Looking at the course of history widely, we may see, then, in the differentiation of social cla.s.ses by the social ladder and in the tendency of the upper strata to fail to reproduce themselves, an explanation of the cyclic course of civilisation. This has been ascribed by some authors[137] to race-crossing, followed by blending, and ultimately by stagnation consequent upon complete blending and the flowering period which coincides with it. But we now have a more adequate explanation of the decay which follows upon the blooming period. It is not mere stagnation, resulting from the achievement of social harmony and the relaxation of efforts at social adaptation and achievement of all kinds. The decline is probably due as much, and perhaps in a much higher degree, to the exhaustion of the ma.s.s of the population, the completion of the draining process by which, throughout the whole period of the development of the cycle of civilisation, the best elements and strains have been drained off from the lower strata, brought to the top, and strained off.

It is interesting to speculate on the possible effect on this process of the fact that we are becoming more clearly conscious of these tendencies and subjecting them to scientific inquiry. Already the legislature has taken one small step of a eugenic nature and is soon to take another.

The important thing is that we should recognise that men are not the helpless sport of blind forces, that mankind can control its own destiny in ever increasing degree as knowledge grows.

A word may be said in regard to s.e.xual selection, which probably played a part in the evolution of the mental capacities of men. It would seem that, in the peoples among whom monogamy is the rule, it no longer operates to any appreciable degree. With the general excess of females, we could suppose that it still tended to race improvement only if the unmarried women were on the whole distinctly inferior to the married.

But, if there is any difference, it is probably the other way; because the most able women are more and more attracted into independent careers. The further the so-called emanc.i.p.ation of women goes, the more will this be the case.

Civilisation, then, tends from the first to put an end to that elimination of the less fit individuals by the severities of Nature which we call natural selection; and, as soon as it has pa.s.sed beyond its earliest stages, it brings to an end also the mortal conflicts of social groups and the consequent group selection, which was in all probability a main factor of racial progress in the prehistoric period.

It abolishes also at an early stage the improving influence of s.e.xual selection, which was probably the third princ.i.p.al condition of the development of the higher powers of mankind.

Civilisation replaces these modes of selection, which make for improvement of the racial qualities of peoples, by a number of modes of social selection, nearly all of which must have been, so far as we can see, negative or reversed selections-that is, selections making for deterioration of the mental qualities of the civilised peoples. In place of natural selection, group selection, and s.e.xual selection, we have had at work, within each people in increasing degrees, various forms of social selection-military selection, selection by the towns, selection by the church, political selection with its exiles and its colonial system, and lastly economic selection, which has become exceedingly influential in recent years among ourselves. And all these, so far as can be seen, have operated mainly, among some peoples and in some ages very powerfully, to diminish the fertility of the best elements of the population and so to produce actual retrogression of the average intellectual capacity of peoples, and especially to deprive them of eugenic stocks, the stocks which were most fertile in individuals of exceptional capacity on whom the progress of civilisation and the relative power of nations chiefly depend.

M. de Lapouge's investigations of the matter have led him to a very melancholy conclusion. He attaches especial importance to urban selection, as he calls it, in weeding out the best stocks. He writes-"There is no more agonising question than that of the exhaustion of our intellectual reserves by the influence of city-life. The public and our statesmen do not suspect it. But nevertheless it is the great danger of modern societies and especially of France. Of all the devastating influences which we have called social selections, selection by the town makes most powerfully for deterioration of peoples. Our towns are destroying all of the intelligent and energetic that have been spared us by the long centuries of disastrous selections. France has lost in the past almost all her dolicho-blond elements, and now are disappearing those of mixed stock and the best of the short-headed type.

In all the continent of Europe the hour is at hand when there will remain only the inert and used up debris of our dead nations, pitiable remnants who will be the prey of unknown conquerors. Thus perished the h.e.l.lenic world, thus will perish the whole of our civilisation, if man does not make application of his knowledge of the principles of heredity, that tremendous power which to-day is bringing death and stagnation, but by the control of which science will enable us to secure safety and national vigour[138]."

It is possible that this conclusion gives too dark a picture of the tendencies of social selection in the civilised nations; but it does seem probable that with the advance of civilisation the tendency to reversed selection becomes strong[139]. We are at any rate compelled to conclude that it is impossible to discover evidence of any influences that can have made at all strongly for progressive evolution of intellectual capacity during the historic period; whereas a number of forms of selection seem to have worked against it and must at least have counterbalanced any factors making for improvement, and that therefore no advance has taken place in intellectual capacity but more probably some deterioration has already occurred.

