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diff --git a/29639-8.txt b/29639-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..07801a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/29639-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2099 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Is civilization a disease?, by Stanton Coit + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Is civilization a disease? + +Author: Stanton Coit + +Release Date: August 8, 2009 [EBook #29639] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IS CIVILIZATION A DISEASE? *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + + + + + +Barbara Weinstock Lectures on The Morals of Trade + +IS CIVILIZATION A DISEASE? By STANTON COIT. + +SOCIAL JUSTICE WITHOUT SOCIALISM. By JOHN BATES CLARK. + +THE CONFLICT BETWEEN PRIVATE MONOPOLY AND GOOD CITIZENSHIP. By +JOHN GRAHAM BROOKS. + +COMMERCIALISM AND JOURNALISM. By HAMILTON HOLT. + +THE BUSINESS CAREER IN ITS PUBLIC RELATIONS. By ALBERT SHAW. + + + + +IS CIVILIZATION A DISEASE? + + + +By + +STANTON COIT + + + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY +The Riverside Press Cambridge +1917 + +COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE REGENTS OF THE +UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA + +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + +_Published May 1917_ + + + + +BARBARA WEINSTOCK +LECTURES ON THE MORALS OF TRADE + + +This series will contain essays by representative scholars and men of +affairs dealing with the various phases of the moral law in its bearing +on business life under the new economic order, first delivered at the +University of California on the Weinstock foundation. + + + + +IS CIVILIZATION A DISEASE? + + + + +I. TRADE TYPICAL OF CIVILIZATION + + +In choosing "The Morals of Trade" as the general title of the Weinstock +Lectureship, I am informed that its founder meant the word "Trade" to +be understood in its comprehensive sense, as commensurate with our +whole system of socialized wealth--at least, upon the present occasion +I shall interpret it in this broad way. + + +I shall furthermore ask you to consider our system of socialized +wealth--its practice and principles--in relation to the whole of that +vast artificial structure of human life which is labelled +"Civilization," and which began to prevail some ten thousand years ago. +Such a comprehensive sweep of vision is, in my judgment, necessary if +we are to view trade in true human perspective; nor can we estimate the +degree of praise or blame we ought to confer upon it until we have +determined the worth of civilization itself. For trade is not only +bound up inextricably with the whole of our social order, but, as it +seems to me, manifests in a most acute form the universal character of +civilization in general. We must therefore discover the structural +principle which began to co-ordinate the lives of any group of human +beings when their tribe finally passed out of barbarism. Having +discovered this, we shall be able to judge whether by its +ever-advancing application to the life of men, and its ever-increasing +domination over their wills, it has furthered the cause of ideal +humanity or not. If we find that it has been essentially humane, we +shall have arrived at the conclusion that its offspring, trade, is +moral. If, however, we unearth in the very principle of historic +civilization something radically wrong, anti-human and inhuman, and if +we can discover another co-ordinating principle which is humane and +feasible, civilization will then be seen to be a thing to be +"superseded"--as Nietzsche thought man himself was--and trade, its +latest and lustiest issue, will be felt to be a usurper deserving to be +disinherited in favor of some true economic child of the "Holy Spirit +of Man." + + + + +II. IS CIVILIZATION JUST? + + +In order to open such lines of anthropological investigation and +ethical reflection, I have raised the question: "Is Civilization a +Disease?" + +Had I asked, "Is Civilization Christian?" I should have defeated my own +end. You would have answered "No" as soon as you saw the subject of my +discourse announced, and would have stayed at home. But you might still +have given your ethical sanction to trade. You might have said, "It +does not pretend to be Christian; but that is nothing against it, for +the vital principle of Christianity is sentimental and impracticable: +and what won't work can't be right." + +Had I raised the question in the form, "Could trade ever have emanated +from an intelligent motive of universal love--of deference for the +humanity in every man?" you would have replied, "Never!" But you might +have consoled yourself with the thought that it is only a small part of +our boasted civilization. We have art and education and family life and +monogamy and religion; and these come in as correctives, so that trade, +although not conceived of benevolence and not bearing the stamp of +humanity in its character, is comparatively harmless under the +restraints laid upon it. Then, too, the idea of universal love savors +of theology, and would have put my lecture under that general ban which +in philosophical circles has been set up against theological ethics. + +Indeed, I even shrank from asking, "Is civilization unethical, or +wrong, or bad?" For nowadays we find moral judgments more attractive +when they are disguised or at least slightly veiled. When we are really +curious to know what is good, we become shy; we are not sure that our +neighbors may not put a cynical interpretation upon any appearance of +enthusiasm in our effort to find out what is right. Anticipating such +delicacy in my prospective audience of to-night, I threw a +physiological drapery, not to say pathological, over the ethical +bareness of my theme, by introducing into it the idea of disease. For +while it may no longer be a stigma to be un-Christian, and while some +have been trying to break all the traditional tables of moral values +and prevent any new ones from being inscribed, nobody, so far as I have +been able to learn, has denied that disease, whether physical or only +mental, is an evil and a thing which it would be wicked to spread for +the mere delight in spreading it. Happily, there is still astir +throughout the community an active, virile, and unashamed desire--and +not only among women--for health. And in alertness and resourcefulness +it is second only to the desire for wealth itself. The result is, that +if anything which we have admired and been proud of has been discovered +by experts to be of the nature of disease, we want to be notified, so +that we may reverse our sentiments towards it, and if possible destroy +it. The word "disease" is still plainly one of reproach. + +On the other hand, the very term "civilization" sets emotions vibrating +of deference and awe towards the institution it signifies. Indeed, +pride in being civilized is still so nearly universal--especially among +Americans--that many persons upon hearing the point mooted whether +civilization be a disease or not, are disposed to resent the bare +suggestion as smacking of whimsicality. + + + + +III. A METAPHORICAL USE OF THE WORD "DISEASE" + + +I, therefore, hasten to hide myself thus early in my discourse behind +the man, bigger than I, who many years ago first aroused this question +in my mind, a question which, having once fastened itself upon the +soul, may allow one no rest and may prevent one from ever again going +on gayly through life singing with Browning's _Pippa_:-- + + God's in His Heaven-- + All's right with the world. + +It is now twenty-six years since I first read Mr. Edward Carpenter's +penetrating essay, then but recently published, entitled _Civilization: +Its Cause and Cure_. The very name of the book made one ask: "Is +civilization then a disease?" And if one deigned, as I did, to read +the essay carefully, one found the author defending the affirmative +in all seriousness and with much thoroughness, and displaying acute +analytical power throughout his argument. The charge of whimsicality +could not hold against him. The author showed an adequate insight into +the social structure which is called civilization. What was equally +essential, his knowledge of the latest speculations as to the nature +of disease,--theories which have not yet been superseded and which +when applied by Sir Almroth Wright proved to be most fruitful working +hypotheses,--Carpenter's knowledge of these was comprehensive and +discriminating. He accordingly never pressed the analogy between +civilization and disease unduly--he knew that it could not be made to +fit all particulars. And he never fell into any confusion of thought; +he easily avoided being caught in his own metaphor. He employed it only +within limits and only when it rendered the moral issue more concrete +and vivid. Because he had a scientific knowledge both of civilization +and of disease, he could safely use language which appealed to the +moral emotions as an aid to our moral judgment. + +Indeed, Mr. Carpenter showed himself not only scientific in his ethics, +but what is much rarer in these days, ethical in his science. For it is +questionable whether one can ever arrive at any moral judgment except +there be a deep and strong emotional accompaniment to one's rational +investigation. If we do not take sides with humanity at the outset, if +we eliminate all preference for certain kinds of conduct and goals of +pursuit which grew up in the human mind before we began our scientific +criticism of morals, how shall we ever get back again into the sphere +of distinctively ethical judgment? For instance, how could we strike +out from the field of observation the something which we count the +moral factor in life, and then proceed to investigate the morals of +trade? Evidently we must in every ethical enquiry start by taking sides +with that trend of the Race-Will in us, which moves plainly towards an +ever-increasing self-knowledge, self-reverence and self-control on the +part of man. For it is this race-will in us whereby we have the +capacity and interest to call any line of conduct or any disposition of +the mind good or bad, right or wrong. + + + + +IV. OUTLINE OF MY ARGUMENT + + +Nor do I simply mean that we must show loyalty to life as opposed to +death, or to health as against disease. It is more than that. The +lifeward effort of some beings clashes with the corresponding attempt +to live on the part of others, and the actualization of one impersonal +ideal of beauty, truth, or society exacts the sacrifice of one set of +human lives and favors the survival of another, so that an opposition +in ideals may mean an antagonism in the struggle of classes and masses +of men for existence. There is a combat, and we are called upon to +choose which side to encourage and support. One and the same state of +things often spells disease and death to the one party and life and +health to the other. I shall be able on this account to show that +whether civilization appears to us as a disease or not depends upon +what sort of a person we are, and to which side we are constitutionally +disposed to attach ourselves. To show this, I will first draw an +analogy on the biological plane and then I will cite the judgment of +great humanists who have sided against civilization. After that, I will +submit instances in civilization itself for your own judgment. Only +then shall I return to Edward Carpenter, to give a _résumé_ of his +position, and to point out how far and why I agree with him, and at +what stage I part company with him and for what reasons. Then I shall +attempt to present a bird's-eye view of the steps in human advancement +towards civilization as the best anthropologists have traced them. +Thus, we shall be able to see our historic social order in right +relation to that ideal humanity which our own spiritual constitution +projects prophetically above the threshold of our consciousness. Then, +if ever, we shall be in a state of mind to judge whether the thing +which civilization has begotten after its own kind and named "trade" is +good or bad. + + + + +V. MAN _VERSUS_ CIVILIZATION + + +Now to my biological analogy: It was recently my privilege to be +conducted over the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New +York City. You will remember that to it some millions of dollars have +been assigned, for the purpose of discovering the cause and cure of +bacterial diseases. In one department of the Institute a Japanese +professor showed under the rays of the ultra-microscope specimens of a +remarkable bacillus, the existence of which he had been the first to +detect. It was that kind of bacillus which, if it is present in the +marrow of a man's spinal cord, induces a state of the body that is +called locomotor-ataxy. This state is one in which the man who +manifests it is unable to control properly the movements of his feet +and legs. He has lost command from the supreme cerebral centre; the +lower nerve ganglia seem to have become insubordinate and to act on +their own initiative. But is locomotor-ataxy a disease? Clearly your +answer will depend upon whether you are on the side of the man or the +microbe. If you sympathize with the man and are thinking of him, it is +a disease; but if your heart is with the microbe there in the spinal +cord, the locomotor-ataxy will be to you life and health abundant, and +that not only for the individual specimen whom you pick out for +observation, but for his whole family which, as the ataxy advances, +reproduces itself proportionately, and with an inconceivable rapidity. + +What is to determine whether you are on the side of the man or the +microbe? Surely the constitutional bent of your emotional and +volitional preference. It is not a matter for the science of fact to +consider. Mere intellect, mere reason, knows nothing of health and +disease, unless it assumes this distinction as its starting-point. It +knows only the order of sequences. Suppose, then, we were to find that +civilization had pitted itself against Man, so that it was a case of +Man _versus_ Civilization, as Herbert Spencer conceived an antagonism +between Man and the State. Should we not be compelled, in order to +decide what condition of things was one of health, to open up conscious +relations with our deepest trend of heart and will, and find out +whether we flowed with humanity or with civilization? Nor would there +be any escape from the necessity of remaining true to our own trend and +favoring whatever flowed the same way. In case of a clash between the +social order and humanity, the health of each is to the other as a +disease and, therefore, the question inevitably arises, "Which is in +our judgment to be preserved?" and each one's answer must depend on +whether he finds himself after full deliberation irresistibly drawn to +the one side or the other. Civilization may be to man as the microbe to +the locomotor-ataxy subject; but innate civilizationists would delight +in the surrender of humanity to the social order. To them what would +humanity be but civilization's opportunity, its habitat, its +food-supply? I am saying that, to prove trade immoral it is not enough +to show that man is a sacrifice to the economic order; you would be +required also to demonstrate that man ought not to be sacrificed to any +social order, that he must always be the final end, and never a mere +means. But that is exactly what you can never demonstrate to any one +who is not innately, spiritually, naturally, on the side of man against +all other objects of interest. I mean that there is no arguing with any +one who constitutionally hesitates to side with man. You might pray for +such a one; but it would be folly to reason with him, for the +foundation is not in him upon which your reasonings could mount. All +this seems to me necessary to say, because I get the impression from +books on political economy that most writers and readers first +dehumanize themselves as a prerequisite to a discussion of the morals +of trade. + + + + +VI. THE LIVING FOUNDATIONS + + +In one of his allegorical poems, James Russell Lowell depicted the +antagonism of sentiment to which I am referring as existing between +Christ and his conventional worshippers. The poem is a slight thing: +although strict in metre and perfect in rhyme, it is too flowing and +fantastic to be classed high in literature. But if we view it as a +scientific essay in dynamic sociology, it is admirable beyond +criticism. As its meaning is quite separable from its form and sensuous +contents, I therefore ask you not to think of it as poetry or Christian +mythology, but to regard it only as a compact treatise in ethical +economics. Because this poem is familiar to you all, it will serve my +object the better. It represents Christ as coming back to earth after +eighteen hundred years, and all the grandees as rendering Him elaborate +homage. Nor do they omit to direct His attention to His own image set +up in the places of highest honor. But still, according to our dynamic +sociologist:-- + + ... wherever his steps they led, + The Lord in sorrow bent down His head, + And from under the heavy foundation stones + The Son of Mary heard bitter groans. + + And in church and palace and judgment-hall, + He marked great fissures that rent the wall, + And opened wider and still more wide + As the living foundations heaved and sighed. + + "Have ye founded your thrones and altars, then, + On the bodies and souls of living men? + And think ye that building shall endure + Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor?" + + * * * * * + + Then Christ sought out an artisan-- + A low-browed, stunted, haggard man, + And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin + Pushed from her faintly Want and Sin. + + These set He in the midst of them, + And as they drew back their garment-hem + For fear of defilement, "Lo, here," said He, + "The images ye have made of Me!" + +To-day no one denies that the foundations are alive and that they heave +and sigh. In our age one need not be of the order of Christ to have +ears to hear the bitter groans. Everybody hears them, if one may judge +from the universal reports of the daily papers. Indeed, how to suppress +the groans or to prevent them from becoming more articulate and +coherent is the most vexing problem of the government of the most +civilized state in the world. At least Prince von Bülow so represents +the case in his book entitled _Imperial Germany_. And the party leaders +of the United States have all been alert for two decades to discover +how to render impossible an upheaval of the living foundations of +America. There is, as I say, no denying the fact that the foundations +are alive, and that they not only groan bitterly, but--what is more +serious--heave threateningly. Whether any one person, however, is on +the side of the living foundations, as according to Lowell Jesus Christ +was, or on the side of the thrones and altars, as his conventional +worshippers are depicted to be by Lowell and many another American +writer since, depends upon what the special person's innate taste is. +The thrones and altars have become more and more magnificent in beauty, +costliness, and splendor, with the progress of civilization; but not so +the mob, the rabble, the "underworld," whose stirrings have rent the +walls. Christ's taste, it would seem, was not primarily aesthetic. But +then not every one is a son of Mary, and not every carpenter's son +sides with the class to which his father belonged. + + + + +VII. CIVILIZATION CONDEMNED BY CHRIST AND ALL SONS OF MAN + + +I said that after my biological analogy I should cite the judgments of +some great sages who saw in civilization an enemy of man. Of these I +have just been mentioning the greatest. The Founder of Christianity set +His Will dead against the established order of society, rebuking the +upholders of thrones and altars, and becoming the champion of the +outcasts. The kingdom, He announced, was not to be of this our world of +moneylenders. No wonder the rulers of His day gave Him short quarter, +so that after three years of agitation this speaker of rousing parables +to the multitude, who had no bank account, was silenced forever. +Likewise, it was a foregone conclusion that every disciple of Christ +whose spirit was to be set aflame by His--like St. Francis, and +Savonarola, Wycliffe, Luther (at the first), and John Wesley--should +turn in pity to the living foundations and in horror of spirit from the +entombing thrones. + +But the protest against the sacrifice of man to mammonized society has +been no monopoly of Christ and those spiritually descended from Him. +The ancient Hebrew prophets taught equally a kingdom that was to be +diametrically the opposite in principle from that which prevailed in +the Jewish State or in Babylon, and later in Macedon or Rome. It should +be noted that the prophets and Christ accompanied their censure of the +formative principle, upon which nations and traders had built up their +dealings with one another, with a proposed substitute. But if we go +back to Gautama and the India of his time, we find that the Buddha's +protest against civilization was still more extreme; for he did not +wait to submit a new principle before condemning the old. Indeed, he +felt that self-conscious existence for the individual, as he beheld it +everywhere, was a tragic calamity, and altogether unendurable. +Preferable would be the extinction utterly of all individualized +selfhood. He would isolate the individual and submit him to a +discipline, the object of which was escape forever from the wheel of +existence. He advocated not mere individualistic anarchy, but the +annihilation of individuality as preferable to civilized life. A third +of the human race still believe in his discipline, and in the +alternative he proposed to the highly developed type of social order +which prevailed in his time in India. + +Nor do Gautama, the prophets, and Christ stand alone. All the great +humanists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, although +professing no discipleship of earlier teachers, were at one with them +in condemning the root-principle of the existing co-ordination of human +lives in politics, economics, and education. The cry of Rousseau, "Back +to Nature!" and all the watchwords of Voltaire and the encyclopædists, +were so many summonses to revolt against the entire order of organized +society. The same meaning underlay all the writings of Fourier and +Prudhomme, of Owen and the other English communists. It was as if they +all said, "Civilization is a disease; let us rid ourselves of it." With +the socialists, Marx and Lassalle, and the anarchists, like Stepniak +and Kropotkin, the condemnation of society, as it is and always had +been, was equally radical and sweeping. Even humanists less violent in +their protest, not so negative in their criticism, nor so positive in +their offered substitutes, like Carlyle and Emerson, like Shelley and +Whitman and Swinburne, like Henry George and Henry Demorest Lloyd, all +aim to create in us the judgment that civilization, as it has been from +the first, is no friend to the best in any man. No lover of humanity +seems ever to have worshipped the god who rules over the things that +are established. They all agree with the mediæval theologians that this +world has been given over to the Prince of Darkness. + + + + +VIII. TWO INSTANCES OF CIVILIZATION + + +We may come to wonder the less at this adverse judgment when we have +considered two instances of the effects which the highest types of +civilization have had upon the masses of mankind who were brought under +its sway. Take ancient Egypt and ancient Athens. Go back to the +building of the pyramids. Although they are among the earliest +monuments of civilization, they are yet among the most marvellous +illustrations of the mastery of the human mind over matter. Scarcely +three had passed of the ten thousand years which have constituted the +epoch that superseded barbarism, before these vast tombs, or whatever +they are, began to be erected. Lost in admiration as he stands before +the Great Pyramid, how can any one but resent the suggestion that the +social order, which made it at last possible, was a disease, preying +upon the body and spirit of men? + +And yet, if one turns from it to examine that organization of human +labor and that control of the wills of the masses of Egypt which made +it possible, and then again looks up at it, one marks great fissures +that rend the whole mass and one hears the foundations groan. To speak +thus is only an imaginative way of saying, what all the anthropologists +and archaeologists tell us, that to the building of any one of the +great pyramids went the enforced labor of upwards of a million men for +many years, who were literally driven by the lash of the whip. There is +no ground for supposing that the feel of the whip, when the back of an +Egyptian slave began to bleed, was different from what we should suffer +if the stroke fell now on us: nor that cries of pain were any the less +natural then. And we must remember that, according to the unanimous +opinion of anthropologists, the organization of enforced labor is one +of the essentials of civilization. Picturesque and vivid, but not +exaggerated, is the saying of the author of that able book, _The +Nemesis of Nations_: "Civilization begins with the crack of the whip." +Lord Cromer quotes this dictum in his work on Egypt as giving an +epitome of the kind of power behind the civilizing process as it has +always manifested itself in the land of the Nile; and then, lest those +of his readers who live in the glass house of English history should +commit the ridiculous sin of unconscious hypocrisy, he gently but +firmly reminds us that many inhumanities of a similar spirit, +especially towards offenders against the laws of property, were not +suppressed in England till the beginning of the nineteenth century. + +In these comments of mine upon Egypt, I may seem to have appealed to +your sentiment of humanity; but I have never for a moment forgotten +that no instance from history can prove civilization a disease except +to those who are intuitively on the side of the man instead of the +microbe, of the people instead of the pyramid. Such instances, however, +are of value in bringing those who listen to them to a clear +self-consciousness of their own primal preference--and that is a +distinct gain, even when the preference is for the pyramid. + +It cannot be denied that the masses of Egypt were a sacrifice--and not +willingly--to civilization. In the preceding periods of savagery and +barbarism, there had been no such enslavement; the organization of +enforced labor had not proceeded so far. The crack of the whip was +still as yet intermittent. According to Lewis Morgan, civilization is +the progress of man from beast to citizen. Well, until ten thousand +years ago, man was more beast than citizen; but, happily for him, among +the beasts of the field there is nothing parallel to this organization +of labor through the will of one by means of the stroke of the courbash +upon the backs of the many. + + +Some students who shrink in horror from the Egyptian type of +civilization plead nevertheless for the type which was manifested in +ancient Greece. Let us go, then, to Athens in the age of Pericles, that +period of her glory concerning which Professor Freeman somewhere says +that to have lived but ten years in the midst of it would have been +worth a hundred of modern mediocrity. Who can think otherwise as he +recalls the Athenian drama, eloquence and philosophy, architecture and +sculpture? But when one turns to the organization of society, as it was +in Athens, to find out at what human price the splendor was bought of +that dazzling decade when the Parthenon was being built, one finds that +of the inhabitants of that City of the Light scarcely more than thirty +thousand were free men, while two hundred thousand were slaves. Again, +the living foundations groan! And if our heart, by its nature, insists +on going out to the sacrificed, our delight in Athenian _Kultur_ will +be henceforth shot through with anguish. Our only way of escape will be +by absorbing Nietzsche into our system until the poison paralyzes our +impulse to pity. But you may think that if we shift our investigation, +we shall find relief. Let us enquire, then, into the position of woman +instead of the man-slave in Athens. Alas! we are now confronted with +facts which reveal, on the part of one whole half of Greek mankind, the +surrender of their distinctive humanity to civilization, to that +process whereby sentient beings are transformed from beasts into +citizens. Professor Westermarck sums up the attitude of civilization to +women in these terms:-- + + Nowhere else has the difference in culture between men and women + been so immense as in the fully-developed Greek civilization. The + lot of a wife in Greece was retirement and ignorance. She lived in + almost absolute seclusion, in a separate part of the house, + together with her female slaves, deprived of all the educating + influence of male society, and having no place at those public + spectacles which were the chief means of culture. + +He then calls attention to the startling absence from the whole of +Greek literature of any evidence that any man who had received the +training which Greek culture gave ever fell in love with any woman. In +his chapter on the "Subjection of Wives," Professor Westermarck further +says:-- + + The status of wives is in various respects connected with the ideas + held about the female sex in general. Woman is commonly looked upon + as a slight, dainty, and relatively weak creature, destitute of all + nobler qualities. Especially among nations more advanced in culture + she is regarded as intellectually and morally inferior to man. In + Greece, in the historic age, the latter recognized in her no other + end than to minister to his pleasure and to become the mother of + his children. + +This author finds the Greek subjection of wives, as you will have +noted, no exception to the universal rule as to the relation of culture +to womanhood. After speaking of the status of woman among the ancient +Hebrews, and the position assigned her by that greatest instrument of +European civilization called the Roman Catholic Church, he repeats his +generalization in these terms:-- + + Progress in civilization has exercised an unfavorable influence on + the position of woman by widening the gulf between the sexes, as + the higher culture was almost exclusively the prerogative of the + men. Moreover, religion, and especially the great religions of the + world, has contributed to the degradation of the female sex by + regarding woman as unclean. + + + + +IX. THE AGE OF THE FOUNDATIONS AT HAND + + +Is this degradation an inevitable outcome of the animating principle at +the heart of the process whereby sentient beings have thus far been +transformed from beasts into citizens? We are forced to answer "Yes." +Otherwise, why has the relative degradation of woman deepened +universally with the progress of civilization? If Westermarck is right, +it would seem that the lowest foundations of highly developed society +have always consisted of the bodies and souls of women. If such be the +historic fact, it may seem strange that only in our day, but now the +world over, is heard the wail of women crying to be freed. Perhaps the +reason, however, that we for the first time hear the wail is because +never before had the fissures grown wide enough to allow the fainter, +but more piteous, sighs to escape. + +The fact, too, of which there is no doubt, that at last in our age even +women are beginning to be revered as responsible moral and spiritual +agents may be a sign that the Day of the Foundations is come, that the +age of civilization is nearing its close, and that a new era, animated +by a fresh principle of human co-ordination, is at hand. There is at +least evidence that many women are asking: "Are the products of +civilization worth the price which we women have been compelled to pay, +in order that they may exist? Is our subjection justifiable?" In reply, +the men who entertain an innate contempt for woman answer, "Yes"; those +who are moved by the extreme opposite of sentiment have arrived at the +bitter, though chivalrous, thought, "Better the non-existence of the +human race than the continued sacrifice of its womankind"; while even +the sons of the golden mean in judgment go so far as to say that not +only the already acquired benefits of civilization, but finer ones and +more abundant, can from now on be attained by some other process, which +will involve no degradation either to workingman or to woman, and which +in structural principle and human effects will differ as much from +civilization as civilization itself differed from the barbarism and +savagery which preceded it. + +My own judgment is, that civilization is nearing its close. Four or +five deadly blows were dealt out to it by four or five events which +happened in the middle of the fifteenth century after Christ, and it +has been staggering ever since. In that century, certain things +occurred which produced the very opposite effect upon the masses of +mankind to that produced by the wonderful thing which had happened ten +thousand years ago and by its occurrence had changed radically the +relation of men and women to the community and to the physical universe +in which they lived. What was begun in the fifteenth century by the +events that took place then, and what was continued as a destructive +process until recently, is, in my judgment, being finished now through +a constructive process which has been set up by certain other +things--some ten or twenty--which have happened since the beginning of +the present century. + + + + +X. A NEW STRUCTURAL PRINCIPLE + + +It has seemed to me necessary at this point in my argument to call +attention to the introduction into social life in the fifteenth century +of a new working principle which has been in direct antagonism to the +basic idea of civilization, because it must be borne in mind that +during the last four centuries the history of Europe and the New World +furnishes illustrations of two conflicting processes of social +integration. Not everything that has happened since the New World was +discovered can be set down to the credit of that process which is still +ascendant in Prussia. Instances, therefore, from modern history which +go against my account of civilization have no weight against my +contention and cannot be raised against me; modern instances must not +only be shown to be facts, but to be vital outputs of the same +principle that animates the old order. To account every co-ordination +of modern social life as an instance of civilization is as if any one +should cite the turbine engine and its achievements and set these down +to the credit of the piston engine. But the idea of the one is wholly +new and not a further evolution of the old. Or it is as if one should +assign the glory of the motor-car to the inventor of the bicycle, or of +the bicycle to the originator of the horse-cart; or as if one should +point to an aeroplane as an illustration of a further stage in the +evolution of the motor-car. It is a fact that the aeroplane came after, +but not a fact that it came _from_, the motor-car. If, as I believe, +the new order which began to manifest itself in the fifteenth century +stands to civilization as the aeroplane to the motorcar, and as the +motor-car to the bicycle and the horse-cart, or as the turbine to the +piston engine, then I am right in claiming that we ought not to call it +civilization. If we do, we should be acting like any one who insisted +upon calling an airship a horse-cart. There might be reasons for so +doing: and there may be reasons for calling things civilization which +are something quite different. For instance, I can conceive that the +new order might be more easily insinuated into general acceptance if +those whose interests are all vested in the old are not informed that +it is new. But tonight I am treating not of words, but of things; and +if it will hasten the triumph of the new order to pretend that it is +civilization, let us by all means do so--just as we call six o'clock +seven in order to gain an extra hour of sunlight during the