taking of the rent of land by private owners " is a fresh and continuous robbery that goes on every day and every hour." He bases the claim that the community as a whole should expropri- ate the land without compensation to the land-holder, on the doctrine of natural right, the same doctrine upon which is largely built the theory of the various socialistic bodies. 290 Evolution and Social Hefonn : Now, this is merely fustian. If the theory of evolution is true, the man primarily has a natural right to his place on the soil simply and solely as the vegetable has a right to its place. If the oak in a fertile spot, striking its roots broadly and deeply and spreading its giant arms in air, is entitled to its position and entitled to crowd out other plants, then and for the same reason is man entitled to his. They obtained their right through the same rule of the sur- vival of the fittest as the effect of universal laws, each holds it by the right of might, and may be called upon to yield it to the same right. To say that in certain instances in innumerable instances there Avas violence exercised in obtaining this control, is to say that Avhich is substantially true of all property and of every line of progress when a sufficiently comprehensive view is taken of it. If we as- sume a certain theory of justice to be true of all circum- stances and of all times, then is our past but a sorry one. If we adopt a certain point of view as correct let us be true to what it demands ^ let us recognize the fact that the idea of equality of opportunity is the child of to-day, and, though the best beloved perhaps, to be nurtured in accordance with the demands of the principle which governs development. With the developing man, mental and moral forces came to supplement physical forces, and law was gradually form- ulated, touching alike the relation of man to land and his relation to other things. When the race reached a full conception of the right of individual property it made its first great stride in civilization. And this was equally so in the case of the ownership of land as in the case of other things. The lines of change in different countries have varied but change has been steadily from the common to the individual, with ever-increasing value to the race. As I look back over the history of the past, the develop- ment of agriculture with all that has followed therefrom would be perfectly inconceivable except through the private ownership of land as that private ownership is defined and limited in civilized countries. For it must always be borne in mind that absolute private ownership of land is recog- nized by no civilized people. What is called ownership of land is only a more or less extended riffht of use. The right of eminent domain is universally conceded as resting in the nation as a whole, but this right, it is generally understood by modern peoples, should not be exercised ex- The Socialistic Method. 291 cepting in the clear interest of the whole body. The com- munity has the right of might and can be relied upon to exercise the right in establishing such rules as are necessary for its own preservation. And now, bearing in mind that the present holders of land have acquired it precisely as they have acquired other things, through the methods established by the community as right and just, we are called upon to step in and quietly relieve them of it. Perhaps most ingeniously absurd of all is the proposition to distinguish between the land and the improvements upon it, acquired in precisely the same way. Excepting in the cities and in property similar to city property this is absolutely impossible. Moreover I can by my personal labor make land which is worth now one dollar per acre, worth a few years hence one hundred dollars per acre, without stepping my foot upon it or allowing a stick or a stone to be moved, simply by making it accessible, by building roads, and in other ways making that which was unknown and unavailable greatly useful to mankind. This increase of value, which is wholly due to my labor, Mr. George says is not mine, but belongs to those who would forever have left the land in its previous useless condition. As to the matter of the "unearned increment" in the value of land, upon which so much stress is laid, that is, the advance in value (where there happens to be an ad- vance ) whicli is not the result of any action upon the part of the holder, since so great a man as John Stuart Mill was beguiled with it, it is no wonder that we of the com- moner sort were for a time in like manner led astray. But in what respect does real estate differ in this regard from personal estate ? One man buys land, giving therefor the highest price that anyone will venture and assuming the payment of all the taxes and other charges thereon includ- ing the burden of interest, with the chance of an advance or a loss, that chance being greater or less according to his shrewdness. The tide of improvement turns that way and he reaps a profit. Another man buys beans, upon which, however, he pays no taxes. There happens to be a short crop or a fire in a great warehouse ; the price of beans is advanced and he reaps an enormous profit. But, says Henry George, ''there is a limited supply of land." Yes, we reply, and there is a liinited supply of beans. The reasons for the increment of value are of precisely the same 292 Evolution and Social Reform : character. If the people as a whole are entitled to the profit in the one case they are also in the other, and in both cases they are equally entitled to share the loss. Now, as a matter of fact the price of agricultural land is falling in all directions. The reports are alike from New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Virginia, and other States. The New York assessors say that such is the con- dition in almost every county in this State. The same re- port comes from England. In the southern part of our own Kansas one attorney is said to have in his hands for fore- closure eighteen hundred mortgages. "Similia similibus curantur," cries Henry George in effect. "Double the taxes and save them." Then, as to the matter of the deduction of the value of the improvements. General Francis A. Walker writes me that, according to Henry C. Carey, '' There is not a State, Coimty, or Township in the United States whose selling price would repay the amount actually laid out in bringing the region to its existing state of cultivation and improvement." Supposing that this is not strict- ly so, any one familiar with country districts must be well aware that the improvements upon the land of the poor farmer are much less in value in proportion to the land than those upon the land of his rich neighbor. The system proposed would therefore fall with greatest weight upon the })oor. What is the case in the cities ? Our ordi- nary observation shows us that the result would be the same. Fortunately, however, we are not left to depend merely upon the rule of thumb. Land and buildings are not assessed separately in Brooklyn or New York, and I could, therefore, get no reliable information here from official sources. From one only of the several real-estate dealers to whom I have ap])lied have I obtained any figures, and an analysis of these shows a considerable excess in the proportionate valuation of im])rovemei'its on the land of the Avealthy, as I had expected. In Massachusetts, how- ever, the law requires a separate assessment of land and improvements, at the actual value of each. The President of the Board of Assessors of Boston has kindly made an examination for me, and sends me the following results: In the greater part of Ward 11, which is the Back Bay District, the wealthiest in the city, the proportionate value of land to the total value, of improved property, is 48 1-2 The Socialistic Method. 293 per cent. In Ward 17, Avhich is mainly occupied by a prospe:."Ous and well-to-do middle-class, the percentage of value of land to the total, in improved properties, is only 44 1-7 per cent. In Ward 13, which is occupied almost wholly by the poor, the percentage of value of land to the total, in improved properties, is 61 1-3 per cent. Under the proposed benehcent system therefore, the very poor will be courteously called upon to surrender relatively nearly 39 per cent, more of their property than the well-to-do. ''But," says the Single-tax advo- cate, "when unimproved land is assessed at its actual market-value the proportions in these valuations will all be changed." To this I am forced to reply, "not quite so fast, my good friend. An assessment of improved and unim- proved land at actual value is no pecviliarity of the Single- tax system. As well characterize the author of the system as peculiarly a hatted man, because he wears a hat, as characterize the Single-tax system by any such feature. Such a method of valuation is the only proper method according to economists of various schools, and to my per- sonal knowledge was so long before 'Progress and Pov- erty' was written. Moreover, this is precisely what is now done by law in the City of Boston without any such marvelous effect upon the City or State as you prophesy, and with the result of producing the figures which I have just given. Purthermore, whatever change of value might occur hereafter, the cost to those who are despoiled is the cost of their property to-day." ]\Ir. Henry George and his followers have yet to show that there is any conceivable practicable method by which their single tax upon land, omitting the improvements, could be collected, and that under such a system it would be any easier for a moneyless man to obtain possession of a val- uable location than it is to-day. Verily these gentlemen have the courage of their con- victions ! On a mere guess as to what they think might happen under a state of circumstances never yet seen in a complicated society, they are ready to bring down upon the world all that the change which I have in- dicated implies, to urge an act of injustice so stupen- dous that nothing in any way comparable with it as a deliberate proposition appears upon the pages of re- corded history. They propose to deprive the owners of 294 Evolution and Social Reform: this right, on the plea that somewhere in its past history there is a taint of violence, a point in which, as I have already shown, it resembles practically all other jjroperty, and they propose to confer it upon whom? Upon those who first occupied the land and held it in common ? Kot at all: these, so far as our country is concerned, were the Indians, and the Indians still remain elsewhere, having been driven from here by violence and fraud. Ultenre are these to whom the value is to be given ? The answer must here be as in the jjoem, " Out of the everywhere into the here." Yes, to stragglers from all parts of the known world, who have never heretofore had any riglit to this land, whose right if it exists is, according to JNEr. George's theory, founded upon violence and fraud, the value of the land which is to be wrung from those who have honestly acquired it is to be given. It is proposed that the change suggested by Mr. George might be made gradually. If a man must submit to the loss of his leg I am not sure that theie is much more comfort in having it cut off say an inch at a time, once a month, than in having it taken at one fell swoo]). The question of taxation, which Henry George claims to be such a simple one, is on the conti-ary a very difficult one. This is not the tune to go into that matter, and I am not competent to handle it thoroughly if it were. But as I may be expected to suggest something I will state two principles which I believe to be absolutely sound, and ex- press an opinion which I think worth consideration. First Principle: Taxes should be so levied that their amount and effect may be clearly understood. This is not the case Avith our present protective-tariff taxes. If it is best to give pecuniary encounigement to certain industries - into which question I do not ])ropose to enter the only straightforward and honest way is to pay a bounty for their develojunent and prosecution, and to obtain the necessary funds by just and equitable taxation, the character and extent of Avhich is plain to all. If the amount and result of all taxation were clearly understood, you may be very sure that the total would soon be rapidly reduced. We are troubled by a surplus and its consequent enormous evils simply because the national taxes are levied in such a way that the j)ayer does not know when or what he is paying. TJie Socialistic Method. 