in THE PAST AND THE FUTURE 287 



over, if the internal harmony is imperfect, it may at any 

 period begin to decay, while it is always subject to disrup- 

 tion by external assault. 



Thus harmony, though it gathers strength as it goes on, 

 does not assure continuous progress. On the other hand, 

 in the world of mind every felt disharmony is a stimulus 

 to effort. Instead of merely threatening destruction, it is 

 at least potentially a cause of advance. Yet the social 

 mind does not advance steadily. In general terms the 

 reason for this failure appears to be double. On the one 

 hand the method of dealing with the trouble may be 

 unknown and so remote from existing ways of thought that 

 it fails even to prompt research. Thus people may live for 

 ages in a volcanic region without beginning upon a seis- 

 mology. On the other hand, the partial order that has been 

 created may itself inhibit further advance. Thus a general 

 survey of savage life suggests that the main responsibility 

 for the arrest which has retarded so many races, is to be 

 shared between the belief in witchcraft and the practice of 

 blood-revenge, which between them keep early society in 

 constant tension and disorder. Yet the belief in witch- 

 craft is a necessary result of normal thought-processes at a 

 certain stage, and blood vengeance is the first known 

 method of securing any rights at all. It is needless to 

 remark that the gods and kings who superseded the witches 

 and avengers of blood are in turn potential obstacles to 

 further advance. 



3. Progress then is an evolution of harmony. This is a 

 self-furthering process in the sense explained, but is none 

 the less subject to arrest by causes of discord within or 

 without. In all but the lowest stages it is effected by 

 conscious correlation, and its development depends on the 

 extension of the sphere of conscious control. As to the 

 conditions and consequences of this extension our review 

 of development has given certain results which may be 

 briefly summarised. 



i. Consciousness arises under the conditions of physical 

 life, and in the first place as a means to secure ends sub- 

 ordinate to the general struggle for existence. But so far 



