CHAPTER III
The Drama of Civilization
Coal embodies our chance of a world civilization. It is the material form in which the possibility of peace and ease, beauty and learning, cooperation and brotherhood, have come to the human race.
Before coal was harnessed to the looms of England, before the stored energy of the sun replaced hand labor at the wheels and gears of her newly invented machines, there was no such thing as a world civilization. There was indeed nothing to base a world civilization upon, for civilization implies leisure consciously to cooperate with other people, to make life not merely endurable but beautiful and pleasant as well, leisure to subordinate the instinct to acquire to the instinct to enjoy, the acquisitive instinct to the consciousness of kind—and the race as a whole had its entire attention focussed on the effort to get enough food and clothing and shelter so that it would live and not die. For only as the acquisitive instinct was dominant and successful could men survive either singly or in groups, before the coming of coal.
The limits of civilization were primarily the mechanical limitations of man's ability to produce. So long as his only ways to drive machinery were by wind and water, the strength of domesticated animals, and his own brawn, it was almost impossible for him to accumulate sufficient reserves of food and clothing so that instead of thinking what he should eat and what he should put on, he could think a little of how to make life good. And whenever by some fortunate chance a group of men did get together a small hoard, parallel with the growth of each tiny surplus grew the hatred of the outside groups who wished to possess it, and the need to defend it by force. So that when here and there through the centuries pocketed civilizations did arise, they were civilizations perpetually armed for defence and with the sword in their hands. And though the spirit of man in such places as India and Egypt, in China, Persia, Palestine, Greece, Carthage, Rome, and the free Italian cities, as soon as the pressure was removed ever so little, did flower into religion and art and science, these favored oases were surrounded by crowding, hungry multitudes who pressed in and in till at last every one of these was overwhelmed.
Before the coming of coal man had to satisfy his longing for peace and knowledge and companionship through his dreams. These have come down to us in the legends of India and Israel, China, Greece, and our own Nordic ancestors which perpetually play about the fabulous treasure—the Golden Fleece, the land of milk and honey, the Volsung's miraculous hoard—pathetic symbols of plenty, liberation, and the possibility of brotherhood. But until coal came there was no way to make these dreams come true. For survival was only to the strong, or to the cunning, or to those who were willing to grow fat on the leanness of others, and every respite from the basic business of keeping alive was extravagantly paid for either by oneself or another—before coal came.
But with the coming of coal there rose the possibility of producing more than enough to keep everybody alive. A tireless bond servant had been given to the race whose power grew as it was called on, until now in the United States where coal is used most indefatigably, each family has the equivalent of thirty human servants, whose use does not need to involve the exploitation of man by man. For the first time there is the possibility of all having enough,—of a world surplus on which to base civilization.
It was too much to expect that this possibility should be understood by a race which had never before got further than to see that if their family, their town, their nation, was to have ease and plenty, it must be quick to get as much of the world's store of food and goods as it could,—and to acquire them in spite of the fact that the other groups, who were hot after them also, might perish if they did not get their share. They did not see that with the coming of coal the supply was practically unlimited, and so it was not man's sense of brotherhood but his acquisitive instinct, checked and balked for ages, that first found channels of release when coal came.