295 Second Principle : Taxes should be levied upon values easily ascertainable, and the confession of the individual taxed should not be called for. This would rule out all income taxes levied upon the individual, the income tax being theoretically perhaps the best and practically per- haps the worst tax ever conceived. For the Opinion : I believe that the system of taxes upon real estate should be thoroughly revised, and doubt- less in some instances the taxes should be greatly increased. The assessments should be as nearly as practicable upon the actual value, as experience has shown that any other system of assessments discriminates in favor of the rich and against the poor. And what further moneys may be required by the Government should be obtained from levies upon valuable franchises of all kinds, upon articles the consumption of which tends to increase the cost of govern- ment, as alcoholic drinks, and upon articles which are dis- tinctly articles of luxury. Upon the first, because certain privileges are granted by the community, in the franchise, which either tend to the establishment of a monopoly or which enable tlie parties holding it to conduct a certain business Avith a limit to their liability thereunder (at an increased risk to the public), or both, for which privileges the Com- monwealth should be compensated ; upon the second, be- cause he who dances should pay the piper ; upon the third, because a tax upon luxuries does not seriously tend to hamper production, as does a tax upon necessaries. These are the economic reasons ; there are others of impor- tance into which I cannot now enter. The taxation levied by the aSTational Government in 1880 wholly upon personal property was about $321,000,000. According to the census of that year, an imperfect source but the best that we have, the total taxation of the States, Counties, Cities, Towns, etc., was $312,750,721, which was derived from a real-estate valuation of $13,036,766,925 and a personal valuation of $3,866,226,618. The idiocy of the present system of taxation upon personal property will be seen from this, that in the same year the value of railroad property was returned at $5,536,419,788, or more than forty per cent, in excess of the total amount of personal property reached by assessment. Some sapient Single-tax men class railroad property as wholly real estate, notwith- Btanding the fact that the total value of the real estate 296 Evolution and Soc'ud Iteform : held by the railroad companies in 1880 was $103,319,845, or less than two per cent, of tlieir entire assets. The attempt to tax adequately a railroad corporation on the sole ground of levying a tax upon land values is equivalent to using the extradition laws to obtain possession of the per- son of a man on a charge of burglary, and then trying him and punishing him for high treason, an act which is con- demned alike by international law and by the universal sentiment of mankind. The single tax is recommended on account of its ease and simplicity. Ease is a good thing, simplicity is a good thing, but neither that which is easy nor that which is simple is always the best thing. The easiest and simplest way of getting rid of a man who annoys you is to shoot him. It is generally thought, however, that ''murder is a bad habit to get into." The easiest and simplest way to get rid of troublesome theological questions is to adopt a creed which somebody has already prepared for you. This course, however, does not seem to commend itself to those who most frequent this place. It is claimed by its advo- cates that the simplest and easiest tax to collect is a single tax upon land values. But I think that I have sliowni that there is no special justification in history for such an ex- ceptional burden, while it Avould fall with crushing weight upon those least able to bear it. Were I desirous of dis- covering one single measure which would most help the speculative rich at the expense of the dependent poor and most seriously damage the future of the race, which, thank heaven, I am not, I cannot imagine that I could find any more potent than the proposed confiscation of land values. These schemes. Communism, Socialism, and Georgeisni, are all artificial, mechanical, they are not organic. You have a world infinite in its complexity, with a race infinite in its variety. You are conscious of incomideteness, of great inequality: you turn a crank (pardon me no i)un was intended) and lo ! it is all changed, the world is made over and the millennium has arrived. When Hamlet said, " The time is out of joint : oh, cursed spite That ever I was born to set it right !" he seems to have felt opi)ressed by the weight which was thrown upon him. Not so these modern reformers. They assume the labor of performing the function in which the The Socialistic Method. 297 power which inspires tlie universe has so signally failed, with a jocund hilarity which shows their entire assurance that however it may have been with the one that preceded them, thei/ are quite equal to the occasion. Whatever may have been my feeling at the outset, and I am free to say that, like most persons at this day Avho have a keen interest in social questions, a keen sense of the inequalities in human life, the appalling, the crushing weight of circumstances upon the individual ; who have an enthusiastic desire for the elevation of all, I approached the study of the question in a hopeful spirit, I must confess that, as the result of careful study, I am driven to protest against the Socialistic proposition with every fibre of my being. I cannot imagine any movement more in- jurious to the interests of the race. It is the very an- tithesis of equitable profit-sharing, the increasing tendency and the most hopeful sign of the times, or the volun- tary co-operation of intelligent individuals which is the essence of republican representative government, that co-operation which consists in common action for the common good, founded upon a scrupulous recognition of the supreme importance of the maintenance of the most ab- solute liberty of each which is compatible with the good of the whole. It is held that there are practically but two alternatives Individualism, which means "every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost"; and Collectivism, or every man the slave of those who can obtain the power. There is, I think, a course quite different from these, a course which is not properly to be classified as an ism at all but if yovi must have a name with that termination you may if you please call it Opjiortunism. This is the course which the history of the past every- where reveals to us, and if we are to judge of the future by the past it is the course which the future must follow. It means in fact, that political and social action are not the result of doctrinal rules arbitrarily worked oiit, but the out- come of temporary conditions which by a complication of forces produce a compound or approximate result. The de- velopment of society follows the rule of the development of organic life : there are lines of least resistance which it must folloAv. The thoughtful statesman or social reformer examines carefully the history of the past; he discovers that in certain directions there has been progress, and that in those directions ju'ogress has resulted in ameliorating the 298 Evolution and Social Reform: condition of the race. He examines the present conditions and decides according to his best judgment whether upon those lines there is still room for expansion. If so, he seeks favorable opportunities for forward movement one step at a time acknowledging that the far future is far beyond his ken. and only conscious of the possibilities of the im- mediate present. Thus his voluntary action, itself a result of development, becomes a factor in that development and itself assists in the trend of the race. His imagination has impressed him with the idea of equality of opportunity, and he seeks to establish that equality. He sees that all prog- ress in the past has been the result of individual progress. He sees that that which encourages the development of the individual not only strengthens him but enables him to be- come a valuable member of the community. That which discourages that development wrecks both the individual and the community. He therefore sees that whatever changes are encouraged or permitted, the freedom of individual action should be preserved so far as that may be jiossible. A recent lecturer in this course said that certainty of income was the great desideratum. Certainty is indeed a good thing, but it is not the best thing. It is the something beyond, the contingent, the uncertain, the prize in every package, that inspires to forth-putting, to progress. When the imagination was born, then came the man. There is no pla(!e for the imagination in socialistic schemes. It is that which insi)ires the schemers themselves, which gives all the vitality there is supposed to be in their schemes, but with the success of their schemes the imagination dies. What, then, is my scheme ? I have no scheme God for- bid. I do not know whither we are going nor do you, my good brother. We stand in reverent awe in the presence of the transcendent })ower which surrounds and possesses us, a })ower so transcendent that words cannot express or thouglits conceive it. We touch it at every point are a part of its extension, if I may use so crude a word and know that nothing is which is not also a part. We feel the pulses of that life moving not in one only but in all directions, and ever developing greater variety, greater complexity. We surrender ourselves with serene assurance to that power. Do you call this a sublimated Fatalism ? l*erhai)s it is that, but if so it has none of the dangerous featxires of the Fatal- ism of the ])ast. And wlietlier it be Fatalism or not, call it what you will, it is \\w condition in Avhich you and I find ourselves and from which there is no escape. Moreover, why should we deoire to escape '.' Our rearward view shows The Socialistic Method. 299 us an ever widening track with ever higher organization and attainment ; and if we surrender ourselves to this illimitable power we do so only in a form of words, for we are born therein, therein have our growth, and the work which is still to be done can only be accomplished through our co-opera- tion : we have no fear of yielding ourselves to the ciirrent for we are a part of the current. Looking into the past we see dimly whence the stream has come. Regarding the present we see over its ever broadening expanse eddies around obstacles here and there, but nevertheless the current is ever flowing onward toward the golden haze which shrovids the future and we see with absolvite assurance that for that portion of the eternal power which flows through us there is only one proper application, and that is toward the removal of the obstacles which vex the current at our feet. When I express my dissent from this scheme or that scheme for the reconstruction of human society according to the only true and reliable method for the attainment of millennial conditions, its advocate immediately retorts with just indignation, "Then you are satisfied with things as they are and wish the present conditions to continue." Sat- isfied with things as they are ? The Time-Spirit says of the present order, ' An ill-favored thing, sir, but mine own," yet, unless I have sadly misjudged the course of evolution, the very fact that things are as they are is the most conchi- sive proof which it would be possible to have that they will be different hereafter. Satisfied with things as they are ? Satisfied with misery and want and wretchedness ? Satis- fied with the rule of ignorance, incapacity, and corriiption ? Satisfied with teachings by blatant demagogues or one- sided advocates ? Satisfied with sophisticated foods, filthy streets, hideous buildings, squalid hovels, unfaithful labor, ers, unjust employers, devastated fields and meadows, tree- stripped mountains, ugliness and vulgarity and bad manners without limit ? He must be a singularly constituted man who could be satisfied with these things. And it is the people Avho do these things or profit by them or who permit them to be done, after a race-life of probably more than oOOjOOO years, who or their immediate descendants I am asked to believe, will in one hundred years or one thousand years luive siiffered "a sea change into something rich and strange"; will have cast off all their old characteristics and their old ways, will have put on righteousness as a garment, will have become permeated by a sense of beauty and come- liness, will be animated all by a common desire for the com- mon good! And all this is to result from what? From 300 Evolution and Social Reform : their submitting their wills to the absolute domination of a universal democracy coni])osed of the material which I have indicated- represented by such public officers as may have succeeded in procuring an election and compelled to sur- render their volition in all important resi)ects, as to habita- tion, occupation, thought and speech, to the will of these. This is to be the outcome of civilization this the consum- mation so devoutly to be wished ! T am no ])rophet, and I shall not attem})t prophecy. I only know this, that this which 1 have depicted will not be; and thank God for so much. I know that it Avill not be, because there has never been a stage in the ]n'ogress of mankind or the universe Avhich has not been absolutely at variance with such a possibility ; there is not a fact in exist- ing conditions which ])oints to a realization of such a state of society in any positive and permanent sense. I have pictured the shortcomings of the jjresent with no dainty tovxch. Do I then feel that we have