CIVILIZATION AS ACCUMULATED FORCE. 603 



civilization is the social fact of the increase of wealth. But even 

 though we take the word wealth in its widest sense, it will not include 

 all the elements of civilization, and especially it will not include those 

 which have their seat in man himself, such as moral and physical de- 

 velopment. Then an accident, such as conquest, might enrich a na- 

 tion, without advancing it in civilization. 



Guizot makes civilization depend chiefly on political institutions. 

 According to him, it is the perfectionment of civil life, the development 

 of society, and of the relations of man with man. But he admits that 

 we must also take into account individual life, the inner life of man 

 and his development intellectually, socially, and morally. In his His- 

 tory, however, Guizot almost altogether disregards this element, so 

 that we may consider his work as merely an excellent history of politi- 

 cal progress under constitutional monarchy. 



Buckle's History is the antithesis of Guizot's. Here the individual 

 is every thing ; institutions nothing, or even hinderances. The state, 

 according to Buckle, is a resultant, not a principal. Buckle also de- 

 nies that religion is a factor in working out the problem of civiliza- 

 tion. These views, at first warmly opposed, are now more favorably 

 received. 



But since he deduced civilization neither from religion nor from 

 political constitutions, how did he account for it ? He defined it to 

 consist in the supremacy of intellectual laws over physical laws. The 

 history of Europe, as he read it, is simply a series of victories gained by 

 man over Nature ; whereas, the domination of Nature over man causes 

 the irremedial decadence of Oriental nations. 



"VVe will not deny the justice and truth of this line of observation. 

 The contest between man and the outer world, the conquests of science, 

 the subjection of all the forces of Nature to man's will these are truths 

 as clear as day. And yet we do not believe that they constitute the 

 sum total of civilization. Men are brought face to face, not alone with 

 Nature, but also with one another. "We have to adapt ourselves, not 

 alone to physical forces, but we have also to adapt ourselves to one 

 another ; in a word, we find in civilization, in progress, a social as well 

 as a physical element. Side by side with the conquests of humanity 

 over the remainder of the universe, there is a progress in morals, and 

 in the relations between man and man between one society and an- 

 other. Civilization is impossible without freedom and security, and 

 these can exist only in virtue of social institutions. 



All the theories we have been considering contain an admixture of 

 truth and error ; and they are all imperfect, being true in what they 

 afrirm, but erroneous in what they exclude from consideration. We 

 have, therefore, to discover a formula which, while it applies equally 

 to all these facts, and sums them up in a more general notion, shall 

 show their intimate connection and their close association with one 

 another. 