waking day. + +I know that to many the idea will appear grotesquely naive, that an +institution as old as civilization and so wide-spreading should come to +an end and be superseded by something else, and that this change should +be taking place under our very eyes. But, happily for me, the +world-conflict which is now devastating Europe has begun to undermine +in the soul of many the fetish-worship of civilization. And to assist +further in breaking the spell which civilization may have cast over the +imagination of most of my audience, I would remind you that +civilization is, after all, a mere mushroom growth, and that what has +sprung up only overnight cannot have taken deep root (as if it were a +thing practically eternal), and could not be very difficult to replace +by something more deliberately thought out--by something learned +through ten thousand years of the tragic effects experienced by +thousands of millions of human beings. Civilization, I say, is a mere +mushroom growth, as compared with the whole life-period of man's +existence on earth. It is only ten thousand years old; while, by the +most modest and cautious calculation, man has existed one hundred +thousand years; and during the ninety thousand which preceded the last +ten, he made gigantic progress towards self-knowledge and +self-reverence. Let us, therefore, not be browbeaten by civilization on +account of its antiquity. + + + + +XI. EDWARD CARPENTER'S INDICTMENT OF CIVILIZATION + + +Equally must we guard against the fallacy of attributing only the +beneficent effects of civilization to its inherent principle, while we +trace all the evils which have arisen in its train to extrinsic +causes--to human nature, or to superficial and local obstructions. This +word of warning brings me back to Mr. Edward Carpenter's essay on +_Civilization: Its Cause and Cure_; for when I first read it he +appeared to me to exaggerate out of all proportion the evils in modern +life as compared with the good in it: especially did I feel that he +erred in that he accounted the evils as permanent and organic +characteristics of the civilizing process itself, and believed that +they must increase with its development and could not be eradicated +except with its extinction. During the last twenty-six years, however, +I have learned a thing or two. I have not lost one jot or tittle of my +early faith in man, and I have even gained fresh hope for a speedy +issue of the human race out of most of its sufferings and sins; but I +have gained this fresh hope only because I have been drawn by wider and +closer observation of economic events--and especially of the new +developments of trade and politics the world over--to the conclusion +that the evils, however great, are to be traced to the false principle +that animates the civilizing process, and that they will fall away of +themselves when once that principle has been exchanged for another that +is already well known, and which, as I have remarked, began four +centuries ago to disintegrate the established order. + +Carpenter's indictment of civilization seems to me incontrovertible. +The best way for me to present it briefly will be by means of a number +of typical quotations, in which he indicates the nature of disease and +shows that such is the state--mental, physical, social, and +moral--induced in man by the organization of enforced labor and the +whole of the adopted method of making citizens out of wild beasts:-- + + When we come to analyze the conception of disease, physical or + mental, in society or the individual, it evidently means ... loss + of unity. Health, therefore, should mean unity. ... The idea should + be a positive one--a condition of the body in which it is an + entirety, a unity, a central force maintaining that condition; and + disease being the break-up--or break-down--of that entirety into + multiplicity.... Thus in a body, the establishment of an + insubordinate centre--a boil, a tumor, the introduction and spread + of a germ with innumerable progeny throughout the system, the + enlargement out of all reason of an existing organ--means disease. + In the mind, disease begins when any passion asserts itself as an + independent centre of thought and action.... What is a taint in the + mind is also a taint in the body. The stomach has started the + original idea of becoming itself the centre of the human system. + The sexual organs may start a similar idea. Here are distinct + threats, menaces made against the central authority--against the + Man himself. For the man must rule, or disappear; it is impossible + to imagine a man presided over by a Stomach--a walking Stomach, + using hands, feet, and all the other members merely to carry it + from place to place, and serve its assimilative mania. So of the + Brain, or any other organ; for the Man is no organ, resides in no + organ, but is the central life ruling and radiating among all + organs, and assigning them their parts to play. Disease, then, in + mind or body, is ... the abeyance of a central power and the growth + of insubordinate centres--life in each creature being conceived of + as a continual exercise of energy or conquest, by which external or + antagonistic forces (or organisms) are brought into subjection and + compelled into the service of the creature, or are thrown off as + harmful to it. Thus, by way of illustration, we find that plants or + animals, when in good health, have a remarkable power of throwing + off the attacks of any parasites which incline to infest them; + while those that are weakly are very soon eaten up by the same. A + rose-tree, for instance, brought indoors, will soon fall a prey to + the aphis, though when hardened out of doors the pest makes next to + no impression on it. In dry seasons when the young turnip plants in + the field are weakly from want of water, the entire crop is + sometimes destroyed by the turnip-fly, which then multiplies + enormously; but if a shower or two of rain comes before much damage + is done, the plant will then grow vigorously, its tissues become + more robust and resist the attacks of the fly, which in its turn + dies. Late investigations seem to show that one of the functions of + the white corpuscles of the blood is to devour disease-germs and + bacteria present in the circulation,--thus absorbing these + organisms into subjection to the central life of the body,--and + that for this object they congregate in numbers toward any part of + the body which is wounded or diseased. + + + + +XII. CARPENTER'S FALSE REMEDY + + +To cast Carpenter's metaphor, according to which civilization is a +thing to be cured, into the form of an analogy, we might say that the +civilizing process has been to man what the bringing indoors is to a +rose-tree, or the coming of a drought to the turnips in a field. And I +ask you to assume with me that this is so; as it will help me to get on +with my argument, which, as it advances, will reveal more and more +whether it be inherently weak or strong. Nor do I anticipate much +opposition to Carpenter's mere indictment of civilization. At least it +is only when he outlines his remedy that my own protest is aroused. And +I suspect that many a reader will feel with me, that while to cure a +rose-tree or a turnip plant may require only the taking of the one out +of doors again and the falling of the kindly showers upon the other, +the restoration of civilized man to health would necessitate something +more than a mere return on his part to Nature and savagery. Indeed, +such a return may be altogether impossible, and even undesirable. In my +judgment, man having (as Carpenter himself points out) become +"self-conscious," can never go back to Nature, since he is no longer +the same being he was when he emerged from his more primitive state. +Yet what Carpenter recommends so far as he recommends any cure, is +exactly this: Human beings are to wear less clothes--if any at all; man +will again live out of doors, for the most part, instead of in houses; +he will return to the eating of uncooked food--mainly fruit and grains; +he will begin to feel himself one again with Nature; he is to lose his +sense of sin; every man will do the work he likes--and presumably not +do the work he does not like. "As to External Government and Law, they +will disappear," says Carpenter, "for they are only the travesties and +transitory substitutes of Inward Government and Order." In religion, +there is to be a like return to Nature. The author says:-- + + And when the civilization-period has passed away, the old + Nature-religion--perhaps greatly grown--will come back.... Our + Christian ceremonial is saturated with sexual and astronomical + symbols; and long before Christianity existed, the sexual and + astronomical were the main forms of religion.... On the high tops + once more gathering he will celebrate with naked dances the glory + of the human form and the great processions of the stars.... + +Carpenter sees signs already here and there of the beginning of this +return:-- + + The present competitive society is more and more rapidly becoming a + mere dead formula and husk within which the outlines of the new and + _human_ society are already discernible. Simultaneously, and as if + to match this growth, a move toward Nature and Savagery is for the + first time taking place from within, instead of being forced upon + Society from without. The Nature-movement, begun years ago in + Literature and Art, is now among the more advanced sections of the + civilized world rapidly realizing itself in actual life, going so + far even as a denial, among some, of machinery and the complex + products of Civilization, and developing among others into a gospel + of salvation by sandals and sunbaths! + +In order to help us to judge aright whether a return to Nature and a +primitive communism would restore to man that centrality and health of +which we assume that civilization has deprived him, we should do well +to consider what it was that happened ten thousand years ago and proved +so sinister in changing the relation of men and women to the community +in which they lived, and to the physical universe. But of that event we +cannot gain an adequate appreciation unless we view it in perspective +along the line of analogous events, some six, which had occurred from +time to time during the ninety thousand years preceding. + + + + +XIII. SPEECH AND FIRE + + +A hundred thousand years ago, among our ancestors, who then were only +inarticulate mammals, living in trees and caves, one of them by +himself, or a little group of them together, hit upon the use of +articulate vocal signs as a means of conveying to his mates his needs, +his fears, his desires and threats. It was probably by a happy fluke +that he hit upon this use, or by some transcendent flash of insight due +to a spontaneous variation of ability above that of the average ape; or +else some unusual stress of hunger or danger of attack drove even a +mediocre individual to an unwonted exercise of ingenuity. In any case, +by inventing articulate speech, he brought into existence a new species +of mammal--man. I must leave to your imagination the thousand +transforming effects of this new device for communicating perceptions, +feelings, and intentions. The speaking ape stood to his own species, +and through them to other kinds of animals and to the material +universe, in a different relation from that in which the speechless +stood. The power of combined action among the members of any group +became immeasurably greater than it had previously been. A social unity +of will was possible that could never have existed on earth hitherto. +For all we know, thirty thousand years may have passed away before any +other event occurred among human beings comparable in practical +importance to the invention of spoken language. This, however, was all +the time being gradually perfected under the stress of new experiences +in general and of trying predicaments in particular. + +Then, in the fulness of time, and once more by a happy fluke, or by a +stroke of spontaneous genius, or under the pressure of some +unprecedented danger, or through the educative