made no progress in the past '/ that there is no h()})e in the future ? I look back through the ages until I seem to see naught but a nebidous haze. I see that haze gradually differenti- ating through infinite time until suns and planets are evolved, the mineral takes organic form, the organic develops into vegetable and animal, the pi'otista by \innumbered stages give birth at last to primitive man. I see the growth of man from the birth of intellect to the era of Emerson, of Spencer, of ])ar\vin. of Edison. Have we made no ])rogress ? \Vhat is this i)anorama which I have spread before you? We are where we are. We have (mr place in the line of march. A\'e have not yet drunk life to the lees, but with ever increasing diversity are ever realizing a more entire oneness and mutual resi)onsibility, and in ever increasing numbers are appreciating that bound up with the interest of eac^h one is the interest of the Avhole, and bound up in the interest of the whole is that of each one. No pent \\\> Utica can exhaust our ])owers, no scheme is large enough, elaborate enough, or sufficiently far-reaching to satisfy the coming race. All methods are the methods of the divine, and we reach forward in the confident ho])e, the confi- dent belief, that the race can only attain the highest goal through the jK'rfect develojmient of the individual soul. And "all experience is an arcli wheretlirough CJleanis that nntraveled world whose margin fades Forever and forever when 1 move." EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL REFORM III. THE ANARCHISTIC METHOD. BY HUGH O. PENTECOST Editor of "The Twentieth Cextuey." COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED, Spencer's "Principles of Sociology," "Social Statics," and "The Man versus the State"; Prudhon's "What is Property?" and " Idee Gen^rale de la Revolution au 19me Si^cle " ; Brown's " Stud- ies in Modern Socialism" ; Sumner's "What Social Classes owe to Each Other"; Mill's "On Liberty"; Lieber's"On Civil Liberty and Self-Government " ; Huxley's "Administrative Nihilism"; Stephen's "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity"; Crosier's "Civil- ization and Progress"; Thompson's "Social Progress"; James's "Anarchy"; Parsons' s "Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Scien- tific Basis" ; Bakounine's " God and the State" ; Andrews's " The Science of Society" ; Tchernichewsky's "What's to be Done ? " (302) EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL REFORM.* III. THE ANARCHISTIC METHOD. Those who accept the conclusions of Anarchism believe that it is a science ; or, if you please, a philosophy sup- ported by facts scientifically discovered and collated. It is not a religion based upon assumptions, unwarranted or contradicted by facts. It is not a system of metaphysics consisting of undemonstrable speculations. They freely admit that Sociology is not yet an exact science ; that, strictly speaking, there is no Science of Society. But they speak of Anarchism as a science because its methods of investigation and accomplishment are scientific. In so far as it represents conclusions they have been reached scien- tifically. If Anarchists have a theory it is because they believe observed facts are best explained by that theory. If a theory does not well account for observed facts it is abandoned, and a new working hypothesis is sought. They do not pursue the theologic or metaphysical method in formulating their postulates. Anarchists believe there should be no government : by which they mean no government by j)hysical force ; no government to prevent persons from thinking, saying or doing what they should be free to think, say or do ; no government for the encouragement of those who invade what should be the rights of others, with the protection of such invaders ; no government to authorize a few to monop- olize what should be the opportunities of all ; no govern- ment to compel persons to do what they should be free to refuse to do, what it is not necessary for the good of all that they should do; no government in favor of one class as against another class ; no government to enrich the idle by impoverishing the industrious. They believe there should be no government that interferes with wholesome individual liberty and wealth-producing exertion. But they believe in well-ordered society, in which the wise, the just, the good will rule by precepts, principles and ex- amples ; in which healthful public opinion will utter and * Copyright, 1890, by James H. West. 304 Evolution and Social Reform : morally enforce everything needful for restraint or encour- agenieut. They believe in government, but not government by physical force for the injury of all, or, to use a common expression which means the same, for unjust purposes. They believe in self-control and mutuality. An Anarchist is not one who wishes to separate himself from his kind, to live independently, to lapse into the individual isolation of the Stone Age. He is an individual- ist, but also a socialist, a mutualist. He understands that civilized men must co-operate, that co-operation is a social necessity. But he wishes to co-operate voluntarily ; to have the privilege of declining to co-operate in one or more or all particulars ; of resigning the benefits and obligations of co-operation. He values individual freedom above all other possessions, and protests against any organization of society in which it is not recognized and respected. He does not wish another or a njajority of others to decide for him what he shall or shall not do, unless he agrees before- hand to such an arrangement. If he wishes to live apart from others he desires to be allowed to do so. He believes in society composed of individuals each of whom shall be free from invasive restraints or compulsions. It should be understood that Anarchists abhor the idea of using individ- ual liberty for the purpose of injuring others, and they believe that in society rightly constituted there would be found effective methods of dealing with those who should violate the rights or liberties of others. It should be understood from this statement of general principles that Anarchists are not bomb-throwers dyna- miters. There are some persons wlio call themselves Anarchists Xvho believe that circumstances might arise which would justify a resort to destructive warfare, and that good results would follow such a method, l^ut, in my opinion, the clearest thinkers, tlie most scientihc among the Anarchists, understand that what might be achieved by physical force would be siibject to reversal by physical force, and would, therefore, have to be conserved by physi- cal force. In my opinion, the most careful thinkers among the Anarchists uiulerstand that if some transient "tidal- wave" of popular opinion, formed rapidly and by what we call accident, or some sudden uprising of the peo])le, in- flamed by discontent but not educated in economic prin- ciples, as m the case of the French llevolution, should The Anarchistic Method. 305 enable them by political methods or force of arms to secure control of the government, little or nothing would be gained and much might be lost. So that the life of even so hateful a ruler as the Czar is safe from attack by an Anarchist, because it is not the Czar but Czarism that must die before the people can be free ; and no Anarchist would think of destroying the property or life of a monopolist, for it is monopolism that is aimed at, and this can be destroyed only by education. Anarchists do not iight with bombs, but with books ; nor with pistols, bvit with pens. They are not thugs ; they are thinkers. Not powder, but persuasion, is their weapon. Not by cannon, but by con- victions, do they hope to win. Among non- Anarchists who are sufficiently well informed to understand all this, the objection is urged that Anarchism is a beautiful but utterly impracticable dream. The realization of Anarchism, it is said, would introduce the millennium ; and, strange to say, this is a reason why multitudes of Christians who profess to be looking forward toward the millennium with all the fervor of religious hope regard Anarchists with aversion or contempt. It is quite true that to reach an ideally Anarchistic social state would necessitate ideally perfect individuals. But Anarchists are not idealists. They are the reverse of idealists. Every theory has its ideal of perfect consummation. But An- archists do not expect perfection. Perfection is not necessary to the happy and relatively satisfactory working of Anarchism. Anarchists are not dreamers, however much they may be so regarded by those who do not understand their beliefs and aims. They regard themselves as very rational, very practical persons. They believe their theories may, in many particulars, be put in practice at once ; that some of them are in operation ; and that wherever they are em- ployed the results are more satisfactory than where opposite methods are pursued. For example : Fashions are followed by the Anarchistic method. Men, without governmental interference, wear narrow or wide trousers, and women short or long skirts. And this is a distinct advance toward Anarchism, as everyone familiar with the governmental regulations of clothing in the past knows. Men are not governmentally compelled to lift their hats to women or keep to the right on the sidewalk, but they usually do both. 306 Evolution and Social Reform : An ideal state of society in miniature may be seen in every drawing-room where ladies and gentlemen, as we call well- bred men and women, come together for social intercourse. There is no compulsion. They talk, dance, eat and drink; groups form and disperse; individuals, with freedom and polite regard for the riglits of others, move about, come and go. And if one habitually disregards the proprieties of such assemblages he is not arrested and dragged to prison ; he is dealt with far more effectively ; he is not invited to come again ; he is dropped, shunned, boycotted. The "four hundred" as well as the Irish peasantry know the value of the boycott. The New York Grocers' Association is an almost purely Anarchistic institution, and may be used as one example of many. I am informed that the wholesale grocers of New York have lost faith in the efficacy of governmental laws for the collection of debts, and have formed an Association which has proved very satisfactory in its results, to protect themselves against loss by bad debts. They no longer depend upon governmental machinery. If a debtor to any grocery house in New York exhibits signs of business weakness or lack of integrity he is visited by a represent- ative of the Association. If this A'isit has no salutary effect upon him it becomes impossible for him to buy goods, except for cash, anywhere in New York. That is all that happens to him; but out-of-town buyers are said to be much more afraid of the Grocers' Association than of the government. The staid business-men of New York who compose this Association would, perhaps, be shocked to know that, in one particular, they are true Anarchists ; but such is the fact. Their Association does not serve them with ideal perfection, but it is better for tliem than the system of collecting debts by i)hysical force. And this is all that Anarchists claim for their proposed arrangement of society : that it is practicable, that it is better than government by physical force, and that it is capable of constantly approaching ideal perfection. Let us now glance briefly at the economic princijdes of Anarchism. Anarchists regard ])overty as the misfortune that causes most of the uuhappiness and (irime with which the human race is afflicted. I do not, of course, mean that poverty which individuals might, unch'r any social system, choose The Anarchistic Method. 