Twentieth Century Socialism: What It Is Not; What It Is: How It May Come

by Edmond Kelly

Before studying the possible effects upon Man of an artificial environment, consciously and deliberately created by him with the definite purpose of attaining the maximum of human perfection and happiness, we must be clear as to the actual effects upon man of the artificial environment in which he finds himself. And first we must give its full value to the fact that the environment in which we live is in great part artificial, that it is the product not of Nature only, but also of Art.

We have seen that the lower animals, prior to the advent of Man, were the necessary product of the natural environment. We have now to study how Man has modified the face of the world, as regards them and himself, by the application thereto of Art.

The most obvious and striking change effected by Art on human life is in relation to climate.

There is geologic evidence that the forefathers of Man in what is called the Miocene Period, while not so intellectual as Man, were of a far higher type than any living ape; the head, for example, indicates a superior structure.[203] Now, the Miocene Period was exceptionally warm. The bones of the so-called troglodytes are found in the caves of the Dordogne with other vegetable and animal remains that indicate a tropical temperature. This was followed by the glacial epoch, which substituted for tropical conditions those now existing in the Arctic zone. The troglodyte had to choose between the alternatives; he had to flee to the tropics before the cold wave from the North, or to resist the cold by recourse to Art. It is probable that he did both; some did the one, and the rest the other; some fled to the tropics and degenerated there into the existing anthropoid apes; the rest invented weapons with which to slay fur-bearing animals, to strip them of their skins, and convert the skins into clothing; used the shelter furnished by natural caves, and eventually discovered the way to produce a flame. This last Promethean gift was probably the first of the great human inventions. When Man discovered how to produce and utilize fire he became superior to climate.

This discovery produced an amazing consequence; for it seems certain that our race made its first strides towards civilization in tropical countries; but that progress in the Arts, by enabling Man to inhabit colder and more bracing climates, permitted an increase in his power to resist not only climate, but all the other natural conditions hostile to his improvement; and so we find the Northern races gradually subduing those of the South, and demonstrating the great rule that man's progress is secured, not by yielding to natural environment, but by resisting it.

The key to human progress in the past, and the probable key to human progress in the future, is the faculty of Man to resist Nature; and this faculty is twofold. Intelligence is the more obvious of the two elements. But intelligence is not sufficient of itself. Intelligence must be coupled with the power of self-restraint. For although intelligence is the light which can guide men toward perfection, it is useless unless accompanied by the willingness and power to follow the light.

What avails it to the millionaire to know that he can by the intelligent use of his millions alleviate the misery of the poor, if he lacks the willingness and power to apply this knowledge?

What avails it to us to know that by substituting coöperation for competition in the production of the necessaries of life, poverty can be annihilated, if we have not the willingness and the power to effect the substitution?

What avails it to a drunkard to know that drink is the cause of his misery, if he has not the power to refuse it?

In man's struggle with climate, intelligence seems to play the principal rôle, but there is also a spirit of resistance, in strong contrast with submission that characterizes the lower animals. In other arenas the power of self-control plays a still more conspicuous part. There is probably no institution in which man differs more from the lower animals than in that of marriage; and none more characterized by self-control. If we compare the promiscuous intercourse that prevails between the sexes in troops of apes, with the fidelity that characterizes the highest types of marriage in our most highly civilized communities, we cannot but be struck, not only with the enormous gap between the two, but with the dominant rôle played in development from the lower to the higher type by the power of self-control. The passionate propensity that condemns the fiercer carnivora to solitude, and reduces even the docile bee to a wholesale massacre of one of the two sexes, has been so controlled in our civilization that we find men and women not only living in the closest proximity without violating the marriage vow, but even consecrating themselves to life-long chastity out of respect for a religious scruple.