The conclusion thus reached deductively is well borne out by the small amount of inductive evidence that is available. Such comparison as we can make between the leading modern nations and the civilised nations of antiquity tends rather to show that both as regards the average man, and as regards the intellectual endowment of exceptional men and the proportion of such men produced, the advantage lies with the ancient peoples. And the comparison of skull capacity or size of brain decidedly supports this conclusion. It has been found by a number of anthropologists that the average skull capacity of men of the late Stone Age in Europe was equal to, or greater than, that of modern Europeans.

And in the main, on the large average, intellectual capacity varies with the size of the brain.

Our seeming intellectual superiority is a superiority of the traditional store of intellectual gains, a superiority of knowledge and of the instruments of the intellect, of language, and of the methods of mental operation by which knowledge is obtained, especially the mathematical and scientific methods in general[140]. Consider a single example frequently quoted to show the intellectual inferiority of the modern savage. It is said-Here is a poor savage who cannot count above ten without the help of his fingers and toes or other tallies; and we generally forget that we also should be incapable of counting above ten, had not our ancestors slowly devised the system of enumeration or verbal counting, and that, given such a system, the poor savage would be able to count as well as any of us.

The reader may be prepared to accept this conclusion as regards the intellectual capacities of mankind, and yet may be inclined to say-Surely the civilised peoples have progressed as regards their moral qualities throughout the historic period! Let us, therefore, consider this point separately for a moment.

Is there reason to believe that there has been progress of the innate moral disposition during the historic period? Here we are on still more difficult ground than when we considered the question of the progress of innate intellectual capacity.

The essence of the higher morality is the predominance of the altruistic motives over the egoistic, in the deliberately reasoned control of conduct. But morality in this sense is relatively rare in every age, and the great ma.s.s of moral conduct of men in general is the issue of mental processes of a simpler kind; it consists in doing what one believes to be right, in acting according to what one believes to be one's duty; no matter how that belief may have been arrived at. The tendency to do what one believes to be right, which for the vast majority of men has always been simply the tendency to conform to the code of morals accepted by his society, has an innate basis which may properly be called the social or moral disposition. At present I am not concerned to define the elements of our nature which make up the moral disposition[141]. The morality of a people, objectively considered, is the outcome of the interaction between their moral disposition, on the one hand, and the moral environment of the individuals, on the other; and the latter consists of two parts: (1) the traditional system of precepts, customs, laws, in short the code: (2) the traditional system of sanctions by which the code is upheld and enforced.

If we compare, in respect to this moral nature, the members of primitive societies with those of highly civilised societies, applying simply the criterion of conformity of conduct to the accepted code, we shall be impelled to the conclusion that the former, the savages and barbarians, have in general the moral nature much more highly developed than the members of civilised societies; for they conform on the whole very much more strictly to their moral codes. But such a conclusion would be hardly fair to the civilised peoples; first, because their social environment is more complex, so that the bearing of their moral code is less simple and direct; it is less easily obeyed, because its teachings are more generalised in form and do not provide clear irresistible rulings for all or any large proportion of the much greater variety of situations with which individuals find themselves confronted. Secondly, because the code is a higher one and makes greater demands upon the self-control of individuals. Thirdly, because not only is the code less clear and direct, but also the sanctions of conduct, civil and religious, are generally less obvious and immediate; and the effectiveness of both code and sanctions is weakened by the co-existence, within complex civilised societies, of more or less rival codes and systems of sanctions, which inevitably weaken the authority of one another; whereas the code and sanctions of the savage or barbarous society reign absolutely and without rivalry, so that men are not led to question their authority.

The conditions of moral conduct are, then, so different as to forbid any attempt to compare the innate moral dispositions of primitive and civilised peoples; and all we can do, in order to arrive at an opinion, is to consider whether the conditions have been such as to favour the evolution of the moral disposition, the innate basis of the social tendencies, during the nation-making period.

There can, I think, be no doubt that the princ.i.p.al condition of the evolution of the moral nature was group selection among primitive societies constantly at war with one another. In conflicts of that kind it must have been the solidarity of each group, resting upon the moral dispositions of individuals, the tendency of each individual to conform to the law and moral code of the society and to stand loyally by his leaders and comrades, which, more than anything else, determined success and survival in the struggle of the group for existence. At first, the nature of the code must have been of relatively small importance; the all important condition of survival of the group must have been the strict obedience to it on the part of the members of the group.