influence of some new +order of experience, one of the speaking apes hit upon the use of fire, +and thereby introduced a new era in the advancement of man. Practically +infinite was the increase of man's new mastery over Nature. Into +temperate and even icy regions he could now penetrate and, as it were, +create around him a little temporary zone of tropical warmth. With +speech had come social unity; with fire at man's disposal came mastery +over matter. But the unity thereby suffered a change. With the +invention of means of creating artificial warmth the social homogeneity +of the tribe began to be broken. Whoever controlled fire controlled the +rest of his group, since no other way for the tribal appropriation of +the blessings of regulated fire was possible among talking apes, except +that one individual, or a very few, should assume the office of owner +of the sticks or flints for igniting the fire, and should become +dispenser of the flame. The group thus was divided into the controller +and the controlled, the owner and the owned, the master and the man, +the governor and the governed, the chief and his followers. + + + + +XIV. THE TWO MARKS OF ALL CIVILIZATION + + +Such a differentiation of society was, among apes, the condition for +any sort of social unity; but control by the few could at the first +have been only rudimentary and intermittent. Fire is not everything, +and was indispensable only on certain occasions, as when the group +were caught unexpectedly in some wintry region. Then the choice for +any man might lie between freezing or obeying. Be it observed that +fire under such circumstances would be shared by all, but the power of +social control would be monopolized by one. Had you been there, but +not the mightiest of your group, the condition of your surviving the +cold would have been that you surrendered whatever individual +initiative you had had. You gained fire, but lost freedom. At this +point, by some innate sense of logical identity, my mind is carried +forward a hundred thousand years to that centre of to-day's highest +civilization--Detroit, and to its very palladium, the Ford Motor +Works. For in that far-famed institution is to be found a very +striking similarity to the primeval monopoly of initiative which arose +with the first control of fire. Mr. Henry Ford has been magnanimously +ready to share profits with his men, but, so far as I can learn, no +iota of the industrial control. + +Before I go to the next step towards citizenship, I would call +attention to the fact that thus, near to the beginning of things human, +when the use of fire was introduced, we are able to detect the two +distinguishing characteristics of all civilization, and of trade in +particular, which are the sharing by the tribe of the blessings of +man's mastery over Nature, but, as the condition of the sharing, a +monopoly of power and initiative by the few who dispense the blessings. +So much of good and of goods--but no more--could the mass of men enjoy +as was compatible with the continuance of the master's ascendancy over +the men and over the public. We shall find no other than these marks in +all future civilization, to distinguish it from savagery and barbarism. +The only difference will be that in the period of civilization +proper--that is, from ten thousand years ago to the end of the +fifteenth century after Christ, when the established social order began +to break up--the monopoly of initiative and control is practically +absolute. As we trace the future steps in human evolution, we shall see +how this concentration of power in the hands of rulers occurred. But it +must be further observed that it is not only rudimentary civilization +which we detect as ensuing upon the introduction of the use of fire: it +is trade, socialized wealth, the division of the community into the +"haves" and the "have-nots," the introduction of the working of the +law, that to him that hath shall be given and that from him that hath +nothing but his labor to offer shall be taken with it his liberty also. +It should likewise be borne in mind that with the stealing of fire from +heaven came also that coalition of government with trade, of politics +with commerce, of the monopolists of economic power with the dictators +of life and death, of peace and war, which is manifested to the highest +conceivable degree to-day in the states most assertive of their +leadership in the vanguard of civilization. I said that with the use of +fire came the enslavement of men; but government and enslavement were +one and the same thing. Neither, however, was as yet dominant over +social life. + + + + +XV. ARROWS AND EARTHENWARE + + +The talking, fire-using anthropoid in the course of time invented the +bow and arrow. So great and so enduring were the benefits of this new +device that it is almost impossible for us, who have profited by them, +to imagine the state of human society when men could kill animals or +destroy enemies only by throwing stones or clubs, or by striking with +the fist. But it is easy to see that the chief of a tribe of men +received an incalculable increase of power when, besides the +instruments of ignition, bows and arrows were in his possession to deal +out at his will. Whatever equality of initiative and diffused +sovereignty had existed before the use of fire was known, it now began +to vanish, and the men of any tribe saw power concentrated in the will +and word of the chief and those nearest him, while submission to his +command was the condition of survival. And no doubt, with the loss of +that individual liberty and that self-reliance which characterize the +lower animals, there also died away a certain joyousness and zest of +spontaneous self-fulfilment, such as we observe in wild creatures so +long as they are free from hunger and thirst and secure from the +pursuit of enemies. + +It was perhaps another ten thousand years before one more new link in +the chain of man's mastery over Nature and the chief's mastery over his +men was forged. This time it was probably a woman who--again by a happy +chance or by necessity of maternal solicitude--noticed the effect of +heat upon clay and introduced the art of pottery. Until then men had no +utensils that could withstand the action of fire; they could not boil +water except by dropping hot stones into some receptacle of wood or +skin. Now, by the new device of boiling, the food-supply was enormously +increased. The blessing of another mastery over matter was henceforth +shared by all the members of the tribe. But, at the same time, there +was a corresponding force added to the chief's grip upon his men. We +see the law illustrated, that every new invention, owned by the few, +becomes one more trap for the many. The differentiation between the +owner of the tribe's wealth and the propertyless became with the +introduction of pottery fixed and hopeless. The master dealt out not +only fire and arrows, but cooking-utensils; or he withheld all these if +he saw fit; and if you had been there, but not in command, you, too, +would have tamely submitted or have died. + + + + +XVI. ANIMALS TAMED AND IRON SMELTED + + +The word "tamely" which I have just used, brings me to the next great +event which moved mankind perceptibly nearer to civilization proper. +It is an event which was not only a literal fact of prime importance, +but which is eternally a symbol of man's own fate. It was probably +first the dog that lent himself to the imagination of the speaking, +fire-making, arrow-shooting, clay-baking, anthropoid ape, as a +stimulus to the idea that captive animals might be of service to human +beings. Man began to tame not only the dog, but the sheep, the ox, the +camel, the goat, the horse, and the elephant. The gain to all the +tribe was enormous. The men all shared in the profit, but once more +their master appropriated the new increment in power. He became the +owner of the domesticated animals as well as of the inanimate pot and +arrow and flame. But at this stage it must have seemed to all the +other members of the tribe that they also were owned, soul and body, +by their chief. They could not help seeing, nor could he, that they +were _his_ men. And how natural it was for them to rejoice in the fact +that they belonged to some one who was mightier than themselves, and +who identified his own prosperity with that of the tribe, and of every +individual in it who served it according to his will. Loyalty to the +beloved community became loyalty to the chief. But it is evident that +what mankind had caused to happen to the dog and the horse, the chief +had accomplished in regard to the human beings who had come under his +power. He had tamed them; they were no longer wild animals. They had +rendered up individual liberty and self-reliant independence such as +we see among many species of wild beasts. But instead, as the price of +obedience to a will outside their own, they had received a thousand +creature-comforts. + +Only one more invention was needed to lift them to the highest and +latest stage of barbarism. Some one now hit upon the art of smelting +iron--the first invention that had not directly to do with the +supplying of food. By leaps and bounds the art of smelting iron +advanced man in the equipment of war, in the building of houses, roads, +and vehicles of transportation. Now what magnificent returns +individuals received for having surrendered their original liberty to +do as they pleased! After all, what would independent initiative have +been worth without fire or arrow or earthern kettle, or cow or horse or +wheel, or sword and shield? Who would not have forfeited the bare +birthright of empty (although healthy) independence for participation +in the ever richer conquest over the physical resources of Nature? + + + + +XVII. CIVILIZATION PROPER + + +But now at last, only ten thousand years ago, the event occurred which +put forever out of the question any possibility of prudence in any +waywardness of individual whim, or any deviation from the rule dictated +by the owner of things. This time the something that happened did not +cause an increase of man's mastery over physical Nature. It was, +instead, like that initial invention which turned apes into men. And +again, like spoken language, it was a device to facilitate +communication of mind with mind. In some one of the many groups of +beings who had learned the use of fire, arrows, pots, sheep, and +swords, some genius hit upon the idea of written signs as a medium of +communication with those distant in space, and as a means of +perpetuating a knowledge of the will of the dead among his survivors. +But be it observed that only the master, never the man, only the owner +of things, the controller of circumstances, was in a position to embody +and preserve his judgment and desire in written signs. The new art of +writing enhanced the power of rulers, of chiefs. The Pharaoh, not the +fellah, dictated the inscription that was to be engraved. Thus all the +rulers of the past were now able to perpetuate their power by adding +their sanction to the word of the living chief, while no voice from the +ranks of the governed would be allowed to immortalize itself in written +speech. This is the reason that written language introduced +civilization proper. There was no longer any chance for the wildness of +the beast to crop out. Here began the empire of the dead over the +living; but it was the empire of dead rulers over living slaves. The +mastery over Nature and the monopoly of social power thereby became +practically infinite. The tamers were now omnipotent in comparison with +the tamed. It must be noticed that the process of transforming beasts +into citizens was one to which only the tamed, but not the tamers, were +subjected. The ruler stood outside of and above the rule he made. The +law was for his subjects. This was the case with Henry VIII at the acme +of civilization as it had been with the first of the Pharaohs. + +Not only the blond beast of prey, but the swarthy also dictated an +ethic for his subjects in order to keep himself in ascendancy. It was +because Nietzsche admired all beasts of prey and