CHAPTER XX 



CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS^ 



A T the beginning of the chapter on the Evo- 

 /-\ lution 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 soci- 

 eties, 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 

 ^ [See Introduction, § 24.] 



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