This is not a deduction only from general principles. One may observe the effect of tribal conflict, on comparing, in various parts of the world, tribes that have long been subjected to its influence with closely allied tribes that have long led a peaceful existence[142].

At a later stage, as the traditional codes of morality became differentiated and more complex with the increasing complexity of societies, the nature of these codes must have acquired an increasing influence in determining group survival; but it must still have been subordinate in importance to the degree of development of the moral disposition; for a society with an inferior moral code, strictly conformed to by its members, would in the long run have better chances of survival than one with a higher code less strictly observed. Hence, the higher more difficult codes could only be attained by those peoples among whom the instinctive basis of social conduct had become highly evolved by a long process of group selection.

But, on pa.s.sing into the stage of settled societies of large extent, that is to say, as peoples pa.s.sed from the stage of tribal organisation to that of national organisation, the evolution of the social disposition through the mortal conflict of groups must have tended to come to an end; because group selection became less active, the conflicts between the larger and less numerous societies or groups became rarer and also less fatal to the vanquished societies. In other words, during the historic period failure in conflict has not usually meant extermination; national cultures and the power and glory of nations have come and gone, but the various peoples, the units of conflict, have in the main survived their failures and persisted in living. Group selection, the main condition of evolution of the social disposition, has, therefore, been abolished; and of the various forms of social selection operating within societies, the chief of which we have briefly noticed, no one seems to have been of a nature to produce further evolution of the social disposition; all of them must rather have operated adversely to it. Military selection, selection by the Church's rule of celibacy, political selection-all these must have fallen most heavily on the individuals in whom the social disposition was strong, whose conduct was influenced largely by the sense of duty, and less by the individual impulses and desires.

We may conclude, then, with some confidence that there has not been further evolution of the innate moral disposition in the historic period. This conclusion is greatly at variance with popular conceptions; we are apt to pride ourselves upon our superior morality; to point to our humanitarian laws and inst.i.tutions, to our tenderness for the weak, the poor, and the suffering; to our regard even for the welfare of savage peoples, whom we no longer deliberately exterminate, and for domestic animals; and to suppose that all this shows modern civilised men to be innately superior in morality to their ancestors and to the barbarous peoples. But our conclusion that the difference implies merely an evolution of moral tradition, not of moral nature, will appear probable if we reflect upon the fact that a widespread change of this kind in respect to some department of conduct has sometimes been produced within a very short s.p.a.ce of time, even within the lifetime of one generation. Take the att.i.tude of Englishmen towards slavery and the African slave trade. It is hardly more than half a century since large numbers of Englishmen, or men of English origin, owned great gangs of slaves or drew their wealth from slave labour; yet now most of us look with horror upon slavery of every kind. Take the case of kindness to domestic animals. It is a comparatively recent tradition; and, within the memories of those who are not yet middle-aged, a great improvement has taken place. Again, there are many persons who, while tender to their domestic animals, are entirely brutal where wild animals are concerned, since public opinion or traditional morality does not yet bear so strongly upon our relations to them. Again, it is not long since in our factories, our prisons, our schools, the most horrible tortures were applied to our fellow citizens without provoking any protest; while now we display perhaps an excessive tenderness and have pa.s.sed law after law to protect the feeble against the strong.

The mental development of peoples in the historic period has, therefore, not consisted in, nor been caused by, nor in all probability has it been accompanied by, any appreciable evolution of innate intellectual or moral capacities beyond the degrees achieved in the race-making period, before the modern nations began to take shape. There is no reason to think that we are intellectually or morally superior by nature to our savage ancestors. Such superiority of morals and intellectual power as we enjoy has resulted from the improvement and extension of the intellectual and moral traditions and the accompanying evolution of social organisation.

