lay it to waste? The rest of the world has to be taken into account when we shape our policies whether we like it or not. We have passed the time when we think that might alone makes right, but we have not yet fully learned that right must be supported by might if it is to be maintained. International law will continue to be a farce until there are nations willing to support it by all the might at their command.

An added danger comes from the temptation to believe that the loud shouting of old watch-words and shibboleths is a guarantee of their continued vitality and effectiveness. In America we talk much of equality before the law and of justice, and forget that the incoming immigrant hordes get their conceptions of justice from actual contact with the minor courts and are often impressed with anything but justice. Our political leaders wave the flag and shout democracy as loudly as any man on the street, but are often much more interested in their profits than in the welfare of the community.

Out of all the vast turmoil of conflicting interests, of the mists of ignorance and superstition and the test tube of the scientist, must be evolved not merely the material basis of our life, but also the customs and policies which are to meet present needs and help us prepare for needs yet to be. When one thinks of the opportunities for mistakes, of the little learning of the many, and the agelong distrust of those who do know, of the difficulty of distinguishing the last from those who claim to know but do not, we need not be surprised that actual societies have had to "worry along" as best they could until the testing time came. Then perhaps they find the right leader and adopt the right policy in time, perhaps they fail and yield place to some other group. Both have happened in

the past, both are happening before our very eyes. The future belongs to those groups which make the right choices. Today there is little knowledge kept hidden within a given country. Today there is less chance than ever for the maintenance of a stone wall of exclusion. The world is becoming one and the peoples that refuse to recognize this fact and persist in maintaining lower standards are but writing their own death notices, no matter how long the funeral is postponed.

The success or failure of a civilization then cannot be accounted for in terms of race or environment alone. It is far too complex for that. Rather must we account for it in terms of adjustment between man's institutions and his environment which is in part physical, in part social. It is easier to maintain the lower levels of savagery and barbarism than the higher levels of civilization. This is true regardless of the stock of humans. In the simpler stages there are fewer adjustments to be made and the individuals stand or fall as individuals. In the higher stages there are many actors to be harmonized. Group interests often conflict with national. It is more difficult to know the facts, it is vastly more difficult to secure that united attitude which makes possible the use of known facts. That which makes it possible to attain civilization is that the basic factors are after all relatively few and constant. That which has made it so hard to preserve a culture once gotten must be the introduction of so many factors, relatively small in themselves, but which collectively are so important; particularly when the tendency of all institutions is to lose their early adaptability and crystallize.

Ever and anon there arises man, or a school of men, who have some one remedy for social evils which adopted

will lead to absolute peace and prosperity. If eternal change is the order of nature, there can be no such solution of our difficulties. Adopt democracy and there are left plenty of political problems, some of them unsuspected before. Adopt anarchy, socialism, single-tax or any other of the compounds advocated today and the result will only be a new set of problems for the future to solve even assuming that the immediate results are good. This merely means that there are no final solutions for social ills. We must always be prepared to modify our programs in the light of experience and in accordance with the end we seek to accomplish.

The road from savagery to present civilization has been long, needlessly long, but the road to that civilization which we see as possible in the future is still longer. There is no reason for pessimism. Man can do much greater things than he has done if he will and if he is ready to pay the necessary costs of greater research and greater training, both in knowledge of fact and of purpose; provided always that he keeps faith in human nature and the possibility of human achievement which after all is the essence of religion.

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING

BAGEHOT, W. Physics and Politics. 1877.
BOAS, F. The Mind of Primitive Man. 1911.

BRISTOL, L. W. Social Adaptation. 1915.

CHAMBERLAIN, H. S. The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century. 1913.

CONN, H. W. Social Heredity and Social Evolution. 1914. GIDDINGS, F. H. Principles of Sociology. 1896.

GUMPLOVICZ, L. Der Rassenkampf. 1883.

HALL, A. C. Crime and Social Progress. 1901.

HAYCRAFT, J. B. Darwinism and Race Progress. 1895.

HAYES, E. C. Introduction to the Study of Sociology. 1915.

VON IHERING, R. The Evolution of the Aryan (English Translation). 1897.

NASMYTH, G. Social Progress and the Darwinian Theory.

1916.

Novicow, J. La Critique du Darwinisme Social. 1910.

Poverty and Social Progress. 1916.

PARMELEE, M.

SCHAEFFLE, A. Das Bau und Leben des Sozialen Koerpers (2nd Ed.). 1896.

SPENCER, H. Principles of Sociology (3d Ed.). 1885.

TARDE, G. Laws of Imitation (English Translation). 1903. WALLACE, A. R. Social Environment and Moral Progress.

INDEX