If civilization breeds new vices, old ones are extinguished by it. Decency and decorum hide the hideousness of vice, drive it into dark corners, and thereby raise the tone of morals and weaken vice. Thus civilization promotes chastity, elevates woman, breaks down the barriers of hate and superstition between ancient nations and religions; individual energy, the influence of one over the many, becomes less and less felt, and the power of the people becomes stronger.
Civilization in itself can not but be beneficial to man; that which makes society more refined, more intellectual, less bestial, more courteous; that which cures physical and mental diseases, increases the comforts and luxury of life, purifies religions, makes juster governments, must surely be beneficial: it is the universal principle of evil which impregnates all human affairs, alloying even current coin, which raises the question. That there are evils attending civilization as all other benefits, none can deny, but civilization itself is no evil.
CONDITIONS ESSENTIAL TO PROGRESS.
If I have succeeded in presenting clearly the foregoing thoughts, enough has been said as to the nature and essence of civilization; let us now examine some of the conditions essential to intellectual development. For it must not be forgotten that, while every department of human progress is but the unfolding of a germ; while every tendency of our life, every custom and creed of our civilization finds its rudiment in savagism; while, as man develops, no new elements of human nature are created by the process; while, as the organism of the child is as complex and complete as the organism of the man, so is humanity in a savage state the perfect germ of humanity civilized,—it must not be forgotten in all this, that civilization cannot unfold except under favorable conditions. Just as the plant, though endowed with life which corresponds to the mind-principle in progress, requires for its growth a suitable soil and climate, so this progressional phenomenon must have soil and sunshine before it yields fruit; and this is another proof that civilization is not in the man more than around him; for if the principle were inherent in the individual, then the Hyperborean, with his half year of light and half year of underground darkness, must of necessity become civilized equally with the man born amidst the sharpening jostles of a European capital, for in all those parts that appertain solely to the intrinsic individual, the one develops as perfectly as the other. A people undergoing the civilizing process need not necessarily, does not indeed, advance in every species of improvement at the same time; in some respects the nation may be stationary, in others even retrograde. Every age and every nation has its special line of march. Literature and the fine arts reached their height in pagan Greece; monotheism among the Hebrews; science unfolded in Egypt, and government in Rome.
In every individual there is some one talent that can be cultivated more advantageously than any other; so it is with nations, every people possesses some natural advantage for development in some certain direction over every other people, and often the early history of a nation, like the precocious proclivities of the child, points toward its future; and in such arts and industries as its climate and geographical position best enable it to develop, is discovered the germ of national character. Seldom is the commercial spirit developed in the interior of a continent, or the despotic spirit on the border of the sea, or the predatory spirit in a country wholly devoid of mountains and fastnesses. It cannot be said that one nation or race is inherently better fitted for civilization than another; all may not be equally fitted for exactly the same civilization, but all are alike fitted for that civilization which, if left to itself, each will work out.
Mankind, moreover, advances spasmodically, and in certain directions only at a time, which is the greatest drawback to progress. As Lecky remarks: "Special agencies, such as religious or political institutions, geographical conditions, traditions, antipathies, and affinities, exercise a certain retarding, accelerating, or deflecting influence, and somewhat modify the normal progress." Perfect development only is permanent, and that alone is perfect which develops the whole man and the whole society equally in all its parts; all the activities, mental, moral, and physical, must needs grow in unison and simultaneously, and this alone is perfect and permanent development. Should all the world become civilized there will still be minor differences; some will advance further in one direction and some in another, all together will form the complete whole.
Civilization as an exotic seldom flourishes. Often has the attempt been made by a cultivated people to civilize a barbarous nation, and as often has it failed. True, one nation may force its arts or religion upon another, but to civilize is neither to subjugate nor annihilate; foreigners may introduce new industries and new philosophies, which the uncultured may do well to accept, but as civilization is an unfolding, and not a creation, he who would advance civilization must teach society how to grow, how to enlarge its better self; must teach in what direction its highest interests lie.
Thus it appears that, while this germ of progress is innate in every human society, certain conditions are more favorable to its development than others,—conditions which act as stimulants or impediments to progress. Often we see nations remain apparently stationary, the elements of progress evenly balanced by opposing influences, and thus they remain until by internal force, or external pressure, their system expands or explodes, until they absorb or are absorbed by antagonistic elements. The intrinsic force of the body social appears to demand extrinsic prompting before it will manifest itself. Like the grains of wheat in the hand of Belzoni's mummy, which held life slumbering for three thousand years, and awoke to growth when buried in the ground, so the element of human progress lies dormant until planted in a congenial soil and surrounded by those influences which provoke development.
This stimulant, which acts upon and unfolds the intellect, can be administered only through the medium of the senses. Nerve force, which precedes intellectual force, is supplied by the body; the cravings of man's corporeal nature, therefore, must be quieted before the mind can fix itself on higher things. The first step toward teaching a savage is to feed him; the stomach satisfied he will listen to instruction, not before.
Cultivation of at least the most necessary of the industrial arts invariably precedes cultivation of the fine arts; the intellect must be implanted in a satisfied body before it will take root and grow. The mind must be allowed some respite from its attendance on the body, before culture can commence; it must abandon its state of servitude, and become master; in other words, leisure is an essential of culture.