THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY 



nor unbroken, it remains entirely true that the 

 law of progress, when discovered, will be found 

 to be the law of history. The great fact to be 

 explained is either the presence or the absence 

 of progress. And when we have formulated the 

 character of progress, and the conditions essen- 

 tial to it, we have the key to the history of the 

 stationary as well as of the progressive nations. 

 When we are able to show why the latter have 

 advanced, the same general principle will enable 

 us to show why the former have not advanced. 

 Though in biogeny we habitually view the pro- 

 cess of natural selection as the process whereby 

 higher organisms are slowly originated, the prin- 

 ciple loses none of its importance because sun- 

 dry species from time to time suffer deteriora- 

 tion, or remain stationary, or become extinct. 

 When we know how it is that some species ad- 

 vance, we know how it is that other species do 

 not advance. So, in the science of language, 

 which is equally with sociogeny a. science of de- 

 velopment, — being, indeed, neither more nor 

 less than a quite special province of sociogeny, 

 — we rightly consider the main problem solved 

 when we have explained the process of phonetic 

 integration, by which languages ascend from the 

 primary, through the secondary, to the tertiary 

 stage of structure. It matters not that Chinese 

 remains to this day a primary language, and that 

 the numerical majority of languages have not 

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