In view of this contrast we must hesitate to attribute any substantial share in human development to biological factors, and our hesitation is increased when we consider the factors on which social change depends. It is in the department of knowledge and industry that advance is most rapid and certain, and the reason is perfectly clear. It is that on this side each generation can build on the work of its predecessors. A man of very moderate mathematical capacity today can solve problems which puzzled Newton, because he has available the work of Newton and of many another since Newton's time. In the department of ethics the case is different. Each man's character has to be formed anew, and though teaching goes for much, it is not everything. The individual in the end works out his own salvation. Where there is true ethical progress is in the advance of ethical conceptions and principles which can be handed on; of laws and institutions which can be built up, maintained, and improved. That is to say, there is progress just where the factor of social tradition comes into play and just so far as its influence extends. If the tradition is broken, the race begins again where it stood before the tradition was formed. We may infer that, while the race has been relatively stagnant, society has rapidly developed, and we must conclude that, whether for good or for evil, social changes are mainly determined, not by alterations of racial type, but by modifications of tradition due to the interactions of social causes. Progress is not racial but social.
B. PROGRESS AND SCIENCE
1. Progress and Happiness[337]
Human progress may be properly defined as that which secures the increase of human happiness. Unless it do this, no matter how great a civilization may be, it is not progressive. If a nation rise, and extend its sway over a vast territory, astonishing the world with its power, its culture, and its wealth, this alone does not constitute progress. It must first be shown that its people are happier than they would otherwise have been. If a people be seized with a rage for art, and, in obedience to their impulses or to national decrees, the wealth of that people be laid out in the cultivation of the fine arts, the employment of master artists, the decoration of temples, public and private buildings, and the embellishment of streets and grounds, no matter to what degree of perfection this purpose be carried out, it is not to progress unless greater satisfaction be derived therefrom than was sacrificed in the deprivations which such a course must occasion. To be progressive in the true sense, it must work an increase in the sum total of human enjoyment. When we survey the history of civilization, we should keep this truth in view, and not allow ourselves to be dazzled by the splendor of pageantry, the glory of heraldry, or the beauty of art, literature, philosophy, or religion, but should assign to each its true place as measured by this standard.
It cannot be denied that civilization, by the many false practices which it has introduced, by the facilities which its very complexity affords to the concealment of crime, and by the monstrous systems of corruption which fashion, caste, and conventionality are enabled to shelter, is the direct means of rendering many individuals miserable in the extreme; but these are the necessary incidents to its struggles to advance under the dominion of natural forces alone.
It would involve a great fallacy to deduce from this the conclusion that civilization begets misery or reduces the happiness of mankind. Against this gross but popular mistake may be cited the principle before introduced, which is unanimously accepted by biologists, that an organism is perfect in proportion as its organs are numerous and varied. This is because, the more organs there are, the greater is the capacity for enjoyment. For this enjoyment is quantitative as well as qualitative, and the greater the number of faculties, the greater is the possible enjoyment derivable from their normal exercise. To say that primitive man is happier than enlightened man, is equivalent to saying that an oyster or a polyp enjoys more than an eagle or an antelope. This could be true only on the ground that the latter, in consequence of their sensitive organisms, suffer more than they enjoy; but if to be happy is to escape from all feeling, then it were better to be stones or clods, and destitute of conscious sensibility. If this be the happiness which men should seek, then is the Buddhist in the highest degree consistent when he prays for the promised Nirvâna, or annihilation. But this is not happiness—it is only the absence of it. For happiness can only be increased by increasing the capacity for feeling, or emotion, and, when this is increased, the capacity for suffering is likewise necessarily increased, and suffering must be endured unless sufficient sagacity accompanies it to prevent this consequence. And that is the truest progress which, while it indefinitely multiplies and increases the facilities for enjoyment, furnishes at the same time the most effective means of preventing discomfort, and, as nearly all suffering is occasioned by the violation of natural laws through ignorance of or error respecting those laws, therefore that is the truest progress which succeeds in overcoming ignorance and error.
Therefore, we may enunciate the principle that progress is in proportion to the opportunities or facilities for exercising the faculties and satisfying desire.
2. Progress and Prevision[338]
We have confused rapidity of change with progress. We have confused the breaking down of barriers by which advance is made possible with advance itself.
We had been told that the development of industry and commerce had brought about such an interdependence of peoples that war was henceforth out of the question—at least upon a vast scale. But it is now clear that commerce also creates jealousies and rivalries and suspicions which are potent for war. We were told that nations could not long finance a war under modern conditions; economists had demonstrated that to the satisfaction of themselves and others. We see now that they had underrated both the production of wealth and the extent to which it could be mobilized for destructive purposes. We were told that the advance of science had made war practically impossible. We now know that science has not only rendered the machinery of war more deadly but has also increased the powers of resistance and endurance when war comes. If all this does not demonstrate that the forces which have brought about complicated and extensive changes in the fabric of society do not of themselves generate progress, I do not know what a demonstration would be. Has man subjugated physical nature only to release forces beyond his control?