260 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



As the weeping philosopher used to say "One man is worth 

 ten thousand, if he be the best." We are debtors of the past with 

 no opportunity to repay ; we are executors of a trust for the 

 future — the sole duty of man. Civilization has been defined as an 

 accumulation of forces in and for humanity.^'^ Civilization is that 

 which has been acquired emtnagasine by the human race, a store of 

 capital, resources, instruments, knowledge, ideals, laws, in the last 

 analysis a sum total of adaptations whereby the forces of nature are 

 utilized by man for th*^ greater safety of the species. Youth is a 

 period of life-endowment insurance on the reserved-bonus plan. In 

 a civilized society each generation as it rises finds itself surrounded 

 from the cradle, thanks to the care of preceding generations, with 

 more light and more resources of every kind. This fund, theoretic- 

 ally available for every one in a supposedly democratic state, is, how- 

 ever, it is well known, subject to the laws of inheritance, the exi- 

 gencies of family management, etc. Hence the members of the small 

 family may acquire and accomplish more than the family of larger 

 number. To him who hath of this world's goods shall be given 

 but from him who hath not shall be taken even that which he hath. 

 This universal organic and social process explains many features 

 of great interest in the various fields of human activity. In law we 

 view the gradual surrender of so-called individual rights to the rights 

 of the state, the growth of freedom, i. e.^ the development of the indi- 

 vidual in order that the service of the whole may be increased by the 

 strength of the constituent parts, the subordination of individual 

 caprice to collective wisdom as seen in representative gatherings of 

 all kinds, the predominance of self-sacrifice in the great ethical and 

 religious movements of the world, life insurance, city sanitation, and 

 the many acts of public philanthropy. Rousseau's dream of the 

 social contract was of the future and for the future rather than of 

 the past. Dante, Goethe, Shakespeare, Paul and Christ proclaim 

 alike das Eiiyig-WeibUche^ the Eternal-Motherly — Responsibility to 

 the future of our race. 



(1) Mon. T. Dumont. La civilisation comme force accuraiilee. La Revue Scientifique. 22 

 Juin. 1872. p. 1222. Dumont. however, makes a mistake in including under civilisa- 

 tion the inheritance of instincts. These are but the organic conditions of civilisation. 



