CHAPTER XX. 



CONDITIONS OF PROGRESJIL 



At the beginning of the chapter on the Evolution of Society 

 we remarked upon the error of those metaphysical writers 

 who have gone so far as to ascribe progressiveness to an 

 occult tendency inherent in human nature. It need not 

 take a very long survey of human societies, past and present, 

 to assure us that beyond a certain point stagnation has been 

 the rule and progress the exception. Over a large part of the 

 earth's surface the slow progress painfully achieved during 

 thousands of prehistoric ages has stopped short with the 

 savage state, as exemplified by those African, Polynesian, and 

 American tribes which can neither work out a civilization 

 for themselves, nor appropriate the civilization of higher 

 races with whom they are brought into contact. Half the 

 human race, having surmounted savagery, have been arrested 

 in an immobile type of civilization, as in China, in ancient 

 Egypt, and in the East generally. It is only in the Aryan 

 and some of the Semitic races, together with the Hungarians 

 and other Finnic tribes subjected to Aryan influences, that 

 we can find evidences of a persistent tendency to progress. 

 And that there is no inherent race-tendency at work in this 

 is shown by the fact that some of the Aryans, as the Hindus 

 and Persians, are among the most unprogressive of men. It 



