Very many regard it as an entity, a thing, rather than a process. It
can no more be called a thing or an entity, than life, growth, or
thinking, but like these, it is a process. "Dr. Whately speaks of it
as if it were a 'thing' which could be handed about from one nation
to another, or hidden away in some dark corner." (Fiske's "Cosmic
Philosophy," vol. 2, p. 175.) In general terms we may define it as a
progressive movement of the individual and of society. Its results
are the highest attainments, the acquisition of the best things,
as wealth, culture, and morality. But these "best things" must be
shared liberally by the laboring classes or the civilization cannot
long survive. Every civilization of the past has been false in this
respect. The pyramids of Egypt have a record of kings possessing
millions of slaves. Greece produced a civilization inspired by a
love of the beautiful, and has consequently contributed more toward
the civilization of mankind than any other people. But no nation has
conspicuously sought to secure to its people the rights of liberty and
justice. And until the time comes when the people get these rights,
there can be no true civilization. Humanity must become the supreme
purpose of life. The augean stables of legislation must be renovated
for the presence of better men who shall take the places of the corrupt
demagogues who now fill our highest offices of public trust. The very
fact that a dozen of our United States senators represent $160,000,000
speaks volumes of itself. Many of these men have secured the most
if not all their great wealth since they have been the custodians of
the people's public interests.
A true civilization has never yet appeared in the world. Much that
is written in proof of our boasted civilization is twaddle. We
are living in many respects as barbarians lived thousands of years
ago. But to return to our definitions. It should be borne in mind that
civilization is not an end, but a means to higher ends; the results
are not therefore fixed and final, as they in turn become causes of
other results. If we regard civilization as a refined and cultured
state of society, we shall find that it means more than this--that it
is rather the activity of mind which leads to higher refinements, to
investigation, invention, discovery, and that it constantly inspires
man with desires for still nobler achievements. Civilization is the
onward and upward movement of the human race. This fermentation of
humanity is the product of many factors, and has been effected by all
sorts of human activities. War, commerce, agriculture, inventions,
crusades, discoveries, literature, art, religion, skepticism,
government, languages, science, manufactures, climate, soil, food,
and many other things have assisted in developing the mind and
heart of man, and in improving his physical condition. In the present
century, science has worked wonders by way of discovery and invention,
increasing the intellectual activities, thereby widening the knowledge
of men and augmenting the sum of human happiness.
We should not overlook the fact that the world's advancement has been
vastly more in the line of intellectual improvement and material
prosperity than in the development of man's moral nature. Our
civilization is much like our dress, it abounds in shoddy and
tinsel. There is much in the dome of modern civilization that glares
in the sunlight, while its foundations, which are out of sight, are
rotten. Our great cities show us that the rich are becoming richer
and the poor poorer. Where will this end? Can a splendid civilization
be established on such a basis?
Distinguished men have entertained widely different notions of the
causes of human progress. One writer thinks that government possesses
the secret power of progress; another claims all advancement for
Christianity, and others that morality is the cause, while yet others
attribute the magic power to the forces of nature. Mr. Buckle maintains
that man's progress is due to his physical environment. And a moment's
reflection will show us that there is much truth in his claim. We
know that it is utterly impossible to establish a grand civilization
in the tropics or in the polar regions. Suppose we should send all
the ministers in the country, all the gold and silver in the United
States treasury and millions of our best citizens to Greenland, could
they build up a splendid civilization there? Not at all. Nature is too
inhospitable. Society flourishes only in a temperate climate. If it
were the church that created civilization then we should see similar
results in different latitudes and among different races. But the
facts are opposed to this claim. Wherever there is a high civilization
there is good soil and temperate climate. As an illustration of this
fact I may refer the reader to the Abyssinians, who have had the
Bible in their possession about twice as long as the Anglo-Saxons;
and yet they are all a race of barbarians still.
Christianity was introduced in that country about A.D. 330.
The people still remain rude and barbarous.
Bruce relates how he saw the people cut steaks from living cattle
and eat them raw. (Ency. Brit.)