felt contempt for +their victims that he hated Jesus Christ and proudly assumed the title +of Anti-Christ. For Christ had set up an ethic which encouraged the +victims to protest and attempt to win back their primeval initiative, +to take over the sovereignty which had been concentrated in the hands +of the mighty and to diffuse it among the nobodies of the tribe. St. +Luke goes so far as to assert that even before Jesus was born his +Mother entertained levelling ideas. Into her lips he puts a song in +which she magnifies the Lord because she believed her Son would bring +down the mighty and exalt them of low degree. But alas! civilization +went on for fifteen hundred years and succeeded in tying Christianity +to the chariot-wheel of monopolized initiative. + + + + +XVIII. THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY AFTER CHRIST + + +Christianity had to wait for something to happen that would lend force +to its Gospel. That something did not occur until the middle of the +fifteenth century. Then, as I have already said without specifying what +they were, a number of unforeseen events took place which opened the +door to the divine bridegroom of humanity. + +I have said that in the fifteenth century after Christ a new principle +began to work in society; but I did not say that it was then for the +first time promulgated. Civilization was the organization of man's +mastery over Nature on a basis of self-interest; it was the giving +only so much of wealth and power to the many as was compatible with +the retention of one's own ascendancy. To be civilized, then, is +evidently not to be Christian any more than it is to be Buddhistic or +Judaic, socialistic or democratic. Everybody admits that one can be +civilized and be none of these things: just as one may be "cultured" +without being kind. In other words, it is consistent with being +civilized to be highly selfish; one need only be rationalized in one's +egoism. Indeed, civilization is the incarnation of self-interest. If +self-interest, its basic principle, should give way to social +interest; if the monopoly of social power should be broken and the +power transferred to the general will of the community; if the +community should relegate its administration to representatives, but +should prevent these by some social device from ever usurping the +power entrusted to them, then something new--something as different +from civilization as the airship from the horse-cart--would have begun +to establish itself. A new species of social order can be nothing +other than an order whose basic principle is totally new; and what +greater difference could exist in structuralizing tendencies than that +between self-interest and the interest of the community? Whenever the +latter gets the upper hand, it will be because Fate, the Cosmos, the +Universe, the force within unconscious evolution, has caught up the +song of the _Magnificat_. No such consummation of humanity has taken +place, but it is undeniable that in the fifteenth century the Word +entered like a seed into the soil of Fact. The Virgin's prophecy began +to fulfil itself. + + +Familiar to everybody, and quickly to be specified, are the wonderful +events which turned the vision into reality. One of these events was +the invention of gunpowder; another was the mariner's compass; a third +was the invention of paper; a fourth, the printing-press; a fifth was +the discovery that the earth goes round the sun once a year, and whirls +on its own axis once a day; a sixth was that indiscretion of +Christopher Columbus, whereby instead of over-populated India he opened +up a way to the vast and sparsely denizened Americas. + +These events, each and severally and all together, produced in one +particular the same sort of effect as the use of fire and of the bow +and arrow, of pottery, the domestication of animals, and the smelting +of iron: they enhanced incalculably the mastery of man over matter. But +in the other particular characteristic of civilization they acted in +the very opposite direction from all preceding inventions. Instead of +entrenching the master in his monopoly of social power, instead of +furthering the differentiation of society into master and man, they all +played into the hands of the man. For the first time since the +beginning of human evolution, inventions checked the monopolization of +control over others. But the initiative that now flowed to the +multitude of nobodies was not that puny freedom and narrow scope of +self-realization which the talking ape had enjoyed. It was the +accumulated foresight and control of the universe outside of man which +had been storing itself up more and more for ninety thousand years in +the intellects and wills of the favored few. The floodgates were opened +for the first time in the fifteenth century, and this godlike energy +flowed in among the people at large, so that man, the many, the +multitude, were quickened by it into hope on earth, unto life here and +now, into liberty, creative originality, and the joy of +self-realization. + +But it was only the beginning: the effects of the introduction of +gunpowder, the compass, the printing-press and paper, and the new ideas +about the heavens, and the opening-up of relatively uninhabited lands, +were scarcely discernible for two centuries, and then only as a +destructive force. Indeed, for still another hundred years the process +was one chiefly of disintegration. There was taking place a +transference of power from the few to the many; a diffusion of +sovereignty, as well as a redistribution of wealth; and the change was +accompanied by an awakening of the masses to the meaning of the +transformation which they were undergoing. The people began to realize +that the invention of gun-powder had raised the peasant as a fighter to +the level of the armed knight; that the compass and the opening-up of +the Western hemisphere made it possible for the poor to escape from +European masters whom they were unable to vanquish; and that the +cheapness of books was linking the minds of the masses to the sources +of learning and of religious tradition. It cannot but excite our mystic +wonder that for nearly one hundred thousand years every new mastery of +man over physical Nature was such that it inevitably played into the +hands of rulers by strengthening their monopoly of initiative; and that +then, at last, and ever since the fifteenth century after Christ, each +new mechanical invention or discovery has had the unintended and +undesired effect ultimately of scattering among the many the pent-up +power of owners and rulers, and of creating in the many fresh psychic +energy and a new capacity of invention. + +This great process of levelling-up took again an enormous leap forward +in the middle of the nineteenth century. The steam-engine advanced it +almost as much as all the fifteenth-century inventions and discoveries +together. The new facilities of travel brought new experiences, and +these, by the psychological law of contrast and novelty, stimulated +intelligence many-fold. The new speed in transportation made it +possible for thousands to escape from oppression where scarcely one had +been able to do so in former generations. The Irish peasants began to +pour into America; then followed the Germans; soon Russians and Latins +were helped to leave the Old World; sometimes in all came a million-odd +in one year. Wealth was multiplied and scattered to a degree that had +never been dreamed to be possible. Not only in the United States, but +in France, Italy, Scandinavia, the British Empire, and South America, +the diffusion of social initiative was taking place. First, power +spread from the few to the many severally; but now, for a quarter of a +century, the many, without surrendering, have been pooling their new +power in the general will of the nation. There, in the unified and +unifying purpose of nations like America, and of each of her federate +States, the power is being safeguarded for the community and for its +members severally by political devices which render public servants +incapable of prolonged usurpation. + + + + +XIX. CIVILIZATION FACES ITS SUCCESSOR + + +Still, the new order is far from being in the ascendant. As +civilization began with the introduction of the use of fire, but was +not triumphant until the invention of written language, so the new +order--call it what you will: Christianity, the Meaning of America, the +Dream of California, the Wisconsin Idea, Social Democracy, +Humanity--this new order has only entered in as yeast which has not yet +had a chance to leaven the whole lump. But the fermentation now goes on +apace. The World-War is perhaps best understood when it is looked upon +as a struggle of civilization against its successor. Alarmed and armed +to the teeth, civilization (applied science organized on a basis of +reasoned self-interest) is attempting to expand itself over territory +which had been preempted and mapped out by social democracy, and was +being devoted, in the spirit of the ideal commonwealth foreshadowed in +Christian sentiment and Jewish prophecy, to the co-ordination of wealth +and power on the principle of deference to the humanity in every man. + +But more significant than the World-War of the passing away of the old +order and its supersession by a new are the ten or twenty inventions, +ideas, discoveries, and new social contacts which marked the first +decade of the present century. No doubt even the World-War has been +precipitated by the sudden inrush of these unprecedented forces, and +the realization of their trend by the self-centred leaders of +civilization. + +It would seem that the civilized, anticipating a move on the part of +the humanized, and fearing an appropriation of the benefits of new +inventions, stole a march upon the unsuspecting. The result is, that we +saw at the outset of the war the latest appliances seized upon by the +upholders of arbitrary power, and only now, after the first shock of +attack, are the builders of an earthly paradise demonstrating their +ability and intention to turn all the forces of Nature and devices of +reason to the service of each in the brotherhood of the common life. We +are beginning to see, also, that every one of the latest inventions is +such in its nature that soon victory must come to the cause of economic +and political equality. + +Even the cheapness of motor-cars will overtake the champions of +industrial monopoly, who at the first used them for the hoarding of +social power. The submarine can at the first only be turned against the +freedom of the seas during times of peace. The aeroplane and the +airship, more than any other instruments of locomotion, will assist in +the diffusion of initiative among all the outlying and small nations of +the earth. More than anything else they will assist the weak and the +meek of the earth to rush together to one another's rescue; and +wireless telegraphy, as soon as it is established universally, will +sound to them the alarum in the twinkling of an eye. All the new +inventions are, as it were, God's detectives for the exposing of the +subtle and disguised crimes of the great; or they are God's captains +for the mobilization of the scattered forces of the meek when the plot +of an oppressor has been unearthed. The people need only to realize +that the new inventions are by their very nature breakers of +power-monopolies, in order to find in them an irresistible incentive to +rise and act in the cause of world-wide democratic initiative. High +explosives, the gas-engine, the giant gun, sheets of flame, deadly +gases, all these are within the reach of Christ's little ones to +encircle their kingdom-that-is-coming against the attacks of inhuman +humans. The new inventions are humanity's destructors to annihilate +civilization's destroyers. + + +I have specified some of the twentieth century's inventions to show +that, like the compass and the printing-press, they will be scatterers +of privileges to the masses. I might go on indefinitely adding to the +list, but I will cite only one more. It was only in the last decade of +the nineteenth century that a new way of