PEACE AS A FACTOR IN SOCIAL REFORM. 233 



try and commerce make it necessary for them to approacli one 

 another, not with a dirk or spear, but with the hand and look of wel- 

 come and friendship. Thus manners become more gentle, and feel- 

 ings more sympathetic. There is a better recognition of rights and 

 obligations. With a better recognition of rights and obligations 

 pass away the slavery, deceit, vice, crime, and other evils that war 

 engenders. 



Like the deductions from the ruin of war, these deductions from 

 the recuperation of peace have the sanction of historians that never 

 heard of Mr. Spencer's social philosophy. " It is with human activity 

 as with the fecundity of the earth," says Guizot. " With the least 

 glimpse of order and peace, man takes hope, and with hope goes to 

 work. It was thus with the towns," he adds, alluding to the diminu- 

 tion of anarchy that came with the establishment of feudalism. 

 " The moment that feudalism was a little fixed, new wants sprang up 

 among the fief -holders, a certain taste for progress and amelioration ; 

 to supply this want, a little commerce and industry appeared in the 

 towns of their domain; riches and population returned to them; 

 slowly, it is true, but still they returned." Robertson makes a 

 similar contribution to the pacific origin of civilization. " Com- 

 merce," he says in his famous view of Europe before the reign of 

 Charles V, " tends to wear off those prejudices which maintain dis- 

 tinctions and animosity between nations. It softens and polishes the 

 manners of men. It unites them by one of the strongest of all ties, 

 the desire of supplying their mutual wants. It disposes them to 

 peace by establishing in every state an order of citizens bound by 

 their interests to be guardians of public tranquillity. As soon as the 

 commercial spirit acquires vigor and begins to gain an ascendant in 

 any society, we discover a new genius in its policy, its wars, its 

 alliances, and its negotiations. ... In proportion as commerce made 

 its way into the different countries of Europe, they successively 

 turned their attention to those objects and adopted those manners 

 which occupy and distinguish polished nations." 



An appeal to the facts of history that led Guizot and Robertson, 

 as well as other writers ignorant of Mr, Spencer's social philosophy, 

 to these important inductions does not impair their validity; it only 

 strengthens them and makes them the more impregnable. Wher- 

 ever peace can find a refuge from the violence and uncertainty of 

 war, industry and commerce take root and work their miracles. !N^o 

 matter whether it find protection on the slopes or in the valleys of 

 mountains, among the sand dunes or in the marshes of the sea, behind 

 the walls of a city or away from the path of marauding invaders, the 

 result is the same — civilization. Had not the Dutch been able to 

 escape from the anarchy beyond the borders of their barren and in- 



