III. Civilized Races.—Food and complex vital needs are easily satisfied on account of the advanced division of labor and improvement of instruments. Art and science are consequently developed more and more. The increasing specialization brings about a great elaboration of individual functions, and at the same time a great strengthening of the whole body politic, as there is complete mutual dependence. The citizens see that they must submit to the laws of the state.
A. Lower civilized races. Towns with stone walls; vast architectural works in stone; use of the plough in agriculture. War is intrusted to a particular class. Writing firmly established, primitive law-books, fixed courts. Literature begins to develop. To this group belong in Asia the inhabitants of Thibet, Bhutan, Nepaul, Laos, Annam, Korea, Manchuria, and the settled Arabs and Turcomans; in Africa the Algerians, Tunisians, Moors, Kabyles, Tuaregs, etc. Of historical races we have the ancient Egyptians, Phœnicians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Carthaginians, the Greeks after Marathon, the Romans of the time of Hannibal, and the English under the Norman kings.
B. Middle civilized races. Beautiful temples and palaces, built of stone and brick. Windows come into use, and sailing-ships. Commerce expands. Writing and written books are general; the literary instruction of the young is attended to. Militarism is further developed; so are legislation and advocacy. Of these we have in Asia the Persians, Afghans, Birmans, and Siamese; in Europe the Finns and Magyars of the eighteenth century. Of historical peoples we must count among them the Greeks of the age of Pericles, the Romans of the later republic, the Jews under the Macedonian rule, France under the first Capets, and England under the Plantagenets.
C. Higher civilized races. Stone houses general; streets paved; chimneys, canals, water and wind mills. Beginnings of scientific navigation and warfare. Writing general, written books widely distributed, literature esteemed. The highly centralized state embraces communities of ten millions or more. Fixed and written codes of law are officially promulgated and applied by courts to particular cases. Numbers of government officials have settled rank. To this group belong in Asia the Chinese, Japanese, and Hindoos; also the Turks and the various republics of South America, etc. In history we have the Romans of the empire, and the Italians, French, English, and Germans of the fifteenth century.
IV. Cultivated Races.—Food and other needs are artificially supplied with the greatest ease and in abundance, human labor being replaced by natural forces. The social organization grows and facilitates the play of all the social forces, and man obtains a great freedom to cultivate his mental and æsthetic qualities. Printing is in general use, the education of the young one of the first duties. War becomes less important; rank and fame depend less on military bravery than on mental superiority. Legislation is influenced by representatives of the people. Art and science are increasingly promoted by state aid.
Alexander Sutherland distinguishes three stages of development—the lower, middle, and higher—in the fourth as well as in the preceding classes. To the first stage he assigns "the leading nations of Europe and their offshoots, such as the United States of North America." For the second stage—middle cultured races—he gives a programme that may be carried out in three or four hundred years' time, with this definition: "All men are well fed and housed; war is universally condemned, but breaks out now and again. Small armies and fleets of all the nations co-operate as a sort of international police; commercial and industrial life are directed according to the moral precepts of sympathy; culture is general; crime and punishment rare." Of the third and highest stage Sutherland merely says, "Too bold a subject for prophecy, that may not come for one thousand to two thousand years yet." This division seems to me too vague and unsatisfactory, in the sense that it does not properly emphasize the civilization of the nineteenth century in contrast with all preceding stages. It would be better to distinguish provisionally the following stages in modern civilization: first, sixteenth to eighteenth century; second, nineteenth century; and third, twentieth century and the future.
A. Lower cultured races (Europe, sixteenth to eighteenth century). At the commencement of this period, the first half of the sixteenth century, we notice the preparatory movements to the full growth of mental life which was to achieve such great results in the following periods: 1. The cosmic system of Copernicus (1543) maintained by Galileo (1592). 2. The discovery of America by Columbus (1492) and of the East Indies by Vasco da Gama (1498), the first circumnavigation of the earth by Magellan (1520) and the evidence it afforded of the rotundity of the earth. 3. The liberation of the mind of Europe from the papal yoke by Martin Luther (1517) and the repulse of the prevailing superstition by the spread of the Reformation. 4. The new impulse to scientific investigation independently of scholasticism and the Church and of the philosophy of Aristotle; the founding of empirical science by Francis Bacon (1620). 5. The spread of scientific knowledge by the press (Gutenberg, 1450) and wood-engraving. The way was prepared for modern civilization by these and other advances in the sixteenth century, and it quickly arose above the barbaric level of the Middle Ages. However, it was confined at first within narrow limits, as the reactionary civilization of the Middle Ages was still powerful in political and social life, and the struggle against superstition and unreason made slow progress. The French Revolution (1792) at last gave a great impetus in practical directions.
B. Middle cultured races. This name may be given to the leading nations of Europe and North America in the nineteenth century. We may illustrate in the following achievements the great advance which this "century of science" made as compared with all preceding ages: 1. Deepening, experimental grounding, and general spread of a knowledge of nature; independent establishment of many new branches of science; founding of the cell-theory (1838), the law of energy (1845), and the theory of evolution (1859). 2. Practical and comprehensive application of this theoretical science to all branches of art and industry. Especially 3. The overcoming of time and space by the extraordinary speed of transit (steamboats, railways, telegraphs, electrotechnics). 4. Construction of the monistic and realistic philosophy, in opposition to the prevailing dualistic and mystical views. 5. Increasing influence of rational scientific instruction and abandonment of the religious fiction of the Churches. 6. Increasing self-consciousness of the nations on account of having a share in government and legislation; extinction of the belief in the divine right of rulers. New distinction of classes. However, these great advances, to which we children of the nineteenth century may point with pride, are far from being universal; they are struggling daily with reactionary views and powers in Church and state, with militarism, and with ancient and venerable immorality of every kind.
C. The higher culture which we are just beginning to glimpse will set itself the task of creating as happy and contented a life as possible for all men. A perfect ethic, free from all religious dogma and based on a clear knowledge of natural law, will be found in the golden rule, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." Reason tells us that a perfect state must provide the greatest possible happiness for every individual that belongs to it. The adjustment of a rational balance between egoism and altruism is the aim of our monistic ethics. Many barbaric customs that are still regarded as necessary—war, duelling, ecclesiastical power, etc.—will be abolished. Legal decisions will suffice to settle the quarrels of nations, as they now do of individuals. The chief interest of the state will be, not the formation of as strong a military force as possible, but the best possible instruction of its young, with special attention to art and science. The improvement of technical methods, owing to new discoveries in physics and chemistry, will bring greater satisfaction of our needs of life. The artificial production of albumin will provide plenty of food for all. A rational reform of the marriage relations will increase the happiness of family life.
The darker sides of modern life, of which we are all more or less sensitive, have been laid bare by Max Nordau in his Conventional Lies of Civilization. They will be greatly altered if reason is permitted to have its way in practical life, and the present evil customs, based on antiquated dogmas, are suppressed. But, in spite of all these shades, the luminous features of modern civilization are so great that we look to the future with hope and confidence. We need only glance back half a century, and compare life to-day with what it was then, in order to realize the progress made. If we regard the modern state as an elaborate organism (a "social individual of the first order"), and compare its citizens to the cells of a higher tissue-animal, the difference between the state of to-day and the crudest family groups of savages is not less than that between a higher metazoon (such as a vertebrate) and a cœnobium of protozoa. The progressive division of labor, on the one hand, and the centralization of society, on the other, prepare the social body for higher functions than in isolation, and proportionately increase the worth of its life. To see this more clearly, let us compare the personal and the social value of life in the five chief fields of vital activity—nutrition, reproduction, movement, sensation, and mental life.