SPONTANEOUS DEGRADATION OF CULTURE 4^1 



So also with culture. The causes which produce it in the first place, 

 namely, the predicaments, in producing new individual reactions which 

 lead to changes of idea-system, produce an increased complexity within the 

 group and new predicaments, which are the further cause of further changes 

 in the idea-system. The process becomes increasingly rapid as time goes on. 

 It would continue to accelerate endlessly were there no factor tending to 

 retard it. But such a factor is found in the very nature of the medium in 

 which culture has its being. For that complexity of the group which tends 

 toward the production of predicaments, as it increases, makes an increasing 

 demand for an internal regulation which reduces the complexity, eliminates 

 predicaments, and shuts ofi the generation of culture at the fountain-head. 



It may be that people get together, as the military love to tell us, tor 

 purposes of defence ; but the defence is against other people who have come 

 together (for defence perhaps ?)— and the argument fails far from conviction 

 Savages find recompense for staying with their tribe in the protection against 

 wild beasts and the jungle, and against the elements, which the g^^o^P^s 

 able to afford. But the causes which hold the tribe together are not tne 

 causes which bring together the larger groups and stimulate them to grow 

 stiU further and to maintain for a time their individual existence, inese 

 primitive causes are not effective in groups which have survived the first 

 clashes that produce predicaments and have entered upon their renaissance 

 of culture. , , 



Culture itself brings people together, and holds them. If a poet nas 

 songs to sing, people come to hear. To the artisan they come to learn His 

 trade, to the physician to learn the manner of his miracles. Common lan- 

 guages grow up. Everywhere within the group an audience may be found 

 for the individual who has something to say or to show. Scholars appear, 

 research and speculation of all kinds go on— and interested individuals 

 are always on hand alert to read, to listen, or to watch. When Benjamin 

 Disraeli remarked that the civilisation of a nation may be measured by tne 

 amount of sulphuric acid which it consumes, he spoke m reference to tne 

 present question. Had he paused to point out that ink among many neces- 

 saries of culture requires sulphuric acid for its manufacture, he would have 

 clinched his contention. And if now we take note further that ink flows 

 most freely and with best effect when the environment of the thinker is 

 tranquil, we have reached by one route the inference, obvious enough by 

 any. that the propagation of culture is easiest in an orderly medium. 



The spread of culture is like the propagation of ripples m a miU-pond. 

 There wiU be no ripples unless there is the disturbance, the predicament, 

 the stone thrown in, to produce them in the first place. And there will be 

 no ripples unless the surface of the pond is placid enough to give them play. 

 A strong wind upon the water or too many stones thrown in at once is aae- 

 quate to prevent them. And culture, growing out of predicaments and itseit 

 producing new predicaments, itself cannot ripple except in the places where 

 predicaments are not. 



The spread of ideas by writing or print requires open ways of trans- 

 portation, communication, and travel. Sheltered places are needed for verbal 

 interchanges. Schools in unpoliced communities would be practicaUy im- 

 possible. The universities of Europe came into existence at a time when 

 scholars could live free from the instant necessity of taking up the sword. 

 A man cannot think his clearest unless he have undisturbed sleep. Nor can 

 he speak well nor write for long on an empty stomach. Scholars thrive only 

 in peaceful places where food, grown by others, is delivered to them in ex- 

 change for their own productions. Indeed, it may be taken at once that 

 organisation and regulation, the practice of the " bigger, better, busier 

 idea, prohibitory legislation, rules, customs, practices, stabilised and predict- 

 able interchanges of aU kinds, that all of these factors make easier the pro- 