A different conclusion was reached by the late Benjamin Kidd in his _Social Evolution_, which has enjoyed a very wide circulation[143], and it seems worth while therefore to examine very briefly the author's position. Mr Kidd saw clearly and argued convincingly that the innate intellectual capacities have not improved during the historic period; but he held that the innate moral tendencies have been greatly improved during this period; or rather he distinguished between the innate moral tendencies and the innate religious tendencies; and, while rejecting Herbert Spencer's view that the moral tendencies (as thus arbitrarily distinguished from the religious tendencies) are slowly becoming improved and strengthened in the civilised peoples, he held that the innate religious tendencies are being greatly improved and strengthened; and he regarded this as the underlying condition of all 'social evolution.' In support of his view he cited an impressive array of facts ill.u.s.trating the general softening of manners and morals among the civilised peoples, especially the legislative changes which have given political power to the ma.s.ses of the people. That these evidences of a general softening of manners and a great extension of social sympathy are very striking we must all agree; but Kidd advanced no serious argument in favour of his contention that these changes have been due to some change or improvement of the innate qualities of the peoples among whom they have appeared. And he did not suggest any way in which this alleged improvement or accentuation of the innate religious tendencies may have been brought about. He attributed it wholly to the influence of the Christian religion. Now, if Kidd had accepted the Lamarckian principle of the transmission of acquired tendencies or effects of use and habit, he might reasonably have attributed the alleged improvement to such influence. But he sternly rejected that principle and proclaimed himself a rigid exponent of the Neo-Darwinian school, which attributes all racial changes to selection. He even a.s.sumed the truth of the doctrine that, in the absence of selective processes making for its improvement, every race must inevitably degenerate. It might, then, have been expected that he would have attempted to show how Christianity can be supposed to have favoured the improvement by selection of the innate religious tendencies. Yet he made no attempt in this direction. He seems to have been aware that his view encounters a great difficulty in the fact that Christianity powerfully swayed the peoples of Europe for many centuries during which little or no progress in civilisation was effected, whereas rapid and accelerating progress of many kinds has marked the last three centuries. He sought to meet this difficulty by attributing the rapid progress of recent centuries to the influence of the Protestant form of Christianity, alleging that it promotes the evolution of the religious tendencies more powerfully than other forms.

Yet this view of the matter, even if it were acceptable, would leave the Reformation itself quite unexplained. Kidd seems to hint that, throughout the earlier centuries of the dominance of the Christian religion in Europe, it was slowly effecting the alleged improvement of the religious tendencies in the ma.s.s of the people, without these being able to manifest themselves in social life, until they somehow broke loose at the time of the Reformation and began for the first time to operate on a great scale and with tremendous force. The view might have some plausibility coming from the mouth of a disciple of Lamarck, but it cannot be reconciled with Kidd's strictly Neo-Darwinian principles.

There is, then, nothing in Kidd's grandiloquent and loosely reasoned, but always interesting pages, to justify any belief in the improvement of the innate moral disposition during the historic period[144].

Before leaving this difficult question of the extent and nature of changes in the innate qualities of peoples during the historic period, I would define in the following way the position that seems to me to be well founded. There have been no considerable changes of innate qualities; and what changes have occurred have probably been of the nature of retrogression, rather than of advance or improvement; and this is true of both intellectual and moral qualities. The improvements of civilised peoples are wholly improvements of the intellectual and moral traditions. All the great and obvious changes of social life are in the main changes of these traditions. Nevertheless, such differences of innate qualities as exist between the different peoples are very important, because of their c.u.mulative influence upon their traditions.

And, especially, the innate superiorities of the leading peoples, though relatively small, are of essential significance; and it is of the first importance for the future prosperity of the great nations of the present time that they should not suffer any deterioration of their innate qualities; for they alone have attained just such a level of innate excellence as renders possible the existence of civilisation and the growth and continued progress of great nations. Especially is it essential that they should continue to produce in large numbers those persons of exceptional moral and intellectual endowments, whose influence alone can maintain the vitality of the national traditions and who alone can add anything of value to them.

CHAPTER XIX

THE PROGRESS OF NATIONS IN THEIR YOUTH

We have found reason to believe that during the historic period the peoples of Europe have made no progress in innate qualities, moral or intellectual; yet that period has been characterised by immense mental development, a development essentially of the collective mind. The most striking result of the formation of nations and the development of civilisation has been this replacement of the progress of the individual mind by the progress of the collective national mind. And the most interesting and important problem of group psychology is-What are the conditions of the progressive development of the collective mind?

I insist that this is distinctly and primarily a psychological problem.

The conclusion we have just reached, to the effect that it is not produced by and does not imply a racial evolution, shows that it is not to be regarded as a biological problem. It cannot be treated as a problem of economics or of politics; these sciences only touch its fringe at special points.

We have before us the significant fact that in some cases the collective mind of a nation has remained stationary at a rudimentary stage of development for long ages; while in other nations the collective mind has developed at a constantly accelerating rate, becoming more highly differentiated and specialised and at the same time more highly integrated, has in fact developed in a way closely a.n.a.logous to the evolution of the individual mind. The collective mind, in thus developing, reacts upon the development of individual minds, raising all far above the level they could independently attain and some in each generation to a very high level both intellectually and morally.

