“On the other hand, after observing how the processes that have brought things to their present stage are still going on, not with a decreasing rapidity indicating approach to cessation, but with an increasing rapidity that implies long continuance and immense transformations; there follows the conviction that the remote future has in store, forms of social life higher than any we have imagined: there comes a faith transcending that of the Radical, whose aim is some re-organisation admitting of comparison to organisations which exist. And while this conception of societies has naturally evolved, beginning with small and simple types which have their short existences and disappear, advancing to higher types that are larger, more complex, and longer-lived, coming to still-higher types like our own, great in size, complexity, and duration, and promising types transcending these in times after existing societies have died away—while this conception of societies implies that in the slow course of things changes almost immeasurable in amount are possible, it also implies that but small amounts of such changes are possible, within “short periods”—Herbert Spencer: The Study of Sociology, Chapter XVI.
It has repeatedly been necessary, in the course of this survey, to stimulate the indulgence of the reader by a reminder, based upon the speed of our progress in the past and its steady acceleration in recent decades, that there is much more danger of underestimating than of exaggerating the advances likely to have been achieved a hundred years hence. In order to guard against misconception of the manner in which these advances will be brought about, it is now advisable to mention specifically what has been once or twice hinted parenthetically, namely, the fact that the progress of the Future is certain to be produced in a way perfectly capable of being deduced from the manner of our progress in the past. One of the most fruitful causes of error in existing prognostications has been the tacit assumption that, at some vague moment in the spacious middle-distance of the coming time, sudden and cataclysmal movements of society, and also unexpected and revolutionary discoveries in science, will occur: and it is as a precaution against one aspect of this mistake that a weighty quotation from the writings of one of the sanest and most perspicuous thinkers who have ever written upon that science of society which he may almost be said to have created has been recalled to the memory of the reader at the head of this chapter.
The forecast now almost concluded, imperfect and visionary as it must necessarily be, was commenced with some reflections on the rate of future progress made probable by the movements of the recent past. But nothing whatever can be deduced from what history, remote or recent, shows us, to suggest that any stable institution can be created otherwise than by steady development: it is only the speed of development which is likely to alter, and even this will only alter by a progression gaining impetus from the influence of its own components. Whether we consider material improvements effected by science and invention and the interaction of these; or social improvements effected by readjustment of the conditions of life forced upon us through the influence of intellectual and moral changes in the individual units of society making themselves felt as aggregated forces; the manner of attainment is nearly identical. It is commonly objected to this view, that whereas science and invention commonly progress in a movement characterised (so to speak) by a succession of jerks, social conditions change imperceptibly. But thus to object is to overlook the fact that, while no doubt society develops from time to time certain needs whose growth is so steady as to preclude the possibility of pointing to a final moment when the satisfaction of them has become at length inevitable, yet, when this satisfaction is gained by legislative enactment, there is always a moment when the public, ripe for a given reform, takes definite possession of it. For example (to name a comparatively recent case), no doubt the desire for some method by which the public could distinguish between foreign and home-made articles of merchandise had for some time been generally felt before the passing of the Merchandise Marks Act fixed a moment at which all dubiety on the subject would vanish, by endeavouring to require that any imported object bearing marks calculated to give the impression that it had been manufactured in England should also bear a definite and correct statement as to its place of origin. Whether we consider this enactment to have been desirable or not, it is impossible to deny that there was a specific moment when it took effect. And similarly, the bill for the repression of secret commissions in business has come so near to being passed through Parliament that many people imagine it to be already law, though it is not, at the time of writing, even (in a technical sense) before the legislature. Without question, therefore, public opinion is ripe for this reform, and has with great gradualness become so: but the reform itself, when it takes place (as it may quite conceivably have taken place by the time this book is printed), will occur suddenly. There will be a day when the manager of a business house could, with immunity from any overt punishment except the loss of his employment, receive a secret bribe from another house with which he was doing business on behalf of his master; and a succeeding day on which, for the same offence against commercial integrity, he could be charged before a magistrate and ultimately punished by the law. Thus the difference between scientific progress and social progress is not so great as has been sometimes imagined. And on the other hand, although to the casual observer scientific discoveries and new inventions often appear to have been attained at a single step, to a person interested in the particular branch of science, or the particular path of invention where a new achievement occurs, it is generally quite evident that the latter has been led up to by steady progress extending over a long period. The existence of unidentified constituents in atmospheric air, for instance, must have been long suspected before the isolation of argon gave, to the public eye, the impression of a sudden discovery: and astronomical disturbances have generally puzzled a great army of observers for a long time before the public is indulged by the announcement of a “new” star in the heavens.
