ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 121 



Prof. Ward read a paper entitled " Moral and Material 

 Progress Contrasted." 



One of the most obvious and frequently observed ficts that lie 

 upon the surface of modern society is the persistence of social evils 

 in spite of the progress of discovery and invention brought about 

 for the purpose of relieving them. 



The actual removal of social evils constitutes moral progress ; the 

 discovery of principles and the invention of appliances calculated 

 to remove them constitute material progress. It is these two forms 

 of social progress which it is proposed to consider in this paper. 



As to the degree to which moral progress has taken place and is 

 taking place in society, there are wide differences of opinion. Some 

 sanguine minds imagine it to be very rapid, but this is generally 

 due to a confusion of unrelated phenomena. They either confound 

 material with moral progress directly, or they confound the pre- 

 dominance of cherished religious beliefs with that of morality, 

 or the establishment of favorite forms of government with that of 

 justice and liberty. Others, and this is much the larger class, deny 

 that any moral progress has ever taken place or is now taking place, 

 and maintain, on the contrary, that there has been moral degener- 

 acy, and that the world is growing constantly worse. In so far as 

 these are merely influenced by the survival of a tradition very preva- 

 lent among early races they may, perhaps, be left out ofthe account. 

 Many of them, however, disclaim such influence and base their con- 

 victions on the facts of history and the condition of society as it is. 

 But such also must be set down as extremists, incapable of duly 

 weighing the evidence from all sides of the question. 



A highly respectable class, embracing many of the finest minds 

 of the present period, see no hope except in the gradual change of 

 the constitution of the human mind, to be brought about through 

 hereditary influences and the slow developmental laws by which 

 man has been at length raised above the brute. They deny the 

 power of intelligence to improve the moral condition of society, 

 and regard the ethical faculty as entirely distinct from the intel- 

 lectual. "It is," said Mr. Herbert Spencer to an American 

 reporter, " essentially a question of character, and only in a sec- 

 ondary degree a question of knowledge. But for the universal 

 delusion about education as a panacea for political evils, this would 