307 to suffer rather than practise virtue and self-control or labor for the production of wealth. I mean involuntary poverty ; that poverty which is now, in spite of the virtue, self-control and industry of the poor, so prevalent. Many persons are skeptical concerning the existence of such poverty. It is commonly believed that no one not intem- perate or thriftless need be poor. But it is only necessary to open one's eyes to see that there are millions of human beings in this and all countries who labor unceasingly only to find that their poverty increases. It is unnecessary to dwell upon a fact so patent. Everywhere children are taken from school or play to labor in factories and mines ; else why the futile statutes against child-labor ? Every- where is heard the hum of sewing-machines from which hollow-chested women drop into the Potter's Field; else why all the kind-hearted charitable work among the "worthy poor" ? This social disease of poverty Anarchists believe will disappear when its causes are generally understood. And they believe its causes are much better understood by a few than the causes of small-pox or cholera are understood by any ; and that they are removable. They believe that what are popularly supposed to be its causes ignorance of what is taught in the schools, idleness, drunkenness and crime are its effects ; and that, hence, to attempt to remove it by compulsory education in the common schools, charity- organization societies, model tenement-houses and reforma- tories, however well-meant such attempts may be and undoubtedly are, is to necessarily fail. The cause of invol- untary poverty, Anarchists believe, is the taking away from the laboring people the producers of wealth a large part of what they produce. This is accomplished by methods not understood without much observation and reflection but easily perceived by open-minded thinkers. Anyone can see that there are many persons in every community who do no productive work. Such persons must be supported by what others j)roduce, since there is no other fund from which they may draw. Beggars and tramps are a drain upon the wealth of the industrious. Thieves break through and steal what others earn. Gamblers of all kinds subsist upon what others produce ; and so do the inmates of poor-houses and prisons. This is plain to all. Policemen, soldiers, and high-priced govern- 308 Evolution and Social Reform: ment-officials whose services are not worth to the com- munity what they get for them, are certainly not producers, and whether they, in part, serve good purposes or not it remains the same that producers are forcibly taxed for their support. Workers are compelled to give up their wealth to support law-makers and professional destroyers of property and life. All this is evident notwithstanding that part of it, however unfortunate, is inevitable in the present state of social development. But besides these are other large numbers of persons who receive what they do not produce. Those whose incomes are wholly or partly derived from buying and selling land are regarded by Anarchists, in so far as they are dealers in land, as subsisting upon wealth produced by the labor of others. And to this class of persons belong all those who collect rents that is, those who receive for the use of their houses, machinery or other personal eifects an excess of price over and above what is required to cover compul- sory taxes, insurance and necessary repairs upon such property. Those, also, whose incomes are wholly or partly derived from interest, or the rent of money, are regarded by Anarchists, as appropriating what others produce. And so, too, are those who, in buying and selling or manufacturing for sale, receive as the result of such production and exchange more than what would fairly compensate them in the form of wages for their actual labor in superintending, producing or exchanging. In plain words. Anarchists regard rent-takers, or land- lords, interest-takers, or what Mr. J. K. Ingalls calls lend- lords, and profit-takers, or trade-lords, as social parasites. Or, in other words, Anarchists believe, and think they can scientifically prove, that anyone who receives in the })rocess of wealth-distribution more than what re})resents fair wages for productive labor that is, more than he actually produces ai)propriates something that should belong to others, and thereby helps to bind a load of inevitable poverty upon those who are thus defrauded of the fruits of their industry. Let us look, for a moment, from the Anarchistic stand- point, at the grounds for this belief. Land is un])roduced. It is not the result of human labor. It is what is sometimes called a natural oi)p()i- The Anarchistic Method. 309 tunity. It is the passive factor in the production of wealth. Like air and water it is an absolute necessity of human life. When man appeared, like the open air and water running in the streams or bubbling from the springs, it was free to access by him. Anarchists believe that if, from the beginning of human exertions upon this planet, each man had been content to possess and control only so much land as he could productively use, the supply of land free for use always would have been and now would be practically as unlimited as the supply of air and running water, and that, therefore, it never would have commanded a price and would not now be \ thing to buy and sell. They believe that the practice of owning land that one cannot and does not Avish to use, excluding others from its use, has given rise to rent, or the price of land ; or, to put it in other words, that the monopoly of vacant or unused land is the cause of rent. Rent, therefore, does not repre- sent work performed or wealth produced by the rent-taker. It represents wealth transferred from a producer to a non- producer as the price of a privilege that should be absolutely free to all. It is evident that rent-takers, as such, are idlers. They produce nothing. If, then, they subsist it must be at the expense of those who labor. And by just so much as they are rich others must necessarily be poor. Rent is a tribute that public opinion permits non-producers to levy upon producers by the simple contrivance of holding large quantities of land out of use. The same reasoning applies when we turn to the subject of interest. Rent is the product of labor paid to idlers for the use of land. Interest is the product of labor paid to idlers for the use of money. Rent is interest for land ; interest is rent for money. Both are the products of monopoly. Money is as necessary to a complicated system of trade as air, water and land are to life. If the supply of money Avere always equal to the demand for it as an implement of exchange, each person would always have as much of it as Avould represent labor directly performed or products of labor surrendered by him. The only use that money should have is to indicate that so much labor has been directly performed or so much wealth surrendered by the possessor of it; and its value is in that it Avill insure to its possessor the return of a corresponding amount of service or wealth upon demand. It is not in the least 310 Evolution and Social Reform: necessary that it should possess any intrinsic value other than that of the paper on which it is writteu or printed and the labor of writing or printing it. If men had been sufficiently intelligent from the start, a perfect system of money would have grown Avith the growth of society, and each person always would have had ])recisely as much money as he deserved, because he Avould not have parted with labor or its products without getting a full representative equivalent in money, unless the transaction were made by the simple process of barter, in which case exchange would be made in kind. All this will be more or less unintelligible to the average conservative person, but it will, I think, become plain to anyone who will thoughtfully read Stephen Pearl Andrews' ' Science of Society," especially that portion of the work devoted to the principle therein formulated as ''Cost the Limit of Price," the original discovery of Avhich. Mr. Andrews ascribes to Josiah Warren, Avith whose works I am not familiar. To this book, the " Science of Society," I am indebted for clear and satisfactory ideas of the true nature and uses of money. But contrary to all this men have adopted certain materials for money, the su})ply of Avhich, relative to the demand, is very limited; and even when ])aper is used for money a very insufficient quantity is permitted to circulate, being sometimes greater and sometimes less, but always under the control of persons who make their living by handling it, and by whose manipulations producers are see-sawed out of their earnings. Money is monopolized. It is "cornered." It frequently happens that a man has much valuable })roperty but no money. Such a man is obliged to go to those who control the supply of money and hire what he needs at rates of interest which could not and would not exist if money were not monopolized. Tlie ])oint is this : Anarcliists believe tiiat as rent would not be a natural product of harmoniously organized soci- <'ty, neither would interest. They clearly see that interest- takers, as such, are non-producers, and that, therefore, wliat they subsist on must in some unjust way have been taken from the industrious ])ersons who })roduced it. With regard to ])rofits, Anarchists believe that in a fair exchange of goods for goods there will be gain to l)otli parties to the bargain but " profit'" to neither. If I want The Anarchistic Method. 311 your cow more than I want my own horse and you want my horse more than you want your own cow we exchange beasts. We each, by the trade, gain something, but neither makes a "profit." Profit is not as easily separable from wages as interest or rent, because what is called wages of superintendence is an uncertain quantity ; but it may be, nevertheless, accurately defined as that portion of the manufacturer's or merchant's income over and above what he should receive as compensation for labor actually per- formed by him. And Anarchists believe that if the land and money monopolies were broken, profits would dis- appear. This needs further explanation, but the limits of this address do not admit of it. I must leave it for your future reflection or study, if you are not already familiar with the line of thought involved. Anarchists believe, then, that poverty results from the existence of social parasites persons who perform no productive labor and who are therefore, necessarily, sup- ported out of what laborers produce. These social para- sites are thieves at liberty, criminals in prison, gamblers, whether with cards, dice or stocks ; sharpers, whether confidence-men or business-men ; paupers, whether abroad or in poor-houses ; policemen, when in excess of actual need for the protection of property and life ; soldiers, unless actually necessary to repel invasion ; collectors of compulsory taxes ; politicians and law-makers, unless we are to reject the time-honored belief of many of the wisest and best of men that government by force is, at best, a "necessary evil"; rent-takers, interest-takers and profit- takers, except in so far as it can be scientifically proven that rent, interest and profits are the necessary outcome of absolutely free contracts between persons as free as indi- viduals ever can be under any possible arrangement of society. In my opinion, the most thoughtful Anarchists are agreed that, in any possible arrangement of society, sporadic cases of rent, interest and profits might arise, but the amounts involved would be too insignificant for serious consideration and the transactions would represent no injustice whatever. But as all these social parasites are the products of a social arrangement that legitimates rent, interest and profits. Anarchists believe that involuntary poverty is the necessary outcome of, and is completely 312 Evolution and Social Reform : accounted for by, the existence of rent, interest and profits. These, therefore, must disappear before tlie h\;nian race can be free, wealthy and happy. With their dis- appearance secondary causes of poverty will naturally cease. This explains the opposition of Anarchists to govern- ment by physical force. They know that those bits of paper by which non-users hold land vacant are legal docu- ments. They know that if laborers should attempt to exercise what should be their right, by taking possession of vacant land for productive use, the whole machinery of government by physical force would be brought to bear upon them, and if nothing else would avail to drive them from the vacant land they would be shot to death by gov- ernment powder and balls from government guns in the hands of government troops. And yet the only crime of which such laborers would be guilty would be that of trying to earn an honest living and promote the happiness of the world by increasing its wealth ; their only crime would be that of wishing to apply productive labor to what we call natural materials, which, Avhen not in legitimate use, should be free to all. They know, in short, that the man-starving monopoly of vacant land is authorized and maintained by military government. They know, also, that the monopoly of money is sim- ilarly maintained by government. Free competition with the government in the manufacture and uttering of money is forcibly prevented. And because profits arise on account of the monopoly of land and money the government is the creator of rent, interest and i)rofits, the baleful trinity in unity, more j)Owerful than any imaginary bad god to plunge the human race into poverty and so into misery and crime. Anarchists believe, still further, that all statute laws are necessarily partial and unjust, xmless you choose to excejjt laws against violence and theft. It is impossible to devise a statute law that will not favor some persons against others. The very "machinery of justice," as we call our judicial system, Avorks injustice to the poor, if for no other rea,son, because as between a litigant with money and a litigant without money the poor man may be defeated by his very inability to bear the expenses of court-procedure All this is very briefly and insufficiently stated, but Anarchists believe that it can be scientifically and elab- The Anarchistic Method. 