The merest outline of a discussion of this great problem is alone possible. I can do no more than offer some suggestions toward the full solution of it. Let us note, first, that continued progress, far from being the rule, as is commonly a.s.sumed by popular writers, has been a rare exception, as Sir H. Maine pointed out in _Ancient Law_. He wrote-"In spite of overwhelming evidence, it is most difficult for a citizen of Western Europe to bring thoroughly home to himself the truth that the civilisation which surrounds him is a rare exception in the history of the world." "It is indisputable that much the greatest part of mankind has never shown a particle of desire that its civil inst.i.tutions should be improved, since the moment when external completeness was first given to their embodiment in some permanent record. Except in a small section of the world, there has been nothing like the gradual amelioration of a legal system." And what is true of systems of law is true of all the other elements of the intellectual and moral tradition which const.i.tute a civilisation or national culture.

Sir H. Maine added-"The difference between the stationary and progressive societies is, however, one of the great secrets which inquiry has yet to penetrate." His own contribution, which he regarded as a partial solution only, was that the difference depends in part upon the period at which the customs of a people become codified in written law. If, as the tribes of a people become settled and enter upon a national existence, there is no written code of law and custom, customs, he urged, which at their origin were socially advantageous tend to become extended by a.n.a.logy to other fields of practice and to a.s.sume an excessive and senseless rigour; for example, the custom of cleanliness becomes the exceedingly elaborate ritual of purification, which among the Hindus limits and restrains social life at every point. Or a useful distinction of cla.s.ses becomes a rigid caste system, than which nothing is more prejudicial to progress, intellectual or moral. The continuation of the process of extension by a.n.a.logy through long ages has resulted in nearly all the uncivilised and less civilised peoples of the modern world being bound down on every hand by a system of rigid and worse than useless customs, which, restricting both thought and action, render progress impossible. On the other hand, early codification of custom in a system of written laws secures that thereafter custom shall not develop in this blind unintelligent and socially prejudicial manner, but shall be developed only by deliberate intention and the reasoned fore-thought of the ruling powers of society; it will then develop in the main, in spite of many mistakes, in a way which promotes the efficiency of social life and the welfare of society.

Maine's suggestion is in harmony with the fact that the progressive peoples have not been those who invented or learnt the art of writing at an early period. Writing and the written codification of customary law could not be invented by any people until they had attained to a settled life and a considerable degree of social organisation; and then, when the invention was worked out sufficiently, the damage had been done, socially advantageous customs had already degenerated into useless rites and ceremonial observances; and writing served only to establish these more firmly, to fix their yoke upon the necks of the people, as in the case of the Hindus.

On the other hand, the progressive peoples have been those who remained in a savage or barbarous condition until a relatively late period, and who then acquired by imitation the arts of writing and of reducing custom to written law, acquired them in a fully developed condition from the peoples who had invented and developed these arts. They have, therefore, enjoyed the advantages of written laws from the beginning of their civilisation.

But, as Maine recognised, the acquisition of writing at the outset of national life is by no means sufficient to account for the progressiveness of the nations of South and Western Europe; we must seek other causes and conditions of their mental progress.

We have already noted certain features of the racial const.i.tution which were probably essential to the continued progress of the European peoples-namely, the high degree of evolution of the social disposition through group selection in the long prehistoric or race-making period; a group selection which probably was far more severe and prolonged than the peoples of any other part of the world were subjected to; and which in turn was due probably, as we have seen, to the great diversity of physical surroundings and to the comparative severity of the climate of Europe, especially of the northerly parts in which the most progressive European race was formed; for these physical conditions generated in the race an innate energy, a capacity for sustained effort.

Without the highly developed social disposition in the ma.s.s of their members, primitive societies could not have survived those changes of custom and inst.i.tution which were essential features of their progress.

Without their innate energy, active rivalry and compet.i.tion, which have been chief factors in social progress, would not have been constant features of the relations of these societies. Still the possession of a highly evolved social disposition by the European peoples does not in itself suffice to account for the continued mental evolution of the leading nations. For not all the European peoples have progressed; and, of those that have progressed, some have done so much more effectively than others.

Let us first examine the question-In what has progress primarily consisted? Has it been primarily a progress of the moral or of the intellectual traditions? As I mentioned in an earlier chapter, we have here one of the main points of dispute.

Buckle was the great advocate of the primacy of intellectual development in the sense of increase of natural knowledge. The argument by which he sought to establish the position runs as follows: Progress must have been due to improvement either of moral or of intellectual principles.

