THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY 



ship of Jehovah. While another form of the 

 same confusion is to be seen in the attempts 

 which writers imbued with the conception of 

 progress often make, to coax the annals of the 

 past into affirming the uninterrupted advance 

 of civilization. 



These examples show how vaguely the doc- 

 trine of progress has hitherto been apprehended. 

 The fallacy of supposing civilization to have 

 proceeded serially, or uniformly, or in conse- 

 quence of any universal tendency, is nearly akin 

 to the fallacy of classifying the animal kingdom 

 in a series of ascending groups, — a fruitful 

 source of delusion, which it was Cuvier's great 

 merit to have steadily avoided. The theologi- 

 cal habit of viewing progressiveness as a divine 

 gift to man,^ and the metaphysical habit of re- 

 garding it as a necessary attribute of humanity, 

 are equally unsound and equally fraught with 

 error. Until more accurate conceptions are ac- 

 quired, no secure advance can be made toward 

 discerning the true order of social changes. Far 

 from being necessary and universal, progress has 

 been in an eminent degree contingent and par- 



^ " It is impossible for mere savages to civilize themselves. 

 . . . Consequently men must at some period have received 

 the rudiments of civilization from a superhuman instructor. '* ( !) 

 Whately's Rhetoric^ p. 94. A statement not altogether com- 

 patible with the one just quoted from the same author in the 

 text. 



285 