313 orately proved that, wlietlier government is a ^^ necessary evil" or not, it is necessarily evil as at present constituted anywhere in the world. It follows, then, that Anarchists desire a cessation of military government. It would not, however, convey the right idea to say that they wish to destroy the government. They desire that society should grow away from the necessity for government by physical force by the gradual and general acceptance of scientific principles of Sociology. The Anarchistic method of regenerating society, therefore, is that of educating the people in scientific principles of social co-operation or mutuality ; it is that of propaganda, of calling the attention of the people to facts widely observed and logically collated; of doing just what I am doing at this moment. They understand that all existing governments are the expression of the will of the people. Russia is ruled by a Czar because most of the people of Russia believe that is the best form of government for them. Public opinion prevails in Russia without the ballot as effectually as with us through the ballot. Military protec- tion of social parasites prevails in this country because most of our people believe that the monopoly of vacant land is right and that our present money system is just and fair, precisely as they once believed that chattel slavery was a divine institution. Most of our people are firm believers in the righteousness of rent, interest and profits, and the large owners of real-estate and holders of govern- ment-bonds are commonly believed to come by their money honestly and fairly. They are not popularly regarded as monopolists who increase their riches by simply appropri- ating what others produce. While such beliefs exist society Avill remain very much as it is. Xothing can bring it into Anarchistic arrangement but a general recognition of the essential injustice of all wealth-getting except by wealth producing. Anarchists, for the present, therefore, have nothing rational to do but to clarify their own ideas, develop their science and teach their principles. I have already explained why it would be absurd for them to wage war for their principles. They know that nothing is ever settled by being fought out ; all right consummations must be thought out. Many Anarchists think, also, that it Avould be absurd for them to resort to political methods. A ballot means a bullet. The decision 314 Evolution and Social Reform : of a majority at an election holds because the army is behind it. But Anarchists, even if they were in a majority, would not wish to impose their will on a minority. In the opinion of very many Anarchists, therefore, the ballot is, for their use, a stultifying implement. But even if it were not it would not be employed by them, because they regard it as useless. They believe that when public opinion favors a violation or the ignoring of a statute law it is not necessary to vote that law off the statute-books. It will become inoperative ; a dead letter, as we say. And as Anarchists can have nothing to vote for except the abroga- tion of existing laws, manifestly voting, in their case, would be a work of supererogation. For example : All Anarchists are necessarily free-traders ; but most Anarchists will not vote with the Democrats, because they know that when public sentiment favors free trade custom-houses and custom officers will disappear. No army was ever yet organized that could force a nation to pay duties or do anything else against the public sen- timent of that nation. Anarchists point to the statute-books of every nation and every old State in this nation for evidence that it is unnecessary to fight or vote laws into desuetude. Multitudes of laws which have never been abrogated are absolutely inoperative. They are so dead that it is not worth while to expunge them from the records. I believe the old Connecticut blue-laws have never been repealed, but there is not j)ower enough at tlie command of the Governor of that State or the President of the United States to enforce them in the present tem])er of public oi)inion. There is a law in the District of Columbia providing that an offender shall be bored through the tongue for denying the doctrine of the Trinity, or something of that sort. But it is so paralyzed by public odium that it is impossible to enforce it and umiecessary to abolish it. The Xew York Grocers' Association is a current illustra- tion of how laws against the collection of debts will, J think, fall into disuse. Anarchists object very strongly to laws against the collection of debts. They think a debt is contracted by a private arrangement with which the State should have nothing to do; that State interference for the collection of debts tends to greatly reduce business integrity ; that coniniercial inoralitv would inimediatelv reach a niiu'li The Anarchistic 3fethod. 315 higher than its present plane if all financial transactions were effected upon individual honor ; that the dangerous, the ruinous credit-system of doing business would be desirably modified if laws for the collection of debts by force were abolished. Indeed, some Anarchists think that the abolition of laws for the collection of debts would go very far toward reorganizing society upon a just basis. But, important as this measure is, they deem it unnecessaiy to vote for it, because, in time, the experience of business- men will demonstrate that such laws are futile and unneces- sary, and when a law goes out of use under the action of popular opinion its disappearance produces no friction, for it ceases because no one desires it any longer. To light down slavery was a mistake followed by inevita- ble unhappy conditions until now. If slavery had been let alone until it crumbled away there would have succeeded its disappearance no sad and vexing negro-problem. This was the wish of Garrison and his friends, very good Anarchists, who denounced the government and burned the Constitution because they upheld chattel slavery as they sustain indirect slavery to-day, and who contemplated the use of no other than intellectual and moral weapons against the abomination. If Garrison's policy of propaganda and passive resistance had been followed, the institution of chattel slavery would not have disappeared as suddenly as it did, but it would inevitably have fallen to pieces, little by little, without leaving soldier blood and a national debt where it fell. It would have fallen without the use of a bullet or a ballot. The Anarchist, then, at present is simply a propagandist, by word and passive deed. He talks and writes and, as far as possible, refrains from doing those things that to him are useless and wrong. He ceases to exercise the privilege of the franchise. If he is entirely consistent he will receive nothing that he does not earn, except by gift. If he believes that it is wise for him to become a martyr for purposes of propaganda he will refuse to pay taxes and take the consequences, without physical resistance. An- archists, however, as a rule are not what is commonly called fanatical. They rely more upon words, for the present, than upon deeds. But when they become more numerous the method of passive resistance will, no doubt, he resorted to. 316 Mvolution and Social Reform : For example: By general consent among a large number in a given locality, they may refuse to pay, under compul- sion, their taxes, offering, of course, to resign all claims to governmental protection, and perhaps offering voluntarily to contribute toward the maintenance of those comniixnal undertakings of which they approve ; or they may go upon vacant land to use it, suffering themselves to be evicted, unless public oi)inion sustains them ; or they may attempt to circulate mutual bank or credit money. In two words, the Anarchistic method, for the present, is propaganda, but when they believe themselves to be in sufticient numbers they will probably resort to passive resistance. Upon this presentation they may appear to be very impractical, but if what I have so briefly said is thought- fully considered, and if it is remembered tliat Anarchistic opinion as it grows will constantly be registering itself by the platform-makers and law-makers, I tliink the conclusion will be reached that Anarchists are not characteristically dreamers, but are sane students of history and human nature. Let me illustrate what I mean by a case that is before the public mind at this moment. Anarchists are opposed to capital punishment, and they observe with complacent pleasure the growing sentiment against the barbarous ])ractice. A bill for its abolition recently passed the New York Assembly but was defeated in the Senate. The introduction of this bill in the New York Legislature exemplifies the tendency of the politicians to reflect public opinion in the making or unmaking of laws ; but the facts regarding the practice of capital punishment also show that it is a matter of no concern whatever Avhat legislatures do or fail to do in the ])reniises. I do not know how many murders were committed in New York State last year, but there were only eight executions ; and although there were reported during the same year ooGT murders and homicides as having occurred in the United States, there were but ninety-eiglit hangings. The death-penalty is gradually abolishing itself, and whetlier tlie laws on the subject remain on the statute-books or not, the practice of hanging in this country will soon be given up. This method of abolishing an obnoxious law is Anarchistic or evolutionary; and it should be understood tliat the Anarchistic method is ahviiys and in every particular the application of, or, rather, The Anarchistic Method. 317 confoniiity to, the principles of evolution in the ' progress of society. From the presentation that I have made of this subject, it should be seen by the most conservative mind that Anarchism is nothing more nor less than the old-fashioned American idea that that government is best which governs least. The present apparent tendency of thought is toward the idea that that government is best that governs most State Socialism, or, as it is called in its distinctively Amer- ican form, jSTationalism. Between these two ideas we are slowly but surely being forced to choose. The question is immediately before us : Avhether government shall, little by little, increase its functions, or little by little decrease its functions ; whether government shall become more central- ized or society more flexible ; whether the individual shall be more and more subordinated to the State or more and more free to pursue in his own way, life, liberty and happiness. Anarchists believe that the State should decrease and the individual increase ; that the most har- monious society will be composed of individuals who are controlled by reason, governed by moral considerations ; and that the removal of restrictions upon industry and trade, the cessation of partial, monopolistic legislation, will conduce to the development of men who will be able to sustain social relations to each other without necessity for the imaginary terrors of supernaturalism or the real compvilsion of military government. Mutualism between free individ- uals is the doctrine of Anarchism. To rationally and peacefully decrease the powers of compulsory government is the method of Anarchism. There are two questions which Anarchists are frequ.ently called upon to answer. The first of these is : How can communal undertakings be accomplished without some governmental authority ? How can sewers and streets be made and supervised without some centralized restraining or compelling power ? How could boundaries to land, and all those matters that are now defined by law, and disputes about which are settled in the courts, be deter- mined ? To all these questions Anarchists can no more give definite answers than they can tell what the fashion in hats will be in the year 2000. All they can do is to appeal to history and show that men have learned how to do manv things witliout the aid of government, for the 318 EvoliutOJi and Social Reform. doing of which government was once believed to be neces sary, and to reason with apparent warrant that men are capable of learning how to do in the future much that now seems difficult or impossible. If it is remembered that Anarchists suppose that men must learn how to do many things by voluntary association better than they are done or can be done by present methods, before they will cease to be done by governmental compulsion, the question will be answered as well as it can be in a single sentence. The best fire-department is that which insurance companies equip for their own interests ; the best schools are private schools, else why do they continue in unequal competition with public schools ? There is no good reason why men should not yet learn how to build the best roads and sewers and other communal works without the services of armed constables or policemen. To suppose otherwise is to strangely limit the capabilities of the human mind, which has already accomplished enough once apparent impos- sibilities to warrant very considerable faith in its ability to meet all future social requirements and practically solve all future social problems. The other question to which I referred is : How long will it be before Anarchism will or may be practically realized ? To this the Anarchist replies that it is impos- sible to tell. Evolution is slow up to a certain point, at which point events shape themselves with astonishing rapidity. We can never tell at just what stage of evolu- tion we are. Unforeseen circumstances often precipitate accomplishments which apparently belong to the remote future. But with the question, "When ?" Anarchists do not much concern themselves. What is long to human life is short as a historical period. The Anarchist is a scientist ; it is for him to announce his discover}'. He is a philosoplier ; it is for him to earnestly labor and patiently wait. He believes he has discovered certain sociological facts ; he believes that all men will in time come to acknowledge them as facts. For what is gained while he lives he rejoices: but if little is accomplished before his work is done he does not despair. He sees of the travail of his soul and is satisfied. EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL REFORM IV. THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD. BY DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON Author of "A System of Psychology," "The Problem of Evil,' "The Religious Sentiments of the Human Mind," "Herbert Spencbr," etc. COLLATERAL READINGS SUGGESTED. Spencer's " Principles of Sociology" and "The Man versus the State"; Graham's "Creed of Science" and "The Social Prob- lem"; Bagehot's "Physics and Politics"; Savage's "Tlie Social Problem"; Crosier's "Civilizaticm and Progress"; Ward's "Dy- namic Sociology"; Oilman's "Profit-Sharing between Employer and Employee." (320) EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL REFORM.