THE GENERAL DIRECTION OF PROGRESS 179 



destined soon to be swallowed up in the larger. This 

 general progress toward increase in size has, how- 

 ever, been bj no means uninterrupted. The tendency 

 toward concentration has been replaced at intervals 

 by disintegration. Nations have been formed only 

 to be broken to pieces again. Even in the last two 

 thousand years great nations have repeatedly been 

 built and broken down. But although the progress 

 is by no means regular, it is none the less certain, and 

 as we look through the whole history we see that the 

 most potent feature of civilization is an increasing 

 tendency toward the formation of larger and larger 

 bodies of men, united for common purposes. The 

 force of centralization is irresistible. It is seen 

 equally in the organization of the primitive family 

 and in the growth of the modern industrial trust or 

 the labor union. It may be guided and, in a measure 

 controlled, but can no more be checked than can the 

 rising of the tide. 



As we examine this history more closely we find 

 that it has not been a constant progress toward cen- 

 tralization, but, rather, that it has been the result of 

 two quite opposite tendencies. From the first, while 

 the impulse toward organization is patent, it has 

 been more or less sharply opposed by the opposite 

 tendency toward individualism or disintegration. 

 The development of civilization is to be explained as 

 a constant struggle between these opposing forces 

 of centralization and individualism, first one and 

 then the other coming to the front. The fundamental 

 characteristic underlying organization is the subor- 

 dination of the individual, while that underlying dis- 

 integration is the exaltation of the individual. Each 

 must be considered by itself. 