making cheap paper was +discovered--so cheap that it became possible to sell great dailies for +one cent. But this practice was not established until the twentieth +century. And it was only a few years ago that the greatest newspaper of +the world--and a very stronghold of upper-class monopoly--was able, or +driven, to reduce its price from threepence (six cents) to a penny. But +I specify the case of the London _Times_ because, like a miracle of +divine healing, but entirely due to the cheapness of paper, is the +change of its policy from that of brutal imperialism to the democratic +one of transforming the British Empire into a commonwealth of equal +states. Now that the _Times_ has been converted, we may be sure that +the universe itself has come round to the side of the right, and has +taken up the cause of the poor. By the pricking of my thumbs I know +that something better than civilization this way comes. Dull indeed +must be that man whose blood does not tingle with anticipation. Yet the +physical inventions of the twentieth century are not to be compared in +pregnancy of good with its less palpable, its spiritual, novelties. + + + + +XX. AGAINST THE MATERIALISTIC VIEW OF HISTORY + + +Before passing, however, from the physical inventions to the new moral +ideas and mental contacts, I must interpolate a comment to save myself +from misunderstanding. Generally, those who trace to mechanical +utilities new epochs in the development of mankind proceed upon the +materialistic theory of history. But this theory I have in no wise +committed myself to, for I count it to be false. It is true that I have +traced all the great steps in human advancement to physical inventions, +but I have in no word implied that the inventions themselves were +caused by anything material whatsoever. And if they themselves were, as +I believe, the result of man's mental and spiritual activities reacting +against events, then my tracing of human advancement to them implies no +belief in the materialistic theory of history. Every effect of the +inventions must be set down ultimately not to them, but to their +causes; and their causes were mental. Casually I have said as much, in +remarking several times that they took place by a happy chance, or by a +stroke of insight on the part of some rare genius, or by the reaction +of some mediocre person's intelligent volition against some +extraordinary experience which made the idea of the invention so +obtrusively evident that even a mind not unusually gifted could +scarcely have avoided lighting upon it. + +The only phrase I have used by which I cannot absolutely stand is the +expression "by a happy chance"; for I believe that the mental +productions of each person are due not to uncaused chance, or to +accident, but to trends of the social mind that have been set in motion +by mental exigencies arising out of current events. As primitive +peoples, however, have left no record of their mental sequences, we +cannot say with confidence what were the exact experiences that led to +the idea of using fire, or to any other device that transformed the +relation of human beings to one another or to their material habitat. I +only repeat that whatever caused the inventions caused all the remote +effects of these, and that if the causes of the inventions were mental +and spiritual, then an interpretation of history is not materialistic +merely because it traces advancement to mechanical utilities. That I am +right in tracing these to mental and spiritual causes is proved at +least in the case of recent inventions. For we know that their causes +were psychic; we know the mental atmosphere, and how it arose, that +brought forth the telephone and aeroplane and submarine. We know that +these were not due to physical necessities or to any material causes. +They arose from the brooding of creative imaginations disciplined in a +method learned by reflection upon former successes in discovery. We +also know in what main particulars this modern atmosphere differs from +that of former centuries. But such questions are not germane to my +central theme, and so I pass them over lightly. Let me then return +without further delay from this digression which has been made in the +interests, not of my argument, but of my self-respect as a student of +social facts. + + + + +XXI. CONTACT OF PEOPLES + + +Consider, for instance, that at the beginning of our century, for the +first time in more than fifteen hundred years, the Christian nations +came into contact with a mighty pagan power, and were compelled to +acknowledge it as not only a political, but a moral, equal. Whoever +knows the magical effect in the quickening of intellectual and +spiritual life due to new contact with a contrasting type of national +culture will agree that the meeting thus of Christendom with the +so-called "heathen" world is a fact of prime significance in the +history of man. + +Nor is it simply the contact of heathen and Christian on terms of moral +equality. There is another aspect to Japan's ascendancy and her +recognition by the West. The East and the West meet at last. The +psychic invasion of each by the other must be epoch-making and in the +direction of the completeness and unification spiritually of all +mankind in a brotherhood of nations and nation-states. The new contact +of heathen and Christian, and of white and colored, of East and West, +means that the exploitation of the dark races by nations more highly +organized on a basis of self-interest is about to cease forever. With +the humanization of the West will come the salvation of those tribes +who never divided themselves so absolutely into the "haves" and the +"have-nots," or who never attained a high mastery over the physical +universe. + +Are there persons in America who say what, until the present war, many +in Old England thought--that there is nothing new under the sun? Then I +would call their attention to the unprecedented and revolutionary +character of the contact in the United States, on a basis of relative +political and social equality, of immigrants from some fifty-one +different nations of the Old World. These people will mix their blood, +their temperaments, and their traditions, and not only will a new +variety of human being emerge, but the mixing of opposites in idea and +temperament will quicken self-consciousness and heighten mental power +and speed up its activity. The opportunity of the blond beasts of prey +has lain in the torpor and inactivity and ignorance of the multitude. +But I find no torpor in California. And where there is no one that will +allow himself to be preyed upon, even blond beasts take up the new +enterprise of co-operation among equals. This is an inevitable result +of the contact of many varieties of unlikes, the unification, not of +equals, but of supplementary equivalents. When such psychic conditions +have prevailed for a century or more, it is inconceivable that trade +can continue to consist of competition between individuals and the +permission of the successful to amass and hoard fortunes. Either +production and distribution will become communal, or the community will +tax large fortunes into the state and national treasury. + +But there are three other distinguishing characteristics of the +twentieth century which make for the replacing of civilization by +humanization, and for the transition of trade from the harshness of the +law into the abounding grace of the gospel. + + + + +XXII. THE POWER TO TRANSMIT HUMAN LIFE, ITS SOCIAL CONTROL + + +First, the limiting of population by the will of human individuals. In +the beginning men stole fire from the gods; but life they allowed the +Almighty to continue to dispense at his own inscrutable pleasure, while +they remained his pleased but puzzled agents in its transmission. It +was only in the eighties of the last century, after a hundred thousand +years, that man hit upon the idea and the practice of controlling life +as he had controlled fire. From the beginning, he had planted the +fire-seed according to his own purpose and social need. And now at last +he has come to look upon the life-seed as not simply in his keeping as +a trust for another, but as his own property to control in the interest +of his own future. Can human audacity reach higher? Can the assumption +of divine and creative responsibility by man out-strip this latest act +of self-government? From beast to citizen, did we say? But have we not +found the process during the last four hundred years to be from +citizenship to godship, from creature to creator? It was one of your +American reformers who entitled a book _Man as Social Creator_. From +beast to citizen seemed dull enough; but from citizen to God--what +intoxication of zest does this thought engender! Can the creature dare +it? Is this the great venture? Is this the meaning of the travail of +the ages? Or is it only a process from citizen to man, from tamed beast +to free spirit feeling the Soul of All at the inmost centre of himself, +and finding the means at last of incarnating that soul in the +community, in politics, trade, and domestic life? Howsoever the new +facts and the newer outlook are to be interpreted, it becomes quite +clear that if civilization was the taming of beasts, something that is +not civilization has begun to assert itself. The liberating of +citizens, as it moves to triumphant attainment, must scrap many an +institution, many a habit, and set up the reverse of many a rule of +conduct. We have indeed reached a new era, one which is not that of +taming animals, when young women can--and know that they can--as +war-brides strike against the labor of maternity and against the +foreseen horror of a fate for one's offspring such as they would never +choose for the fruit of their love. + + +But, secondly, close upon the invention of means for controlling the +transmission of life has followed the idea that this control shall not +rest with the individuals most intimately concerned, but with the will +of the community--of the nation--of federated humanity. If a man has no +exclusive right to do as he pleases with his power of labor, to +withhold it or direct it irrespective of the general welfare and the +will of the commonweal, how much less, say the advocates of eugenic +marriage, shall men and women be permitted to follow their own whim and +their selfish pleasure as regards the use or waste of the power to +communicate life? This new doctrine that men are only trustees for the +nation and posterity in their central power to control the future +quantity and quality of human beings whom they may bring into +existence, recognizes no division of society into the tamed and the +tamers. There is no class suggested of monopolists of social power who +will regulate the rest of the community, as the owner of cattle +controls the breeding of them. The general will of the community, +administered under diffused public opinion and through the educated +judgment of the individual himself, will decide. Only in cases of what +are agreed to be downright crimes will the law step in to condemn and +prevent, and then only through agents who are directly accountable to +an enlightened and alert public opinion. The retaining of this new +mastery of man over the quantity and quality of human life, by the +communal conscience against all monopolists, is the transcendent +feature of the new order. But if this be so, then trade, our system of +producing and distributing wealth, ceases to be merely a question of +the control of labor and becomes a question of the control of the +transmission of human life. Such control might have been accounted a +possible privilege among Virginian breeders of slaves. But so to regard +it seems monstrous, now that chattel slavery has been universally +condemned, thanks to the triumphant levellers of the last hundred +years. What is more, all trade is beginning to be regarded as a +question ultimately, not of the manufacture of machines and their +products, nor of the propagation of plants and animals, but of the +begetting of spiritual agents, who in their turn are to become the +makers and masters of the universe in which