neighbors to the south, neighbors reaching out to the wilderness to further their own interests but, in so doing, introducing the arts of civilization to the northern barbarians. It is not an accident that the southern coast of France developed long before the northern part of the country. From the older centers the barbarian became familiar with the use of metals and for centuries he continued his borrowing habits. He took over the art of writing. He based his jurisprudence on Rome. He absorbed the mathematics of the Arabs. He accepted the combination of Judaic-Neoplatonic philosophy as his religion, and finally he rediscovered the art and literature of Greece. The basis of a large part of what we to-day call Western culture was not developed at home but was taken over almost bodily from other peoples. History tells us that this absorption was a long, slow, and often painful process. It indicates that the barbarian had the capacity to develop, a capacity already shown by his relatives who had pushed into Italy under the name of "longbeards" or into Spain as Visigoths. It shows also that all cultures depend in large measure on the work of predecessors, often of other races. So-called civilized man may borrow readily from primitive man, as the adoption of the culture of maize or potato by the whites, and the enthusiastic reception of the tobacco complex indicate. It is worthy of note that the white man took over not only the grain, corn, but almost the entire set of traits going with them. It matters not whether current or later verdicts approve or disapprove what is borrowed. The Indian's liking for the white man's "fire water" is comparable to the later use of opium by the whites. Whenever any group finds anything it wants, whether useful or harmful, it tries to obtain it. This attitude has characterized all peoples of whom we have knowledge. Civilization a World Product In a sense all civilization is a world product. The old attempts to explain it in terms of race are inadequate for they but magnify the difficulty of explaining why some of the present "superior races" have been so tardy in manifesting their qualities. History seems to give us a picture of one favored region after another beginning to develop but limited in its development by the degree of contact with older culture centers as well as by its natural resources. Solomon sent abroad for precious wares. The Roman galleys sought tin in Cornwall, the Portuguese fleets sought India, the royal adventurers of England combed the seas, all driven by the same motive. No great culture center remains willingly self-sufficient, nor can any modern center remain isolated. Granted that China may build a wall, or Japan adopt a policy of isolation, the ultimate result is certain. Thus trade arises to bring the products of the wilderness to the center, or to exchange the silks and tea of China for the manufactures of Europe. It is often said that the trade routes of earth should run north and south that the products of different zones might be exchanged. There is some truth in this but it is far from being the whole truth. The metals show no zonal distribution and metals have been increasingly important. What we see is trade between culture centers and relatively undeveloped areas, between fur-producing districts and densely populated lands, between manufacturing and agricultural regions. Culture Centers In older days the great culture centers were very few in number at any given time and one might dominate the known world as did Rome. After an earlier period of slow penetration by migrating tribes taking possession of the land and driving earlier groups ahead of them, a process found all over earth at different periods, we enter a period of conquest where the desire is to make other areas pay tribute. A period of what is essentially slavery arises and this still lingers in certain modern theories and in the so-called "contract-labor" still used by some countries. But the situation changes. International slavery became as unprofitable as domestic slavery. No home country can long guarantee colonial welfare. The German colonies in Africa became expensive luxuries, always were for that matter. This is true of some of the island dependencies of both England and the United States. That further changes are ahead is evident. A greater change, however, is the synchronous development of a few great powers in different parts of earth. North Europe has what is essentially one standard civilization, weakened by unfortunate racial, political, linguistic differences, handicapped by three vermiform appendices, Spain, Italy and Turkey, likely to cause trouble at any time, harassed by an enormous bear continually growling on its eastern flank, and is struggling to pay the debts brought on by her own policies. In the Far East a great giant is awakening from the sleep of ages and is finding difficulty in converting a family government into a nation. Japan, highly developed and alert, is conscious of her inadequate national wealth and is casting longing eyes on Manchuria. South Africa and South America are yet to develop to adult stature. There remains North America, uniform in language and general ideals, united in so far as the rest of the world is concerned. The power which America is to exercise during the next century is evident. How that power is exercised, and to what ends, are matters of world concern. In this book we have been trying to get a bird's-eye view of all these matters and to discover how much or how little we understand what is going on. No one can suggest that the present world situation was clearly foreseen a century ago. Who then would have dreamed what Japan was to accomplish? Who of our constitutional fathers or contemporary Europeans visualized the growth in America? Answer, not one. If, however, we ask ourselves how it has come about, there are a multitude of ready answers. The answer of the Mohammedan, "The Will of Allah," is as close an approximation to the truth as any. In other words it has resulted from the application of man's intelligence to the problem of getting a living. There is in this no suggestion of the writer's personal verdict as to whether the situation is good or bad, hopeful or discouraging. We are but seeking to present the facts on which our judgments must rest. The Progress of Science The break from the intellectual attitude of ancient Europe, foreshadowed by the suggestions of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, culminated in the science of the eighteenth. Man was to be saved by science, not by faith. The world was a perfect creation, full of plan and purpose, headed for some glorious goal. Only man was vile, interfering with nature. Hence the emphasis of Rousseau on the necessity of a return to a state of nature. So Pope sang in his Essay on Man: ... All are but parts of one stupendous whole, All partial evil, universal good: And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, But a different note is struck by Tennyson despite his faith in things ultimate: Ah me, for why is all around us here Science had brought and is still bringing an understanding of the physical world hardly dreamed of by the greatest men of earlier times. It brought also in its train, the greatest intellectual upheaval the world has ever known. Out of the window went one hoary belief after another. The more we know of matter the more wonderful and mysterious it becomes. The same is true of living things. The doubt of the adequacy of old explanations reaches to man himself. At no time known to us has the gulf between the information of the specialist and the man on the street been so great. They live in different worlds. Obviously this is a dangerous situation for it stimulates the ignorant man of faith to stir the people to action on a matter of which he knows nothing, like Bryan on evolution. So great is present knowledge that the specialist in one field can hardly understand the language of an expert in another subject. What genius is to make a new synthesis and create a picture on which the world can look and say, I understand, or believe? What system of education is to bridge the gulf? Research No one can predict what man is yet to discover or invent. I am told that the head of our patent office sometime prior to 1850 recommended the closing of the office as all useful inventions had been made, and a little later the head of the agricultural machinery section declared that nothing more could be hoped for in the way of harvesting machinery, yet this was before the invention of the binder. I, myself, have heard learned proofs of the impossibility of heavier-than-air flying machines. Vastly more remains to be learned than we have discovered. This will require the concentrated efforts of |