tain opportunities existed which were not found elsewhere. But, in these very areas social conditions may have been such as to bring about a speedy downfall of the culture. Historians have often been puzzled to explain why the period of highest culture of a people immediately preceded its decay. Our terms are clearly inadequate and their inadequacy is a good indication of our ignorance of facts. The Course of Culture Not long ago it was the fashion to assume that the human race had passed by gradual steps from such simple activities as fishing to such complicated processes as manufacturing, the route having been the same for all peoples, though some groups had stopped, or been stopped, at way stations, to remain behind and yet alive as "contemporaneous ancestors." While there is some truth in the statement, there is a large measure of error in the explanations to which it has given rise. Civilized man likes to assume a superiority over the savage, forgetting that he can demonstrate this superiority only so long as he remains in contact with his civilization. At every stage of culture a knowledge of certain facts and arts is necessary. The Indian boy of fourteen could have got a living where the European man of twenty-one would have starved. Break the civilized man's connection with his culture, transfer him to the environment of the Eskimo and he will perish long before he learns how to make a fire by rubbing sticks together, a trick known to every Eskimo boy. Transfer him to most tropical lands and he will perish from disease long before he learns any local remedies. If adopted by savages and taught, he may learn and survive. The reverse shift is equally hard for the savage. This is but the application of the plain meaning of earlier chapters. There is a correlation between culture and environment often for gotten by civilized man. The so-called savage is as well adapted to his life conditions as is the civilized man to his, and sudden transfer of one to the status of the other is almost equally fatal. Both situations call for all the brain power a man possesses. Thus, it seems certain that whatever definition of culture we may agree on, we shall have to deal with two quite different but closely related things, achievement and social organization. It has been shown that achievement is conditioned by the discovery of facts-knowledge. The use thereof is contingent on wealth. Gorgas could overcome certain diseases at Panama and dig the canal, but no hunting or even agricultural people on earth could afford so expensive a health program even though it knew just what might be accomplished. We too know how to do many things which are not feasible at present. The situation is far from being as simple as one might infer from the advice often given backward peoples. Scientific Research To begin with, few persons on earth spend much time in thinking. Constructive mental work is the hardest task ever undertaken by man. In view of the great importance of new knowledge it is a bit startling to realize that far less than 50,000 persons on earth are devoting themselves to pure science. This is not to suggest that valuable discoveries may not be made by other men, mariners for instance, or missionaries, or workmen in industry, though the discoveries of the last are likely to be improvements in machinery and processes. Nevertheless it does indicate that the group from which important new information is likely to come is very small. Hadley of Yale has been credited with the definition, "Culture is the opposite of absorption in the obvious." Research involves too many hours of diligent watching of events apparently insignificant, together with an appreciation of the meaning of little things, to be a popular pastime. The scientist is ever caricatured as a halfwit chasing rainbows of some sort. Yet to the scientific attitude we owe every step forward from the conditions of brute life. That a new attitude has come in certain industries marks a real change of sentiment. "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free," whatever the speaker had in mind, is a profound observation. It is perhaps this very character which has led to the already mentioned antagonism of science and theology which so many people are trying to deny to-day. The habit of belief and the habit of criticism must ever be hostile. In reality man has ever been suspicious of new truth because of the possibility of some upset in accepted beliefs. In as much as man has ever tried to pose as an intelligent being, he is ever ready to deny the antagonism and to profess himself a disciple of fact rather than an adherent of tradition. He must, therefore, be judged by his actions rather than by his words. Human Inconsistency In all truth his actions have been very inconsistent. Researches whose possible results might confirm his old beliefs, increase his wealth or better satisfy some want, have been supported usually, but not always. We are quick to appreciate new articles for which we can see immediate use. The American Indian instantly cast covetous eyes on the horse of the Spaniards as well as on their guns and fire water. There is a tradition of a Minnesota Ojibway captured by his enemies the Sioux who was quickly honored as a god when they found a metal knife in his possession. The Indians remained hostile to the white man's concept of property and to most of his philosophy whose acceptance would have meant traveling the "white-man's road." In the white group itself not long ago there was violent antagonism to the introduction of iron plows, bathtubs, railroads, and automobiles which were called "devil-wagons." One dreads to think what would have happened to a man who suddenly appeared with a radio or telephone in the sixteenth century in Europe. The Jew still uses a stone knife in his sacred ceremonies. Tradition thus holds man to old customs, at times, even in the face of obvious advantages of new machines. What a multitude of opprobrious terms have been applied to the innovators introducing new wares! To many researches no special antagonism has been shown because no one could imagine that the results would have any practical application to the affairs of ordinary life or to traditional beliefs. Not infrequently, however, enough intellectual dynamite has been accumulated in this way to cause considerable concern when it exploded. In other cases every forward step has been made in the face of intense opposition. During the Middle Ages an anatomist was forced to study apes to learn how man was made, so convinced were the church authorities that the dissection of the human body was an act of impiety. In Andrew D. White's Warfare of Science with Theology (a great work though poorly organized), which is very reliable in spite of certain attacks made on it, the student will find almost endless illustrations of this conflict. Really there is no need to turn to older books for such evidence. Plenty is to be found in the daily press. One has but to recall the "good" men and women who prefer to have mankind suffer from all the plagues than to allow experiments on animals. Consider the recent attempts of the mayors of Chicago and New York to have history rewritten according to their desires. Witness the foolish legislation as regards the doctrine of evolution. Our national heroes must not be portrayed as men. Average parents with children ready for college are much more eager to find "safe" schools where there are no "godless" or "socialistic" teachers than they are to put their children under men who are hunting for new truth. Children should be taught that the ideas of the parents are correct. Protestants do not read Catholic journals regularly nor do Republicans depend on Democratic sheets. Modernism is inspired by the devil. The average student wants to be told what to believe rather than be forced to think. By contrast see Henry Ford riding into world-wide fame because his products give the ordinary man a new means of doing something he wants to do. So anxious are we to increase our wealth that in this country alone about a billion dollars are invested (?) each year in shyster concerns. According to popular verdicts the inventor who doesn't get rich is mentally lacking or socially foolish. A man like Babcock who might have become a millionaire is unknown by name, probably, to the majority of farmers who profit from his researches, and unknown almost certainly to him who chances to read this sentence. It happens that we have had a century or more of remarkable advance in the study of nature and in the application of our discoveries in industry. That which we know is little compared with that which remains unknown. We have, however, no way of knowing that we can maintain the pace in centuries to come. We may reach the limit in any given direction at any time, just as the ancient suspicion of the existence of minute organism awaited the invention of the microscope for verification. No one can predict what use we may make of this new knowledge. The scientist already knows how to do many things which no group of people can afford to do. Whether we can ever do them cannot be predicted, for this depends on the production of wealth and the use to which it is put. Thus we come to the second part, the rôle of social organization and social ideals, which we shall discuss a bit more in detail in a later chapter. Our experience seems to indicate that here we are to encounter our greatest diffi |