they are to live. + + +The third characteristic event of our century which is to help us to +slough off civilization, as our ancestors ten thousand years ago rid +themselves of the wild-beast features of barbarism and savagery, is the +awakening of women. Their claim to social initiative and responsibility +is the extremest possible reach of democratic self-assertion. The +remarkable peculiarity of their entrance into trade is not, however, +that they are women, but that they are the one half of mankind who have +never worked for hire, but always from love, and who have desired the +wage less than the approval of those they served. The morals of trade, +as it has existed under the relation of master to wage-earner, even the +ethics of trades-unionism, cannot survive the censure of women, who on +other principles demand for themselves the right of maintenance by the +state to protect them in the bearing and rearing of children and the +making of homes, and the nursing of the wounded and the sick. Now that +women no longer allow themselves as social agents to be ignored, they +will insist that not only the morals of marriage and of democratic +relations must become humane, but that all trade, as well as all +legislation, must be guided by the eugenic motive. + + + + +XXIII. FOREIGN TRADE THE BEGETTER OF WARS + + +I have presumed to say that modern trade discloses civilization in its +acutest form. The strict sobriety of this assertion we cannot, perhaps, +appreciate to the full, unless we note the relation of trade during the +last three hundred years to aggressive warfare. There prevails in the +public mind the false notion that somehow peace and trade are akin in +spirit and identical in their interests. This notion has been +assiduously foisted upon the public by kings of industry and some +professors of sociology, who possibly believe that it is true. But the +facts of history prove that every great war during the last three +centuries has been undertaken in the service of foreign traders, who +call upon their government to back their claims. According to Sir John +Seeley, the greatest political historian of the British Empire, foreign +trade and modern war have always been one and the same thing. Some +small nation-state resented the advent and methods of the foreign +traders, and began to prepare for self-defence, asserting that it +wished to be left alone, and that it meant to defend its own sacred +traditions. This the government that backed the traders would not +permit, and a clash of arms ensued. Or two rival sets of foreigners +were jealous of each other in their effort to possess one and the same +market and induced their respective governments to spring at each +other's throats. Under such circumstances war does not always arise, +because the mere show of vastly superior might is often sufficient to +compel immediate submission. Such was the case when the United States +in 1853 exhibited in the harbors of bewildered and terrified Japan a +fleet of great steamships. The threatened nation, having admitted no +foreigners since the Jesuits in the seventeenth century plotted against +its political independence, and not knowing how to use steam to propel +engines, saw that there was no alternative to violent conquest by their +uninvited guests but peaceful submission on their own part. + +Such peace, however, is not the holy thing which some persons declare +all peace to be. When a man holds up his hands in answer to the +challenge of a highway robber, bloodshed is avoided; but the outrage is +none the less detestable because perfect quiet prevails. Nor is it the +kind of social calm which the angels meant when they proclaimed peace +on earth to men of good will. On the contrary, it is that stillness of +unchallenged iniquity of which our Lord expressed his menacing hate +when He declared that He came not to bring peace but a sword. Trade +illustrates civilization in its highest degree of intelligence and +elaboration; and foreign trade is only trade in its widest +transactions. But foreign trade being the cause of all war, the only +way to end warfare is to displace civilization by a system of wealth +produced and distributed under communal control. Then commerce will no +longer be inspired by the financial interest of private investors, but +by the total welfare of the whole people of the nation. But I have +touched upon the identity of war and trade only to show their vital +connection with civilization as a whole. + + + + +XXIV. THE OPPOSITE OF A "RETURN TO NATURE" + + +Civilization is still advancing by leaps and bounds. Nevertheless, at +the same time, with a greater acceleration of development, the men are +checkmating the master and transferring control and initiative to the +will of the commonwealth. At least, not otherwise am I able to +interpret the new deference for nationality which has been aroused in +protest against aggressive militarism; nor the kind of industrial +legislation that has been enacted during the last decade in California +and other western states, in New Zealand and Australia, and even in +Italy and England. It all means that the new inventions, although at +first seized upon by monopolists, are seen to be such as to provide +channels through which the pent-up instincts and hopes of the masses +can act with concerted power. It means that also political machinery is +being devised for securing the public welfare and protecting +opportunities for individual genius and talent. No man asks for more. +The world over we have reached the threshold of collective democracy, +wherein the consuming of material wealth will be shared with +approximate equality and wherein social control will be retained by the +collective will, to safeguard individual initiative, and will be +administered by public servants who have proved their superior ability, +but who remain subject to almost instantaneous recall. + +Such a substitute for civilization, however, is the opposite of a +return to the individualism of Nature or to a primeval communism. It +presupposes the highest mastery of man over matter and social unity +among all mankind co-operating as nation-states and federations of +states. + +As regards external government and law, it is the antithesis of Mr. +Carpenter's proposal that they should disappear, because they are the +travesty of inward government and order. On the contrary, I hope that +external government, animated by the general will of a social +democratic commonwealth and vested in representatives sensitively +accountable to an alert and intelligent public opinion, will appear to +my listeners not as a travesty, but as the very incarnation of that +inward government and order which every individual man must feel to be +the law of his own being unless he has lost his manhood's centrality. A +crushing indictment of Mr. Carpenter's modern movement back to Nature +is to be found in the fact that it has declined instead of advancing +during the twenty-six years since he wrote. Probably fewer persons in +England preach salvation by sandals and sunbaths to-day than did a +quarter of a century ago, while the sandals themselves and sunbaths +have become but items among the general products of industry and +governmental hygiene. The sunbath is only one of the many remedies +prescribed to the poor by doctors impanelled by the British state, and +the sandals are better made by machinery than by the hands of poetic +hermits. + +But while the vision of philosophical anarchy has been fading away, +whole nations on a gigantic scale have been subjecting the power of +trusts and monopolies to the general will of the community. In America +you have changed your federal law and many of your state constitutions, +in order that the right of the common will to dictate may be +unquestioned, and that no occasion for lawless violence need ever arise +through any legal barrier to the full assertion of the mind of the +common life. + +So in every particular of his cure for civilization Mr. Carpenter's +worship of savagery and barbarism is being rejected as fantastic. We +may return to uncooked fruits and grains. But what a task for the most +highly developed industrial state, to raise and distribute an adequate +supply of grapes, apples, and nuts the year round for the 1,000,000,000 +inhabitants of the globe! What a call for many wizards of California to +produce new species of luscious edibles! It would seem to me that the +curse of civilization has lain in the direction of too little of either +cooked or uncooked food, instead of too much. If the common people are +to come into their own, trade in every necessity and luxury must be +more highly integrated. The difference of the new era as regards +foreign commerce will chiefly be that nations as a whole by their +governments will conduct it instead of private traders. In other words, +foreign trade will be nationalized, in the way that social democrats +have long demanded that land and capital should be. The community will +own and control it through state agents for the common welfare. Nothing +of good which civilization has brought forth will be lost, nor will the +organization of wealth be relaxed. + +Machinery will be multiplied a thousandfold. Like the human body +itself, social life must become as complex as it can without losing its +centrality. Be it remembered that the truly simple life is not gained +by meagreness of possessions and interests, but by singleness of aim +controlling a seemingly infinite number of detailed means. But this +unity dominating a multiplicity of interests is attainable only through +the entire mechanism of external government. And again, as the man +resides in all the organs of the body, but is himself no organ, and as +by the central unity of his life-energy is able to rush the white +corpuscles to any part that is wounded or poisoned, so the general +will, the community-self of the social democratic state, is beginning +to direct all the healing agencies in the body politic to the rescue of +the unfortunate. Such beneficence and benevolence, systematized and +alert, is more than civilization. It is Christianity, it is the doing +unto the least of one's fellow-men what self-interest prompts one never +to do; but its power is equal to the redemptive goodness that inspires +it. In motive and method it is not business, it is different from +trade; for it is a progeny of pity. But nevertheless, it is socialized +wealth and applied science and politics. It is government by the +governed. + + +When civilization has been superseded by this democratic process, which +in our century is advancing at such rapid gait, there will surely be in +the sphere of religion no more return to Nature than in that of +economics. There will be no more the worship of any one instinct or +organ, or any external object or agent. How could Carpenter have so far +forgotten his own definition of health as to applaud the primitive +ritualistic worship of the glories of the human body and the procession +of the stars? That ritual was itself the symptom of the break-up of +man's character into multiplicity, and the insubordination of specific +organs. Surely when man has gained centrality of health, he will +worship the unifying will which is dominant whenever health prevails. +He will adore the spirit which makes the many one. But men will never +gain that centrality of health until they have established this worship +of the one heart that beats in every human breast and, being inspired +with religious passion for it, have brought the entire economic order +into conformity with its behests. + + +_The Riverside Press_ +CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS +U · S · A + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Is civilization a disease?, by Stanton Coit + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IS CIVILIZATION A DISEASE? *** + +***** This file should be named 29639-8.txt or 29639-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/6/3/29639/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian +Libraries) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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