004 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



I. 



Civilization is the result of previous progress. Progress is a move* 

 merit ; it is, so to speak, dynamical. Civilization is a state, it is static. 

 It is not the work of the present moment ; it is rather that which the 

 present inherits from the past, in the way of science, art, discovery, 

 wealth, customs. In a society which is in process of civilization, each 

 generation finds a certain store of the elements of civilization at hand. 

 The scientific researches of the past have not to be commenced anew ; 

 its discoveries and industrial processes we have but to learn and to 

 perpetuate. Agriculture has made progress, cities have been built, 

 roads constructed, and society organized. Finally, we have language 

 ready formed, and race instincts, and moral and intellectual qualities, 

 more or less developed. So that we may regard civilization as the 

 sum of human enjoyment at a given moment, which is at hand with- 

 out the necessity of going in search of it. Or, in philosophical lan- 

 guage, we say that civilization is an accumulation of force in the race, 

 or for the race. 



We have used the word force, and this calls for an explanation. 

 Modern philosophy is inclined to see nothing but forces in the universe. 

 Those things which we regard as material are but forces, or combina- 

 tions of force. Light, heat, solidity, weight, and movement of every 

 kind, are forces: life is an organization of force, and society an organi- 

 zation of living forces. The same is to be said of will, ideas, sensa- 

 tions, truth, right, science. 



We may regard man as an aggregation of forces, physiological, in- 

 tellectual, and moral. This aggregation is susceptible of perfection- 

 ment, its component parts becoming mutually better adjusted, or the 

 combination becoming more complex. In either case the result will 

 be an enlargement of the faculties and an increase of the individual's 

 power. 



But let us pursue this subject further. This system of forces which 

 we call man is surrouuded by forces which are unintelligent. He 

 enters into competition with these, and turns them to his own advan- 

 tage, appropriates them, and thus, as it were, projects his own person- 

 ality outward. By the aid of science he makes Nature subject to him, 

 and renders the most sterile soil productive. Mountains are tunnelled, 

 and seas joined together. These and similar splendid achievements are 

 not accomplished by the native forces of man, yet they bear the marks 

 of man's handiwork ; and the forces which did bring them about were 

 in subjection to him. Though these forces, then, cannot be properly 

 called human forces, still they are humanized, and it is the accumula- 

 tion of both these kinds of force that makes up civilization. 



It were inexact to say that this accumulation is a creation of force. 

 Man does not create, he only transforms. Production implies only 

 adapting things to our use. Therefore, when we speak of production, 



