Thus we have seen that a combination of physical conditions is essential to intellectual development. Without leisure, there can be no culture, without wealth no leisure, without labor no wealth, and without a suitable soil and climate no remunerative labor.
Now, throughout the material universe, there is no object or element which holds its place, whether at rest or in motion, except under fixed laws; no atom of matter nor subtle mysterious force, no breath of air, nor cloudy vapor nor streak of light, but in existing obeys a law. The Almighty fiat: Be fruitful and multiply, fruitful in increase, intellectual as well as physical, was given alike to all mankind; seeds of progress were sown broadcast throughout all the races human; some fell on stony places, others were choked with weeds, others found good soil. When we see a people in the full enjoyment of all these physical essentials to progress yet in a state of savagism, we may be sure that elements detrimental to progress have, at some period of their history, interposed to prevent natural growth. War, famine, pestilence, convulsions of nature, have nipped in the bud many an incipient civilization, whose history lies deep buried in the unrecorded past.
ASSOCIATION AN ELEMENT OF PROGRESS.
The obvious necessity of association as a primary condition of development leaves little to be said on that subject. To the manifestation of this Soul of Progress a body social is requisite, as without an individual body there can be no manifestation of an individual soul. This body social, like the body individual, is composed of numberless organs, each having its special functions to perform, each acting on the others, and all under the general government of the progressional idea. Civilization is not an individual attribute, and though the atom, man, may be charged with stored energy, yet progress constitutes no part of individual nature; it is something that lies between men and not within them; it belongs to society and not to the individual; man, the molecule of society, isolate, is inert and forceless. The isolated man, as I have said, never can become cultivated, never can form a language, does not possess in its fullness the faculty of abstraction, nor can his mind enter the realm of higher thought. All those characteristics which distinguish mankind from animal-kind become almost inoperative. Without association there is no speech, for speech is but the conductor of thought between two or more individuals; without words abstract thought cannot flow, for words, or some other form of expression, are the channels of thought, and with the absence of words the fountain of thought is in a measure sealed.
At the very threshold of progress social crystallization sets in; something there is in every man that draws him to other men. In the relationship of the sexes, this principle of human attraction reaches its height, where the husband and wife, as it were, coalesce, like the union of one drop of water with another, forming one globule. As unconsciously and as positively are men constrained to band together into societies as are particles forced to unite and form crystals. And herein is a law as palpable and as fixed as any law in nature; a law, which if unfulfilled, would result in the extermination of the race. But the law of human attraction is not perfect, does not fulfill its purpose apart from the law of human repulsion, for as we have seen, until war and despotism and superstition and other dire evils come, there is no progress. Solitude is insupportable, even beasts will not live alone; and men are more dependent on each other than beasts. Solitude carries with it a sense of inferiority and insufficiency; the faculties are stinted, lacking completeness, whereas volume is added to every individual faculty by union.
COÖPERATION AND THE DIVISION OF LABOR.
But association simply, is not enough; nothing materially great can be accomplished without union and coöperation. It is only when aggregations of families intermingle with other aggregations, each contributing its quota of original knowledge to the other; when the individual gives up some portion of his individual will and property for the better protection of other rights and property; when he entrusts society with the vindication of his rights; when he depends upon the banded arm of the nation, and not alone upon his own arm for redress of grievances, that progress is truly made. And with union and coöperation comes the division of labor by which means each, in some special department, is enabled to excel. By fixing the mind wholly upon one thing, by constant repetition and practice, the father hands down his art to the son, who likewise, improves it for his descendants. It is only by doing a new thing, or by doing an old thing better than it has ever been done before, that progress is made. Under the régime of universal mediocrity the nation does not advance; it is to the great men,—great in things great or small, that progress is due; it is to the few who think, to the few who dare to face the infinite universe of things and step, if need be, outside an old-time boundary, that the world owes most.
Originally implanted is the germ of intelligence, at the first but little more than brute instinct. This germ in unfolding undergoes a double process; it throws off its own intuitions and receives in return those of another. By an interchange of ideas, the experiences of one are made known for the benefit of another, the inventions of one are added to the inventions of another; without intercommunication of ideas the intellect must lie dormant. Thus it is with individuals, and with societies it is the same. Acquisitions are eminently reciprocal. In society, wealth, art, literature, polity, and religion act and react on each other; in science a fusion of antagonistic hypotheses is sure to result in important developments. Before much progress can be made, there must be established a commerce between nations for the interchange of aggregated human experiences, so that the arts and industries acquired by each may become the property of all the rest, and thus knowledge becomes scattered by exchange, in place of each having to work out every problem for himself. Thus viewed, civilization is a partnership entered into for mutual improvement; a joint stock operation, in which the product of every brain contributes to a general fund for the benefit of all. No one can add to his own store of knowledge without adding to the general store; every invention, and discovery, however insignificant, is a contribution to civilization.
In savagism, union and coöperation are imperfectly displayed. The warriors of one tribe unite against the warriors of another; a band will coöperate in pursuing a herd of buffalo; even one nation will sometimes unite with another nation against a third, but such combinations are temporary, and no sooner is the particular object accomplished than the confederation disbands, and every man is again his own master. The moment two or more persons unite for the accomplishment of some purpose which shall tend permanently to meliorate the condition of themselves and others, that moment progress begins. The wild beasts of the forest, acting in unison, were physically able to rise up and extirpate primitive man, but could beasts in reality confederate and do this, such confederation of wild beasts could become civilized.
THE SAVAGE HATES CIVILIZATION.