POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



IMUx^s "gvCblt. 



THE CONFLICT OF MODERN SOCIETY. 



pjIVILIZATION, whether consid- 

 ^^ ered as a result or as a pi'ocess, 

 may be defined as the improvement 

 of individual lives through social in- 

 tercourse. It is obvious that the iso- 

 lated individual can not elevate or 

 develop himself. Growth through 

 society is the law of human nature; 

 and the founder of Positivism had 

 some very plausible reasons for 

 speaking of humanity in the widest 

 acceptation of the term as the " Grand 

 Etre." The individual realizes his 

 powers in part through family life, 

 further through national life, and 

 still further through participation in 

 the whole life, past and present, of 

 the human race. 



At the same time civilization, as 

 we all know, does not go on con- 

 tinuously. Nations in the past have 

 had their rise, their development, and 

 their decay. They have had their 

 rise when circumstances have com- 

 pelled special social aggregations ; 

 their development during the period 

 when, on the whole, individual char- 

 acters were improving under social 

 action; and their decay wheu the lat- 

 ter process has been reversed— when, 

 upon the whole, men and women are 

 receiving more harm than good from 

 their social environment and their 

 general intercourse with one an- 

 other. Various reasons have been 

 assigned for the decay of the older 

 civilizations. An explanation which, 

 so far as it goes, would apply to all 

 cases is that men have not increased 

 in virtue as they have increased in 

 knowledge and power, and that they 

 have consequently succumbed to 

 temptations arising from the very 

 successes they have achieved in social 

 organization. If this theory is at all 



correct, a really stable civilization 

 will only be founded when men 

 have acquired the virtues necessary 

 to enable them to use, as not abusing, 

 the varied advantages accruing from 

 their possession of advanced knowl- 

 edge with its accompanying power 

 over the resources of Natm^e. 



This point of view seems to us, 

 provisionally at least, a serviceable 

 one; and we are therefore prompted 

 to ask the question whether among 

 the most favored nations of to-day 

 public and private virtue is advanc- 

 ing as fast as material development, 

 or whether there is any danger that 

 modern civilization will, some gen- 

 erations hence, perish through the 

 very abundance of the enjoyments 

 and facilities of all kinds which it is 

 furnishing, and will continue more 

 and more to furnish, to the men and 

 women of these latter times. In a 

 word, are we able to stand up against 

 the temptations that our industrial 

 and scientific and artistic develop- 

 ment is throwing in our way ? If 

 ive are able, how will it be with our 

 children and grandchildren ? 



It would be idle and ridiculous at 

 this moment to predict evil of mod- 

 ern society ; but it is not predicting 

 evil to point out that, here and there, 

 our moral forces, in the great Vanity 

 Fair of the world as it is to-day, seem 

 to be weakening. We think, for ex- 

 ample, that few well-informed per- 

 sons wDl deny that the conditions of 

 business at the present time are any- 

 thing but reassuring. The question 

 which men who wish to be honest 

 are asking themselves is whether 

 business will much longer be possi- 

 ble at all except for the managers of 

 huge capitals. There is much in the 

 conditions of the industrial world, 



