It is claimed by some that, if we accept this definition of progress, viz., the increase of human happiness, it will follow that there has never been any progress at all. For they say that civilization, as it has existed among nations, has not had the effect to increase happiness, but rather to diminish it; that the happiest condition in which mankind can exist is that primitive, unconventional state which precedes all efforts at civilization, and allows nature to take its course; that the humblest peasant, dwelling in his Arcadian retreat, and ignorant of the vicissitudes of life amid the scenes of a high and giddy civilization, is more happy than the nervous pursuer of fortune, fame, or knowledge.1

It cannot be denied that civilization, by the many false practices which it has introduced, by the facilities which its very complexity affords to the concealment of crime, and by the monstrous systems of corruption which fashion, caste, and conventionality are enabled to shelter, is the direct means of rendering many individuals miserable in the extreme; but these are the necessary incidents to its struggles to advance under the dominion of natural forces alone.

It would involve a great fallacy to deduce from this the conclusion that civilization begets misery or reduces the happiness of mankind. Against this gross but popular mistake may be cited the principle before introduced, which is unanimously accepted by biologists, that an organism is perfect in proportion as its organs are numerous and varied. This is because the more organs there are the greater is the capacity for enjoyment. For this enjoyment is quantitative as well as qualitative, and the greater the number of faculties the greater is the possible enjoyment derivable from their normal exercise. To say that primitive man is happier than enlightened man, is equivalent to saying that an oyster or a polyp enjoys more than an eagle or an antelope.

1 Jean Jacques Rousseau and other writers have maintained this view, and it is so strongly defended by one of the characters of Disraeli's Lothair as to justify a suspicion that it was the view of the author. Fénelon (Télémaque, Liv. VIII), in the account that Adoam gives of the inhabitants of Bætica, reflects the same sentiment with great force and clearness. See also Comte, Philosophie Positive, Vol. IV, pp. 60, 239.

This could be true only on the ground that the latter, in consequence of their sensitive organisms, suffer more than they enjoy; but if to be happy is to escape from all feeling, then it were better to be stones or clods, and destitute of conscious sensibility. If this be the happiness which men should seek, then is the Buddhist in the highest degree consistent when he prays for the promised Nirvâna, or annihilation. But this is not happiness it is only the absence of it. For happiness can only be increased by increasing the capacity for feeling, or emotion, and, when this is increased, the capacity for suffering is likewise necessarily increased, and suffering must be endured unless sufficient sagacity accompanies it to prevent this consequence. And that is the truest progress which, while it indefinitely multiplies and increases the facilities for enjoyment, furnishes at the same time the most effective means of preventing discomfort, and, as nearly all suffering is occasioned by the violation of natural laws through ignorance of or error respecting those laws, therefore that is the truest progress which succeeds in overcoming ignorance and error.

Human progress is, therefore, perfectly analogous to that progress which is going on in the world of animal life, since both consist in a multiplication, variation, and refinement of the faculties of enjoyment, and any change in either which does not effect this is not progress. All happiness consists in the gratification of desire. Every faculty experiences a natural want to be exercised, and that want is a desire. The proper exercise of that faculty is the supply of that want and the gratification of that desire. There are two ways, therefore, by which the happiness of a being can be increased: first, by affording the opportunity for exercising existing faculties; and, second, by the creation of new and additional faculties, and extending these opportunities to the exercise of these also.

By the law of development alluded to, and which is a sort of biological law of supply and demand, the mere presence of these opportunities is all that is required to create the faculties them. selves, for this renders the conditions for the existence of such faculties favorable; and, where the conditions are favorable for

the development of a faculty, that faculty will arise; when the opportunities for the exercise of a faculty cease, that faculty will itself cease to exist, although the organs through which it was exercised may long persist.1

This law extends with full force to the social condition of man. Whatever affords an opportunity for the exercise of a new human faculty creates such a faculty, creates a desire for its exercise, and actually gratifies that desire, thus adding to the sum of human happiness. The creation of such opportunities is, then, the origin of progressive action, and it is these same opportunities, increased and refined, that keep that desire in existence, and increase its intensity. Therefore, we may enunciate the principle that progress is in proportion to the opportunities or facilities for exercising the faculties and satisfying desire.

1

1 Spencer, Data of Ethics, pp. 183–186 and 263 (§§ 67 and 102).

VII

THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY1

The prime factors in social progress are the Community and its Environment. The environment of a community comprises all the circumstances, adjacent or remote, to which the community may be in any way obliged to conform its actions. It comprises not only the climate of the country, its soil, its flora and fauna, its perpendicular elevation, its relation to mountain chains, the length of its coast line, the character of its scenery, and its geographical position with reference to other countries; but it includes also the ideas, feelings, customs, and observances of past times, so far as they are preserved by literature, traditions, or monuments, as well as foreign contemporary manners and opinions, so far as they are known and regarded by the community in question. Thus defined, the environment may be very limited or very extensive. The environment of an Eskimo tribe consists of the physical circumstances of Labrador, of adjoining tribes, of a few traders or travelers, and of the sum total of the traditions received from ancestral Eskimos. These make up the sum of the conditions affecting the social existence of the Eskimos. The environment of the United States, on the other hand, while it comprises the physical conditions of the North American continent, comprises also all contemporary nations with whom we have intercourse, and all the organized tradition political and ethical, scientific and religious which we possess in common with all the other communities whose civilization originated in the Roman Empire. The significance of this increase of size and diversity in the environment will be explained presently.

1 From Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, by John Fiske, Part II, chap. xviii, pp. 197-201 (copyright, 1874, by John Fiske. Copyright, 1902, by Abby M. Fiske, executrix). By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

Bearing in mind this definition of a social environment, which I believe carrie's with it its own justification, let us briefly notice the error committed by those writers who would fain interpret all the most important social phenomena as due, solely or chiefly, to physical causes. This is an error frequently committed by physiologists who try their hand at the investigation of social affairs, and who attempt to treat sociology as if it were a mere branch of biology. But this is not the case. As we have seen psychology to be an offshoot from biology, specialized by the introduction of inquiries concerning the relations of the percipient mind to its environment, we must similarly regard sociology as an offshoot from psychology, specialized by the introduction of inquiries concerning the relations of many percipient and emotionally incited minds to each other and to their common environment. As in biogeny, all attempts to discover the law of organic development failed utterly so long as the relations of the organism to physical environing agencies were alone studied, and succeeded only when Mr. Darwin took into account the relations of organisms to each other; so still more inevitably in sociogeny must all our efforts fail so long as we consider merely the physiologic relations of a community to the country in which it dwells, and refuse to recognize the extent to which communities influence each other by means that are purely intellectual or moral. Doubtless the character of the physical environment is of importance, more especially, perhaps, in the earlier stages of civilization. No doubt civilization will first arise, other things equal, in a locality where food and shelter can be obtained with a medium amount of exertion; where nature is neither too niggard nor too lavish in the bestowal of her favors. No doubt there is a physical significance in the fact that civilization began, not in barren Siberia, or in luxuriant Brazil, but in countries like Egypt and Mesopotamia, which were neither so barren as to starve, nor so luxuriant as to spoil, the laborer. No doubt the Greeks owed much to the extent of their coast line. No doubt - above all the Mediterranean is justly sacred to the student of history as partly the civilizer of the peoples who upon its waves first courted adventure, and conducted commerce, and imparted