* IV. THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD. When I looked over the assignments for the four lectures which conclude the present course, it was with a little surprise. The topics express four methods of effecting social reform, which presumably would be exhibited by their advocates and, indeed, champions. First, then, I observed that the Theological method was to be presented by Mr. Chadwick. Now, I have the greatest respect for my eminent friend's theological abilities, which I am con- fident we should know him to possess even if he did not often use them. I am also thoroughly satisfied of his theological learning ; for it is not the empiric but the man truly learned in theology who arrives at Mr. Chadwick's conclusions and stands upon his platform. Yet there comes to memory my mental attitude of twenty years ago (which may still be that of some), when I used to attend a church in the neighborhood which, if it could not build itself upon Plymouth Rock, could at least chip off a piece for its corner- stone. In those days I did not think so much of Mr. Chadwick in the light of a theologian as a poet, or perhaps as a humorist, when he came to discuss theological topics. But that was a long time ago, and I like to believe that during these years, when I have been devoting myself to other matters, even theology has been progressing until tlie best thought recognizes in ^Ir. Chadwick an exponent of the true Theological method, which, if knowledge and wisdom be divine, ought not to be very far aAvay from the Scientific. As to Mr. Potts in connection with Socialism, I have had much more difficulty in reconciling the subject with the man. I awaited his paper with anxiety, as one waits for tidings of a friend who may have been exposed to con- tagious disease, not knowing with whom, in his various interests, he might have held the communications which corrupt good morals, and well-knowing that the days of sudden conversions are not yet past. He might have * Copyright, 1890, by James H. West. 322 Evolution and Social Reform : contracted the slow malarial fever of Georgeism or the cerebro-spinal meningitis of Bellamy ism I could not know. ]^ut wlien I saw his lecture 1 was at once relieved, and I can only hope the day will soon come when Mr. Potts's Socialism will supersede other systems and become univer- sally trium2)hant ! Without knowing exactly the position of Mr. Pentecost, I must confess that the line of reflection to which I have just made reference was disturbed by a ghastly suspicion. What if it were possible that these three gentlemen were selected because of the very fact that their own methods were conspicuously the opposite of those with which they were to deal ? If such were the case, exactly where would I stand with respect to the Scientific method ? Perhaps as a horrible example of the unscientific ; or perhaps, if I defended science, I should be thought a disguised enemy, ready to smite under the fifth rib while pretending friendly interest. Nevertheless, I shall dare assume to represent true science, and to be a sincere believer in the scientific- method, though I run the risk of having some kind Socrates come up to me patronizingly but pityingly, and say : " Good friend, you are not at all scientific ; you only think you are. You consider you know everything, while in reality you know nothing. With science you are very evidently unacquainted." If the courtesy of this audience spares me such a punishment, I am sure there are plenty of theologians, socialists and anarchists, who Avould be glad to inflict it in the name of science. For they all claim to be scientific. Science is good to conjure by, and in these days we have not so much need of exalting lier name as of detecting and exposing those who have stolen her livery to serve ignorance and sciolism. We ouglit then to define our position and understand what we mean by the Scientific method. It is Social Jveforni or improvement that we have in view, and we want to know tlie Scientific method of ett'ecting it. Why do we seek for the Scientific mode ? AVhy not follow an unsci- entific method ? Because it is presupposed that the scientific is more likely to accomplish the desired practical end. What reason is there for such a presumption ? The same reason tliat causes us to believe we can raise figs better on fig-trees tlian on tliistles ; that, knowing tlie geography of the earth, if we steer by tlie sun and stars The Scientific Method. 323 we shall reach our destination ; that if we eat corn and wheat we shall live and thrive, but if we consume poisonous herbs we shall perish. Knowing the uniformity of Nature, and ascertaining what causes produce given effects, what ensues from the composition of causes, and what frustrates results, we are able to predict what lines of action, what conditions, are favorable to the end sought, and what are opposed. We thus see that the practical science of social amelioration is based upon a theoretical science. We must know in order that we may believe and act. The practical Scientific method must, therefore, be developed from that exact knowledge for Avhich Aristotle and Bacon sought and Avhich is the only sure foundation upon which to build. The factors would seem to be simple, being only men dwelling together. But this association speedily evokes the most intricate and perplexing questions, arising from the circumstance that man is dependent upon his fellows while at the same time his interests may be antagonistic to them. Man tightly bound to man, but yet for deadly conflict, is the spectacle presented. How to transform this struggling mass of human beings in a living death, into an orderly, contented and happy community Avherein the desires of all are attained and each can realize his own aims, is the problem of social improvement. Is the solution possible ? Let us study ISfature. And by I^ature I mean all that has been produced to human experience ; that stream of events which has proceeded from chaos and ancient night ; which always is, and yet is in ceaseless flux, the perpetual contradiction of being and becoming over which the Ionic and Eleatic philosophers debated, and which the acute and imaginative Egyptians loved to symbolize in the myths of Isis and Osiris. Our field of study is the solar and stellar universe, the globe on which we dwell, the sequences of inorganic growth, and the various forms of organic life, man and his progress from the beginning. Seeing what is and ascertaining what has been, we may perhaps determine what Avill be. If a complete solution is not possible, an approximate one may, perchance, be reached. Natural forces are of two general sorts, the mechanical and the chemical. The one operate by antagonisms, the other by assimilations ; the one are destructive, the other constructive ; the one are characteristic of the inorganic, 324 Evolution and Social Kef arm : the other of the organic. As evolution has proceeded, organic life has become more complex, and hence the assimilating forces have been growing more far-reaching, more abundant, and more essential. This is as true of human life as it is of lower forms. In human society there is a multitude of individuals, each of whom is an organic whole, a source of life and power, having its own aspirations, purposes, and ends to fulfill. An ideal of his own greatness and glory shines before him ; the world is his for achievement ; everything is regarded as an instru- ment for his purposes ; those who will submit and help are welcome, those who oppose he will dash in pieces. The reader of Walt Whitman's poems will find there described the type of man filled with exi)ansiveness, initiativeness, creativeness, self-development, in whom the spirit of in- dividualism is dominant and aggressive. But this individualism receives a constant check from the fact that man does not live in isolation. The difference of sex necessitates gregariousness. Mutual interests are developed, and the individual finds that his own cherished objects of attainment involve the co-operation of liis fellows, who are constituted precisely like himself. He cannot have their society without making concessions to their personalities. He must do at least some of the things they Avant in order to get the things he wants. And the more people he has communication with the more varied will be the modes of mutual yielding. The social sentiments, then, which have regard for others, grow along- side of the selfish in the human individual, and become more complex as social intercourse is extended and the interdependence of human beings becomes more fully established. The predatory appetites are Aveakened, their urgency becomes less, while the social interests are enlarged and the sympathetic feelings increased in power and scope. Tlius the fact that there has been an evolutionary progress toward a mutual accommodation of human actions and aims in a peacefully-ordered community, proves that a solution of the problem we proposed is possible, since it has been already partially solved. We see how its solution has been possible, and how, if at all, its solution will be made more complete. This we are able to imderstand only through a scientific observation of the facts of hiiman nature as revealed by psychology, anthropology and sociol- The Scientific Method. 325 ogy. We note that each individual will follow out his own aims and desires, and can do nothing else, for he is both a source of power and an end unto himself. He will be guided by the law of his own being, established by his constitution, his training and circumstances. His ideal will always be to do what he wishes to do ; then only will he be satisfied. He can be restrained and prevented from following his chosen course, but he will elude, overcome and thwart the controlling force if he possibly can. If the pressure be increased, his energy is crushed out and he has no more power of self-development at all. The strong hand of government, therefore, is a most imperfect method of securing that mutual comity which is the ideal of a perfect State. It can only be administered by men acting forcibly against other men. This of itself fosters the very spirit of antagonism which it is most important to eradicate. The process is repressive of that individual expansion which is the fountain of all social progress. While governmental control is necessary to some extent, no doubt, the needs of a higher civilization demand its continual limitation within narrower bounds and its reduction to a minimum. In the nature of things the rule of man over man, whether by a monarch or the demos, is detrimental to the perfection both of the individ- ual and of society. Its value consists in preventing chaos,, in holding men together in security so as to allow the^ working of a much better process. This better Avay is the only way of perfecting civiliza- tion. It allows the individual to have his own will in the most complete liberty, but it aims so to mould his character that his wishes and desires shall coincide exactly with the demands of social welfare. Said Emerson: ''Every man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat liim. But a day comes when he begins to care that he do not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well. He has changed his market- cart into a chariot of the sun." This is precisely the Scientific method of promoting reform, its central, essen- tial idea, the only thorough and successful mode, without which nothing else is of any utility and to which every- thing else should be held subservient. Theoretical science thus