Mr. Buckle claims that the favorable environment produces progress in
the race, and that as man progresses he gains more control over nature
and utilizes her forces. He makes the desert to blossom, he overcomes
diseases, as plague, leprosy, and prevents famine, and because of
his increased knowledge wars are becoming less frequent and less
barbarous. From these facts he claims that the advance of civilization
is characterized by a diminishing influence of physical laws, and an
increasing influence of mental laws. In proof of his position that
climate, soil, and food are the determining influences of progress,
he refers us to the climate of Asia and Africa as compared with the
climate of Europe and America, pointing out the latter as having
vast mineral resources and great facilities of travel over highways,
rivers, and lakes. The temperate climate is in every way therefore
most favorable to the highest civilization.
In the tropics man does not have to exhaust himself in obtaining his
food, as it grows spontaneously and in abundance, but the burning
sun takes out of him his energy and enterprise; while on the other
hand the inhabitant of Greenland has to fight for life against the
severe cold. His efforts and manner of life are exhausting, and tend
to dwarf him physically, morally, and mentally. However much man may
do in overcoming nature, these two hindrances of extreme heat and
excessive cold remain insuperable barriers in his way.
War has been a civilizing power, although it has been fearful
expensive of blood, treasure, and public morals. The American
revolution of 1776 secured the independence of this country. The
French revolution of 1789, transformed the whole of Europe. The recent
great rebellion in this country emancipated the slave, and has made a
more perfect union of the North and South. The crusades were a great
revolutionary movement in Europe, beginning in 1096, and lasting about
two hundred years. In fact there was no such a thing as Europe before
this great epoch. The different countries which constitute Europe,
had, prior to the crusades, almost no intercourse with one another,
and consequently each was comparatively ignorant of the manners
and customs of the others. The uprising of millions of men, women,
and children, as warriors of Christ, who set out from time to time,
from England, France, Germany, and Spain to rescue the Holy Land from
the Infidel, the Mohammedan, brought wonderful experiences to the
few thousand who survived to tell their stories. The pathways over
which these deluded people thronged were whitened with the bleached
bones of those who had fallen victims of disease, exposure, hunger,
and the sword. What a monstrous blind sacrifice this was, offered up
on the altar of ignorance! Of course it could do the world no good to
rescue the Holy Land. If God wanted that land rescued he could do it
himself. And that he did not do so is self-evident that he did not
want it rescued, besides, he would not allow even his own peculiar
people to rescue it. The church is still offering its sacrifices of
public weal, of blood, and treasure in trying to rescue, abroad, the
Pagan from his Paganism, and at home, the Infidel from his Infidelity,
while God could do it himself if he so desired, but he does not,
neither does he permit his own "peculiar" people to do it.
The crusaders had no commission from heaven for this business--they
were not the agents of God, but only pretenders--and the church
of to-day has no more right to pretend to save the world than the
crusaders had to deliver the holy sepulchre from the so-called
Pagans. The one and the others are alike impostors upon a credulous
world. The crusades did nothing in the matter of rescuing the Holy
Land. In this respect they were failures. The God of hosts did not
lead them on to certain victory. But if they did not secure what they
aimed at, they found something infinitely better--a wider knowledge
of the world.
The intercourse between these different peoples which was occasioned
by the marching of armies through their lands, gave new ideas to all;
broke up the feudal system, and serfdom, secured the supremacy of a
common law over the independent jurisdiction of the chiefs who claimed
the right of private wars. In a word, it was the origin of Europe,
the first great awakening of the intellect of the masses.
Not only were the old manners and customs changed, but there was
stimulated in society an increased mental activity; and the narrow
routine in which it had been accustomed to move was destroyed. Society
began its new transformations into governments and nations, which
says Guizot, is the characteristic of modern civilization.
Industrial Influences.
The causes which mostly disturbed or accelerated the normal
progress of society in antiquity were the appearance of great
men. In modern times the appearance of great inventions. Printing
has secured the intellectual achievements of the past, and
furnished a sure guarantee of future progress. Gunpowder
and military machinery have rendered the triumph of
barbarians impossible. Steam has united nations in the closest
bonds. Innumerable mechanical contrivances have given a decisive
preponderance to that industrial element which has colored all the
developments of our civilization. The leading characteristics of
modern societies are in consequence marked out much more by the
triumphs of inventive skill than by the sustained energy of moral
causes. ("Lecky's History of European Morals," vol. 1, p. 126.)