But moral principles have been almost the same in all ages. "To do good to others; to love your neighbour as yourself; to honour your parents-these and a few others, are the sole essentials of morals; but they have been known for thousands of years, and not one jot or t.i.ttle has been added to them by all the sermons, homilies and text-books which moralists and theologians have been able to produce." On the other hand, knowledge and intellectual principles have made immense strides; hence all progress must have been primarily intellectual rather than moral.

Buckle did not deny that there has been some moral progress; rather he insisted upon it as an essential feature of the progress of civilisation; but it has, according to him, consisted only in the more effective operation of unchanging principles, and this more effective operation is secondary to, and due to, intellectual progress.

I think we must agree with Buckle that the increasing store of knowledge and the increased command over nature that comes with it has been the primary condition of the progress of nations. For, since the early middle ages, the moral natures of men and the teaching of Christianity have been the same in all essentials; yet for many centuries there was practically no progress. Kidd himself admitted that progress only set in rapidly about the time of the Reformation. And it is notorious that this progress, including the Reformation itself, was due to the stimulation of the intellect by a number of influences-by the renewed study of cla.s.sical art and literature, by the discovery of the New World, by the increased intercourse of nations resulting from the improvement of the art of navigation, by the acc.u.mulation of wealth and the formation of a powerful middle cla.s.s. It is clear also that religion, far from having been the sufficient cause or instrument of progress, was largely responsible for the stagnation of the middle ages, through sternly repressing the sceptical spirit and leading off men's minds from inquiry into natural laws, to the discussion of many topics on which it was impossible to achieve knowledge and which were necessarily barren of results making for human progress. Nevertheless the Christian religion has in the long run co-operated in forwarding the mental evolution of the European peoples in an important manner which we must briefly consider later-namely, through its effects upon social organisation.

Without raising the question of the natural or supernatural origin of religion or of any particular religion, we may say that from the point of view of national life, a religion is essentially a system of supernatural sanctions for social conduct, for conduct conforming to the moral code of the society, and especially for customs regulating the family and the relations of the s.e.xes, on which, more than on anything else, social stability depends. It is, thus, the great conservative agency; for it enforces the observance of custom by a system of rewards and punishments; in the earlier stages of society, especially by punishments. It is essentially intolerant of change of custom or belief; and even the Christian religion has exemplified this principle in the terrible persecutions and innumerable wars for which it has been responsible.

The great function and tendency of any religion, once established among a people, is to preserve intact the current moral code and to secure conformity to it. Nevertheless, some religions are less prohibitive of progress than others; and, when such a religion replaces a more restrictive one, an important condition of progress is realised. But, in so far as progress is then favoured, this is not due to the changed operations of the religious emotions and sentiments; it is due to the great religious teachers who have succeeded in breaking down the bonds imposed by the more primitive religion, and so have given freer play to the intellectual faculties; the improvements of religious systems have been negative or permissive conditions of progress, rather than its effective cause.

Progress has, then, always resulted primarily from the gains made by the intellect and added to the intellectual tradition, that is to say, from the progress of knowledge. Nevertheless, the free play of the intellect is always a danger to society, for the reason that the customs and moral code of a society, however imperfect and sanctioned by a religion however narrow, are yet the bonds by which alone it can be held together; to their influence has been largely due in every age the subordination by the members of a society of their individual egoistic ends to the welfare of the society as a whole.

The spirit of inquiry, which always leads men to question the authority of these customs and moral codes and of their religious sanctions and thus tends to weaken them, is, then, a socially disruptive force, at the same time that it is the source of all progress. Hence, though the free play of the intellect and of the spirit of inquiry may secure for a time the rapid progress of civilisation, it cannot alone secure continued progress. Continued progress has only resulted where there has been maintained a happy balance between the conservative and the progressive forces, between the authority of custom and the moral code on the one hand and the free activity of the intellect on the other. Wherever the progressive force has outrun the conservative, progress has been first rapid and then has come abruptly to an end. Greece exemplified this process in the clearest manner. It was the excessive seeking of individuals for their own power and glory, unrestrained by the customs and religious systems which their intellect had outgrown, that ruptured the bonds of society, plunged the State into war and civil strife, and eventually destroyed it by the extermination of the Greek aristocracy.

The same is true of the brilliant but brief periods of rapid progress exhibited by the medieval Italian States. Intellect outran and undermined morals, and progress was brought to an end.