furnishes to practical science two complementary precepts, which should guide all efforts toward social reform. The first is to keep limiting the 326 Evolution and Social Reform : sphere and diminisliing the functions of government, reducing both as fast and as far as is consistent witli security. The other is to foster in every jjracticable way the formation and maintenance of the altruistic character in individuals. From what I have said it will sufficiently appear that the Scientific method is opposed to the Theological, so far as the latter makes obedience to authority the means of reaching the social millennium. It makes no difference if the authority be divine. Divinity always has human interpreters and vicegerents. Divine authority is but another form of autocracy or aristocracy, moie objectiona- ble than the others, because it is less elastic, assuming that being divine it must be unchangeable. It is hence serioiisly obstructive of that process of evolution, in the preservation of which life subsists, and in the absence of which is decay and death to the social organism. Theology, however, is not religion. Happily, in the course of religious devel- opment, particularly in Christianity, the Scientific principle has been readied, has become prominent, and its value demonstrated. The most strenuous efforts have been made in the history of tliis religion to sustain the principle of authority, but the vitality and power of the Scientific doctrine has been so great as repeatedly and I think at last permanently to triumph, while the blessed effects of its practical use have given to Christianity all its success and The Scientific method is also opposed to the Anarchistic, because it recognizes that society is a growth, and knows that if at a given stage existing institutions are radically destroyed it is only by a process of growth that new ones can arise ; that this process will be just as complicated as the })receding one, and will have to go through its various stages of imperfection before any perfection can be reached. First the stem, then the flower, then the fruit after its kind. Nothing can exist excejjt as suited to its surround- ing conditions. Cataclysms in society are sometimes inevitable, because there seems to be no hope for improve- ment. All the avenues are closed up. But the virtue of the Scientific method is that it takes care to keep open the avenues for the moveiiuMit of evolutionary forces, and to render anarchic disturbiuices unnecessary and even im- possible. The Scientific Method. 327 The Scientific method has no part or lot with the Social- istic, if by the latter is meant the theory which proposes the State and its government machinery as the chief agency for guiding and training the human race to positive and progressive development, and for doing for individuals, positively, what they could not do for themselves. The reason why this principle is unscientific is apparent from what has gone before. To accomplish socialistic ideals, power must be accumulated. Where ? In the hands of men. Whence comes it ? It is taken away from other men. Who are to use it ? Men. For what purpose ? Theoretically, for the common Aveal. If it is not so used, there is tyranny and greater wretchedness than before. The users of this power then must be supremely intelligent and supremely benevolent. When the amount of govern- ment we have is so largely in the hands of thieves, cut- throats and ruffians, what encouragement have we to believe that, if government had more power and more directions for its activity, matters would be improved ? The answer to Socialism always is : The accumulation and exercise of power by the State is necessarily the vesting of power in individuals to be used by them over others. If the community is chiefly made up of people who are good and righteous from the social point of view, there is no need of such accumulation. If, on the other hand, the community contains any considerable evil element, increase of State functions tends to abridge the common liberty, to disturb the social equilibrium, to foster oppression, and to inaugurate a retrograde movement toward the primitive forms of "man's inhuananity to man," which made life a lurid drama of woe and wretchedness. Having now presented what I conceive to be the Scien- tific method of effecting social reform, I shall not bring forward arguments to support it more than have already been indicated in the course of exposition. I shall occupy the remainder of my time with a few cautions and sugges- tions regarding its application. The first of these is that the Scientific method does not require a person to become either an idiot to understand or an imbecile to apply it. Because our true principle is to seek for the minimum of government, we are not required to abolish all laws and offices. Though Ave are to develop the altruistic character in which selfishness is to be put aside and thoughts of the 328 Evolution and Social Reform: common good to prevail, we must remember that if our neiglibors became too thoroughly altruistic they might all commit suicide. Though such an act would not be without its compensations to us, it would leave us rather lonesome, and might be otherwise inconvenient. If we are convinced that our butcher is a wicked man, we would not like to have him become so altruistic as to stop killing sheep and calves, till we had learned where another butcher could be found of the old way of thinking. We do not care to have the liquor-dealer spill his liquors into the street till enough of his best whiskey is safely domiciled in our cellars. We want all lawyers to be honest and kind-hearted, but in our own cases we think the thing to be done is to bedevil and beat the other side. Beautiful as absolute altruism may be in theory, if put into practice it would either result in universal hari-kari or in a reversed form of selfish competi- tion. Some of you may have read James De Mi lie's " Strange Manuscript found in a Copper Cylinder," wherein the remarkable tale is told of a land at the South Pole, whose inhabitants thought poverty and low-estate to be the most desirable objects of life. But the moment these became ends to be sought, a condition of struggle was developed, caused by every man endeavoring to put off his wealth and his comforts upon others. Hence it became necessary to limit and regulate altruism by law, restraining those too eager to give away their possessions for the sake of attaining the pauper condition. If there happened to be any public occasion at which there were places of honor or vantage, a fight was apt to ensue from the circumstance that everybody would insist on his neighbor taking the better place. Death, too, was regarded as the greatest of boons, and self-destruction had to be strongly discoun- tenanced, people being compensated for this prohibition by tlie promise of a public deatli as a matter of honor if they succeeded in repressing their self-denying impulses. It thus appears that we must be carefiil to love our neighbors only as ourselves, not better; else ruinous consequences may ensue and the Avorld be turned topsy-turvy. The Scientific rule of the a])plication of all general principles is, Survey the whole field and be sure of your facts. All through Kature, frustrating causes are in constant operation. Tliere is a compounding of forces which everywhere modifies effects. In the social organism The Scientific Method. 329 this is peculiarly true, aud it takes a much more careful and judicial study to calculate effects here, than it does in the mechanical or biological world. Hence we must move cautiously and tentatively in this region. Thus it happens that the truly "practical man" is often more successful than theorists. 13ut, though he may ridicule science, such a one it is who after all is the true scientist. He takes account of the facts. He generalizes and reasons induc- tively, gathering together the various lines of the operation of forces, while the doctrinaire pursues only one line deductively, falsely assuming that conditions do not change and that reaction does not modify action. I read Avith much interest and with approval Mr. Potts's representation of the evil of too much enthusiasm. Loy- alty to a principle, as to a person, may easily be overdone. It prevents criticism, reformation and readjustment of principles. Enthusiasm is of more value in an unscientific age, when men are too ignorant to be skilful in bringing about results, and when intellectual activities do not have free play. In former times, and now even in many places, the king is really a god, to be thought of with awe and reverence, never to be criticized. In a thoroughly scientific community he is, as a royal personage, tawdry and con- teinptible. The day was when the orator who ap])ealed fervently to the feelings governed men's minds ; to-day such appeals are usually ridiculous. It must be remem- bered that Mohammed, hred with tremendous zeal, vainly endeavored to solve the social problem by galloping with drawn sword over three continents, cutting down all who opposed ; while Buddha solved it by sitting down under a tree and going to sleep. If I were asked what was the Zeit-geist proper to a scientific age, I should unhesitatingly say, the eternal Mug- Avump-spirit. It is a great ])ity to have so much good activity wasted through an undiscriminating devotion to party, in politics, in religion, and even in scientific inquiry. Most people never know when to leave their party and join a better one. They cannot make the higher synthesis ; they are bound by the chains of fear and prejudice. Into their obstinate adherence to their idols enters also, uncon- sciously to themselves, a very dangerous form of egotism. Nothing is good exce})t what they favor and what they are personally concerned in bringing about. Many a reform 330 Evolution and Social Reform : has been prevented because some leader has sulked and withdrawn his support when he could not become pre- eminent in achieving its success. Such men esteem them- selves to be the center of the universe, but they forget that the more they indulge this thought the more the universe contracts to their vision, until at last it may chance that they can see no farther than their hands can reach,-and are as ignorant of what is really going on in the world beyond as a man of normal mind would be of what is transpiring in the planet Saturn. Thus the only safety lies in constant criticism of opinions, laws, principles, courses of action, one's own not less than other people's. Beware of partisanship, be suspicious of growing loyalty to abstract principles or fanatical support of any party ; avoid animosities, and look out for the pugilistic or polemical spirit when people differ from you ; above all, keep your intelligence clear by purging your soul of the lust of domination ; then you are in good condition to apply the Scientific method to all the pi-oblems of social life ; and I Avould not wonder if, in case you were simply to sit down under a tree and sleep, you might see grand visions, of which you could tell, when you awoke, to the benefit of mankind. "This is peace, To conquer love of self ami lust of life, To tear deep-rot)te(l passion from the breast, And still the inward strife." There are four departments of activity within which social improvement is wrought out, the Industrial, the Political, the Philanthropic, the Educational. Industrial progress benefits society ; every producer is a helper. Government has its office and liberty cannot yet dispense with law. Much can be accomplished ])y wise charities to aid the suffering. p](lucation is absolutely essential, espe- cially as to character; for a person's disj)Ositions control his deeds and are largely formative of his o})inions. The relations of politics to industry just now present the most interesting and pressing questions of social reform ; and here the Scientific metliod is now-a-days too often neglected or misap])lied. The scientific princii)le does not ])rohibit the interference of government with private action to preserve riglits or to make peo])le secure in their enjoyment. The question always is. How can tliis The Scientific Method. 