To the reader who has been good enough to grant any validity at all to the arguments by which I have sought to show that, as time goes on, there will be a decreasing tendency to attempt desired reforms by legislative process, and an increasing tendency to make the public the guardian of its own security, it will be evident that any differences which exist between the nature of scientific progress and the nature of social progress are likely to be accentuated rather than diminished in the course of this century. A change brought about by the spontaneous activity of the people naturally occurs without the definite line of demarcation created by an Act of Parliament.
But there is one way in which the analogy between scientific and social progress will be noteworthy. It is a commonplace of industrial history that an improvement in one machine, or the introduction of some novel method of applying power, always produces, and may very often necessitate, modifications in a number of procedures not previously seen to be connected with it: and great results from little causes flow. No one foresaw, when Mr Edison discovered the differences in the electrical conductivity of carbon induced by slight variations of pressure—a discovery at first utilised only in the micro-tasimeter, the appliance used for measuring small changes in the size of objects submitted to it—that the same discovery would presently render commercially practicable the electrical transmission of speech and numerous other conveniences, themselves the progenitors of fresh inventions now in constant use. Similarly, political and social changes quite easy to foresee will undoubtedly have effects which in their entirety no one can possibly foresee. The rate of advancement cannot be calculated like a geometrical progression: all that we can hope to do is to realise more or less vaguely the acceleration which the action and interaction of anticipated (and often antagonistic) forces will produce; the general manner of the world’s progress representing the resultant of their activities. What we must constantly keep in mind is the fact that changes in the institutions of society can only be stable when they are the result of corresponding changes in the temper of the age which yields them. As this temper is a thing of gradual development, we must believe that many temporary expedients will have to be tolerated by advanced thinkers since (as Spencer remarks) society can only be held together when the institutions existing, and the conceptions generally current, are in tolerable harmony. We can foresee many changes which will be in beneficent existence a hundred years hence; but it would be irrational to show impatience because these changes cannot be immediately proposed; since, being not yet in harmony with the current conceptions of the world, their immediate adoption would be mischievous instead of beneficial, and their results anarchic instead of stable. For a great many years we must go on passing laws for the regulation of social life, which we can quite easily perceive that the altered social life of a future age will not need, because they would be injurious to it. The zealous reformer who wishes, as we must all wish, to help the world in its wearied way to perfection must aim rather to assist the mind of people to demand greater reforms than it could as yet assimilate, than to procure the arrival of reforms for which society is not yet ripe, and must be content with the effort
“... to ease the burden of the world
Laboriously tracing what must be
And what may yet be better.”
To say this is not to deprecate the greatest possible energy in all endeavour that makes for progress. The doctrine, founded upon a perception of the impossibility of regenerating society except by utilising the natural and evolutionary movement of society itself, that nothing ought to be done except to wait upon this movement, betrays an evident confusion of thought, akin to the fallacy of the schoolmen, commonly called realism, partly adopted by Comte. “Society” is not in itself an entity separable from the units of society; a progress of society is only possible as the result of human volition progressively exercised. What we have to look for is a steady enlightenment of public ideals, issuing in the triumph of wisdom over folly, of virtue over laxity, of progress over reaction and inertia. Always there will be differences of opinion, exercising a salutary check upon hasty public action, and giving time for the establishment of harmony between the spirit of the age and the new institutions which mark its progress.
Naturally there will have been many changes in the material of daily life which, either because they did not fit in with any one of the divisions into which a forecast of the future naturally fell, or because the consideration of them would have obscured the exposition of matters more immediately connected with each other, it has not been possible to mention. For example, we have had occasion to debate the methods by which men and women will transact the business of trade and commerce with the aid of certain foreseen conveniences; and we have glanced at the probable future aspect of dwellings, conveyances and similar conveniences; but nothing has been said as to the clothes in which our descendants are likely to attire themselves or the enjoyment of these advantages. The latter and a few other minor subjects may perhaps be considered now, without very much mutual connection.