SAVAGISM AND CIVILIZATION. 205 



of evil decreasing. And this is true. Not only does evil decrease, 

 but the tendency is ever toward its disappearance. Gradually the 

 confines of civilization broaden ; the central principle of liuuian prog- 

 ress attains greater intensity, and the mind assumes more and more 

 its lordly power over matter. 



The moment we attempt to search out the cause of any onward 

 movement we at once encounter this j^rinciple of evil. The old-time 

 aphorism that life is a perpetual struggle ; the first maxim of social 

 ethics, "The greatest happiness to the greatest number;" indeed, 

 every thought and action of our lives points in the same direction. 

 From what is it mankind is so eager to escape ? With what do we 

 wrestle ? For what do we strive ? "We fly from that which gives 

 pain to that which gives pleasure ; we wrestle with agencies which 

 bar our escape from a state of infelicity ; we long for happiness. 



There is another thought in this connection well worthy our atten- 

 tion. In orthodox and popular parlance, labor is a curse entailed on 

 man by vindictive justice ; yet, viewed as a civilizing agent, labor is 

 man's greatest blessing. Througliout all Nature there is no such thing 

 found as absolute inertness ; and, as in matter, so with regard to our 

 faculties, no sooner do they begin to rest than they begin to rot, and 

 even in the rotting they can obtain no rest. One of the chief objects 

 of labor is to get gain, and Dr. Johnson holds that "men are seldom 

 more innocently employed tlian wheu they are making money." 



Human experience teaches, that in the effort is greater pleasure 

 than in the end attained; that labor is the normal condition of man; 

 that in acquisition, that is progress, is the highest happiness ; that 

 passive enjoyment is inferior to the exhilaration of active attempt. 

 Now imagine the absence from the world of this spirit of evil, 

 and what would be the result? Total inaction. But, before inac- 

 tion can become more pleasurable than action, man's nature must be 

 changed. Not to say that evil is a good thing, clearly there is a good- 

 ness in things evil ; and in as far as the state of escaping from evil is 

 more pleasurable than the state of evil escaped from, in so far is evil 

 conducive to happiness. 



Another more plausible and partially correct assertion is, that by 

 the development of the subjective part of our nature, objective hu- 

 manity becomes degenerated. The intellectual cannot be Avrought up 

 to the highest state of ciiltivation except at the expense of the physi- 

 cal, nor the physical fully developed without limiting the mental. The 

 efforts of the mind draw from the energies of the body ; the highest 

 and healthiest vigor of the body can only be attained wlien the mind 

 is at rest, or in a state of careless activity. In answer to wliicli I 

 should say that, beyond a certain point, it is true ; one would hardly 

 train successfully for a prize-fio:ht and the tripos at the same time ; 

 but that the non-intellectual savage, as a race, is physically superior, 

 capable of enduring greater fatigue, or more skillful in muscular exer- 