331 best be done ? How can we cure this evil without entail- ing a greater ? The great trouble seems to be the cutting off of opportunities for men to work and earn, and the consequent hopelessness of effort. This state of things never can be helped by socialistic or nationalistic measures, which are impracticable in their nature and dangerous in their application. They are only to be relieved by remedial not revolutionary action, aiming to restrain the power of corporations, to check monopolies, to prevent frauds, to secure the workman his wages, and, as has been so well urged by Prof. Gunton, in securing a general reduction of the hours of labor, so that by increasing the social oppor- tunities of the workingman he may become an integral part of the community and thereby better his economic situation. Assaults on the right of property are assaults on liberty and life. Holding property is not robbery, and we may still adhere to the old-fashioned doctrine that taking it away without an equivalent is robbery, for which there is no justification. " But it is necessary that I live," said the thief before the court, in extenuation of his crime. " I do not see the necessity," wisely replied the magistrate ; and society will always agree with him. A restriction of propert^'-holding is the utmost that can legitimately be urged. Entailments and accumulations by will have been already limited. How far the holding of both real and personal property by one individual in his lifetime can be restricted, is a proper question for consideration, but cannot be discussed within the limits of tliis paper. For ends which involve the common liberty the State powers always may be used ; but we should be reluctant to permit such interference in industrial matters, because experience has universally shown that from this harm is more apt to result than good. Passing now to our political conditions, it is to be remarked that the chief iniquity at present is the use of the powers of governnient and official position for private ends. Abuse of public trust for personal gain is often no bar to political preferment. It is common for those in office to think first of their own profit. One class of evils is thus presented. Another is found in the constant use of legislative functions to support private interests. To purify our governmental offices and to limit legislation to general purposes seem to be the two things of transcendent 332 Involution and Social Reform : importance in American politics, the country over. It is hard to see how either of these desiderata is to be obtained by increasing the number of official positions and functions and creating a necessity for more legislative measures. Kather it would seem to be the true course to abolish a great many of the offices we have, and to dispense with a considerable i)ortion of the laws on our statute-books. The business condition of the country is much better settled Avhen Congress is not in session. Those States wliich have adopted for their legislatures the biennial session rule, have found it greatly to their advantage. If the legislature seldom meets there is so much less opportunity for schemes of jobbery, while people can live and justice be adminis- tered under the organic law and the general statutes which all our States have had from the beginning. So-called "private bills" are the curse of our Congressional and State legislation. The lower house of Congress has almost ceased to be availaljle for the discussion and enactment of measures aifecting the general welfare. It is merely a vehicle for the promotion of ])rivate schemes, and its action is the resultant of the conflict of j)rivate interests, each seeking by force, frauds or compromise the passage of its own bills. It Avere far better to have no legislature for an interval, than to have this unseemly strife kept up through several months of each year. In executive offices, longer terms and stricter accountability will tend to create a better state of things, while the reforms in the civil service which have been effected, and others which are proposed, are of great value for their salutary results. ]>ut it is not so nuicli my purpose to particularize by indicating si)ecial reforms for special cases, as to remark the fact that, in America and in England at least, the ])ractical workers for reform, and their proposed measures, are the most scientific. In England this is illustrated in the new and simplified judicial i)r()cedure, in the Corrupt I'ractices Act, and in the various Home Kule movements. In our own country, the three most salient reforms of to-day Civil-Service, Tariff, and ]>allot-]leform are tlie offspring of tlioi-ouglily scientific thought, starting from conditions, gathering the facts, exposing the evils and their causes, and selecting the a])propriate remedy. This is very encouraging. Two extreme and opposite habits of mind should always 1)0 avoided and deprecated; the one, that of The Scientific Method. 333 the theorist and doctrinaire, who has found one general principle which so possesses his mind that he can think of no other, and who applies it in season and out of season without the slightest reference to conditions. The other hete noire is the man who is so short-sighted that he never can see beyond his nose, who hates a theorist much more than he hates the devil, because he regards the latter as a thoroughly practical being, and whose thought never transcends the expediency of the moment. Of the two, the former state is to be preferred. It is better, I suppose, to "hitch your Avagon to a star," which may indeed drag you along roughly, not always in the road, but will still keep you moving over magnificent distances and cheer you with its light. If on the other hand you attach it to a purbliiid ass, the beast will take you nowhere, but will presently demolish your vehicle, and perhaps yourself, with its vicious kicks. The true method for politics is that described by Wordsworth Donnisthorpe in a recently pub- lished work : " The need should be insisted on for the thorough study of law in the concrete, and the discovery, not the manufacture, of the true statical laws which are actually operative in societies ; of their tendency and of the dynamical laws of their change and development. It is by the discovery of these laws that we shall find our- selves in possession of true and useful practical guides through the labyrinth of legislation and politics. . . . The art of politics is the application of the science of nomology to the concrete, just as engineering is the application to human wants of the science of mechanics, and as naviga- tion is one of the arts based on the science of astronomy ; until Ave have mastered the science we shall make little progress with the corresponding art. . . . To-day we are on the high road to Socialism ; to-morrow the fates only know Avhere Ave shall be. The only cure for this policy of drift is a patient and intelligent study . . . Avhereby middle principles of practical application are to be brought to light and the absurd fallacies of social doctrinaires put to flight forever."* I shall not pause to speak of practical philanthropy, further than to remind you that charity never Avill take the place of justice, and is at best the temporary not the ultimate relief for suffering human nature. Largesse will ""Individualism; A System of Politics," IX. 334 Evolution and Social Reform: not condone oppression, nor benevolence dispense with equity. I pass on to say a word, in conclusion, upon what is, after all, the extreme, the fundamental practical method of improving society, namely, the Educational. To this we are always obliged to return. "To cure the soul," says Plato, "that is the first thing." "He that doeth my will," said Jesus, "shall know of the doctrine" right action will bring knowledge. But on this vast theme my limits will allow me to touch only two or three points, which seem just noAV to demand consideration. The first of these relates to the importance of a special institution, namely, the public-school system, and the increasing of its opportunities as Avell as its efficiency. The scientific ground for public education is that of security to the State. To educate at public expense is by far the most economical way in which social order can be promoted. Schools cost less and are much more efficient than penitentiaries. If properly conducted, and if the system be so constituted as to secure a practically universal education as far as the course goes, the community will be spared much trouble and the process of renovating humanity will go on much faster. At the present time there is a disposition in many quarters to dispense with or curtail public-school education. This has appeared on both scien- tific and religious grounds. No more fatal error could be committed. The day when public schools are abolished in any American community will be a dark day. To educate the young person in character and in knowledge, particularly that knowledge which relates to liis duties as a citizen, is the one tiling of pai'amount interest to the State, which it never can afford to neglect; for upon such education, that cannot safely be left to private effort, depends the maintenance of the common freedom which in its turn is the safeguard of individual liberty and the surety of individual development. Tlie second line of educational effort Avhich I propose to indicate looks to the breaking down of the barrier between business and social life. A man may rob and steal in business ways below Fourteenth Street, when above that line he is bound in honor to prefer his neighbor. Business is war, audit is not good business princi])le to "live and let live." So long as the humanities are kept out of the The Scientific Method. 335 counting-liouse or the store, good morals, good citizenship, good character cannot be depended upon. The co-operative idea, when divested of its socialistic tendencies, is certainly worthy of encouragement and should be constantly applied to industrial life. This would involve, in addition to what- I have before suggested, some system of profit-sharing, and above all a greater permanence and certainty of tenure in employment, so that the laborer be not regarded as a machine but as a person, be provided for in case of sickness, and be not subject to dismissal on a day's notice, irrespec- tive of faithful service, at the supposed interest or maybe the whim of an employer. Beyond this, when we come to the relations of those more nearly equal in business life, if we cannot have sympathy it is surely not too much to expect honesty (which in these days seems to be going out of fashion), and a state of morals wherein a lie is not con- sidered, as it has been styled, "an intellectual mode of meeting a difficulty." The third and last suggestion I have to offer is another caution. It is said that "Knowledge is power," thereby implying that it is not itself the ultimate end of human life, but is of value because it gives a wider field and a greater effectiveness to action. The strongest desires and aspirations are satisfied only in an activity which is forever creating. Knowledge, indeed, is often an end in itself, because learning is a process of activity which selects and forms new objects, not before present, to the mind ; but it is only under the stimulus of ideals which by contrast produce a felt insufficiency of present conditions, a dissat- isfaction with what is, that the process of self-development goes on to its fullest consummation. This creative instinct must be exercised, or it will become atrophied, and then growth ceases and decadence begins. We must therefore consider that, good as science is, it is in the art-impulse and its products that we behold, after all, the source and the end of individual and social progress. It is in the unknown, which furnishes possibilities of knowing, the unachieved which presents possibilities of achievement, that we find the moving cause of our exertion to know and to do. It is necessary to ascertain what is, and see things as they are j but if we become accustomed to the thought that scientific observation and experiment iipon phenomena presented is the only worthy object of mental activity, we sliall be in 336 Evolution and Social Reform. great danger of drying up the fountain of all intellectual and moral vitality. The greatest discoveries of science, themselves, never could have been made without the ideals of art, which set the goal for science to reach ; and human life never has been made better save under the inspiration of some ideal of perfection, which is a product of intellect- ual creativeness. Let us, then, not make the mistake of despising art, Avhose aim is to eliminate the painful and disagreeable and to produce that which does not perish in the using. Nor should we seek to reduce all art to science, according to the doctrine of M. Zola in literature; but rather leave room for the movement of the creative spirit, which loves to cast off the trammels of the earthy, to soar aloft with ethereal wings, to enter the limitless, to burst into the unknown and hlch therefrom something precious for science to work upon and reduce to orderly relations. Our life in the actual must needs occupy us most : but it is in the sphere of the possible, not yet realized, that we find the renewing and strengthening atmosphere, breathing which the blood is sent more swiftly through our veins, rendering us buoyant and able for the tasks before us. While, therefore, we should respect the work of science, and insist on true science, within its own domain, let us not forget that he who is the author of a great artistic creation, clothing matter with mind and moulding Nature to express an idea, not only enriches the world with the production of his genius, but also exemplifies that man may walk with the gods, that he is himself a creator and finisher ; and even suggests that death and notliingness are after all but names which only indicate a vast reservoir of being witliout beginning or end, wherein lies concealed and from wliich shall spring forth, eternally and exhaustlessly, an ever- chanfrinGT and never-endin