CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS 



mala in se. It prepared the way for the recog- 

 nition of a " higher law " of God as distinct 

 from the local and temporary laws of man. 

 And in this way it no doubt contributed largely 

 toward the establishment of Christianity as an 

 independent spiritual power in the Empire. 



To deal adequately with these interesting 

 illustrations would require us to extend this 

 partof our discussion to disproportionate length. 

 Our purpose is sufficiently subserved by the 

 foregoing fragmentary statement, in which the 

 problem of human progressiveness, though not 

 fully solved, is at least so far classified that the 

 solution of it is facilitated. We have seen that 

 permanent progressiveness is found where the 

 social aggregate is characterized by a cohesion 

 among its parts which is neither too little nor 

 too great. An excess and a deficiency of indi- 

 vidual mobility have been shown to be alike in- 

 compatible with that persistent tendency toward 

 internal rearrangement which we call progres- 

 siveness. The sociological puzzle to which Mr. 

 Bagehot has called attention, and with which we 

 have been concerned in the present chapter, is 

 substantially the same thing as the dynamic 

 paradox which confronted us when, in the fourth 

 chapter, we were seeking to determine the con- 

 ditions which enable Evolution in general to 

 result in continuous increase of structural and 

 functional complexity. The present case is, in- 



43 



