202 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



But what is to bring about association ? Kaked nomads will not 

 voluntarily yield up their freedom, quit their wanderings, hold con- 

 ventions and pass resolutions concerning the greatest good to the 

 greatest number; patriotism, love, benevolence, brotherly kindness, 

 will not bring savage men together ; extrinsic force must be employed, 

 an iron hand must be laid upon them which will compel them to unite, 

 else there can be no civilization ; and to accomplish this first great 

 good to man to compel mankind to take the initial step toward the 

 amelioration of their condition it is ordained that an evil, or what 

 to us of these latter times is surely an evil, come forward and that 

 evil is war. 



Primeval man, in his social organization, is patriarchal, spreading 

 out over vast domains in little bands or families, just large enough to 

 be able successfully to cope with wild beasts. And in that state 

 humanity would forever remain did not some terrible cause force 

 these bands to confederate. War is an evil, originating in hateful 

 passions and ending in dire misery ; yet without war, without this 

 evil, man would forever remain primitive. But something more is 

 necessary. War brings men together for a purpose, but it is insufii- 

 cient to hold them together ; for, when the cause which compacted 

 them no longer exists, they speedily scatter, each going his own way. 

 Then comes in superstition to the aid of progress. A successful 

 leader is first feared as a man, then reverenced as a supernatural being, 

 and finally himself, or his descendant, in the flesh or in tradition, is 

 worshiped as a god. Then an unearthly fear comes uj)on mankind, 

 and the ruler, perceiving his power, begins to tyrannize over his 

 fellows. Both superstition and tyranny are evils ; yet, without war, 

 superstition, and tyranny, dire evils, civilization, which many deem 

 the highest good, never by any possibility, as human nature is, could 

 be. But more of the conditions of progress hereafter; what I wish 

 to establish here is, that evil is no less a stimulant of development 

 than good, and that in this princijDle of progress are manifest the same 

 antagonism of forces apparent throughout physical Nature ; the same 

 oppugnant energies, attractive and repulsive, positive and negative, 

 everywhere existing. It is impossible for two or more individuals to 

 be brought into contact with each other, whether through causes or 

 for purposes good or evil, without ultimate improvement to both. I 

 say whether through causes or for purposes good or evil, for, to the 

 all-pervading principle of evil, civilization is as much indebted as to 

 the all-pervading principle of good. Indeed, the beneficial influences 

 of this unwelcome element have never been generally recognized. 

 Whatever be this principle of evil, whatever man would be without it, 

 the fact is clearly evident that to it civilization, whatever that may 

 be, owes its existence. " The whole tendency of political economy 

 and philosophical history," says Lecky, " which reveal the physiology 

 of society, is to show that the happiness and welfare of mankind are 