It is not necessary to point in what way the printing press, art,
commerce, and science, have promoted the progress of the race. It is so
apparent to every intelligent reader that these have been the stepping
stones over which we have passed from barbarism to civilization,
that amplification is unnecessary.
The splendid results of science are everywhere so manifest that
we hardly need refer to them. What transformations the world has
undergone through the uses of the steam engine, the spinning jenny,
telegraph, ocean cable, railroads, sewing machines, photography,
spectrum analysis, and thousands of other useful inventions. We see
advancement achieved in free government, free schools, free libraries,
free trade, labor reform, prison reform, and reform in the treatment
of lunatics, paupers and criminals, and reform seeking to adjust the
wrongs perpetrated upon women.
Besides all these improvements there is every indication in the spirit
of to-day that we are soon to witness greater improvements, if not
radical changes in government; changes affecting capital and labor.
Skepticism.
Skepticism played a prominent part in the eighteenth century. Doubt
instead of faith, possessed the minds of many of the most
distinguished men of thought, such as Voltaire, Hume, Diderot,
Rousseau, D'Holbach, Gibbon, and others. Some of the more prominent
skeptics rejected Christianity on the common ground of incredibility
of the scriptures. But as they had no form of belief or knowledge to
substitute in place of the dogmas they rejected, it was not difficult
for the clergy with specious explanations to cover up the doubts and
disbeliefs which the skeptics raised. Something more was needed to
break the spell of superstition and arouse the minds of men to thought
and action. In the first part of the present century the philosophy
of Evolution began to find place in the minds of most profound
thinkers. Science has done what skepticism failed to accomplish;
it has given knowledge instead of faith. It has cultivated intense
intellectual habits in modern society and given mankind a sure test
of truth, in its method of verification, by means of experiment,
observation and deduction.
Science.
Science is inexorably hostile to supernaturalism--cannot recognize a
particle of it. It knows nothing of a super-nature; with science all
is nature, and nature is all. From pre-historic times the race has
been under the control of ignorance and superstition, the parents of
fear and cruelty; but now that science begins to dispel ignorance
and superstition, we find courage, kindness, and other humanities
taking their places. And we should say just here that Infidelity is
no longer synonymous with mere disbelief; it means more than this. It
stands for all that reason approves. Freethought is the first fruits
of skepticism, and this means honest inquiry on all subjects, old
and new. It means independence and manhood in private as well as
public life--the right of everyone to think and express his thought
regardless of creeds and customs, the right to live his own life
in the enjoyment of the broadest possible liberty compatible with
the liberty of others. Freethinkers are the prophets of this age,
proclaiming justice as the right of all, and predicting a day of wrath
to those who trample upon the rights of a long-suffering people. In
the light of science, priestcraft must fade away like snow under the
increasing heat of the sun.
Metaphysical Method.
The church made no progress in science and art for a thousand
years. The energies of the mind had no outlet except in a few channels
which were not fruitful. The scholars of the middle ages exerted
great mental force upon empty questions, as "quiddities," "entities,"
"occult virtues," "efficient causes," "realism and nominalism," and the
"essence of things." Were any of these problems ever solved? What
corresponding benefit has resulted from these long and zealous
discussions? What general conclusions have been reached? What first
principles have been established by them?
The speculative philosophy created violent agitation in the church;
but from its very nature it offered no positive truth, no verifiable
facts to take the place of theology. The metaphysical method was
fruitless, because its supporters sought to explain every problem by
the process of thought alone.
Tennemann has fairly stated the good and bad of scholastic
philosophy. It gave rise to a great display of address, subtlety,
sagacity in the explanations and distinction of abstract ideas,
but at the same time to many trifling and minute speculations,
to a contempt of positive knowledge and too much unnecessary
refinement. (Hallam, "Middle Ages," vol. 1, p. 33.)
For centuries the church maintained metaphysical discussions about the
nature of Christ, one party arguing that he was of the same substance
(homoousion) as the Father, and an another as strongly argued that he
was of like substance (homoiusion) as the Father. These controversies
were attended with bloody conflicts. If one party were in possession
of the revealed will of God, it was quite natural that all other
parties should listen to them. If they would not they incurred the
wrath of God, and if God was angry his people ought to imitate him;
if God was going to damn heretics in the next world, his saints,
who are his agents here, ought to damn them in this.