Problems of the Pacific 



34 1 



THE PROMISE OF THE PACIFIC 



When the area involved is half the 

 earth ; when the continents are four out 

 of five, and the races all of our five ; 

 when the countries are a score, the great 

 islands a hundred, and the islets a myr- 

 iad ; when the population is uncounted 

 hundreds of millions, and when the in- 

 terests cover all those known to human 

 ken, the problems of progress become 

 too complex for full statement, to say 

 nothing of definite solution. Yet when 

 it is realized that the essential problems 

 of progress are problems, the way is 

 opened for statement, if not for solution, 

 of the leading questions ; for, thanks to 

 the modern science which has been called 

 the New Ethnology, the general trend 

 of human progress is no longer obscure. 

 It cannot be too firmly held and too often 

 stated that human development may be 

 defined by stages, each reflecting the 

 endless series of interactions between the 

 human organism and the environment, 

 and each measuring a long step in mental 

 growth. The stages may be defined in ■ 

 many ways; they are most conveniently 

 expressed in terms of social organiza- 

 tion. So defined, the first great stage 

 (passing over the shadowy one of the 

 prototype ) is that in which customs with 

 all the power of law are based on blood 

 kinship traced in the maternal line, and 

 in which the men are warriors; the next 

 is that in which custom and formal law 

 are based on consanguinity traced in the 

 paternal line, and in which men become 

 patriarchs; the succeeding stage is that 

 in which elaborate laws, with attendant 

 customs, are based on proprietary and 

 hereditary rights, especially in lands, 

 and in which men are sovereigns and 

 subjects; the final stage is that in which 

 formal law merges into equity based on 

 the recognition of equal rights to life, 

 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, 

 and in which men are citizens. It is 

 true that these stages intergrade or over- 

 lap in some measure; yet the great fact 



remains that humanity may be defined 

 in terms of these developmental stages 

 more comprehensively and more usefully 

 than by any other means thus far de- 

 vised — for the stages are measures of 

 humanity itself. For convenience they 

 may be designated as (i) the unob- 

 served, or primordial stage; (2) savag- 

 ery, or the warrior stage; (3) barbarism, 

 or the patriarchal stage; (4) civiliza- 

 tion, or the monarchial stage ; and (5) 

 enlightenment, or the stage of citizen- 

 ship. 



With the great stages of human prog- 

 ress in mind, it becomes clear that a 

 change has come o'er our dreams of con- 

 quest since the days of blood and rapine, 

 which are to be remembered but to be 

 deplored, and that the conquest now to 

 be sought and wrought in the fullness 

 of time and ever-multiplying opportu- 

 nity is not the subjection or enslavement 

 of helpless weaklings of alien blood or 

 darker color, not the forcible capture of 

 ill-defended lands, not the loot of stores 

 and razing of pagan temples, but the 

 moral conquest of lower races and more 

 backward peoples — a conquest con- 

 ducted at every step under principles of 

 high humanity and the law of the great- 

 est good to the greatest number. In the 

 light of this ideal, the problems of the 

 Pacific are simplified if not unified. 

 Anglo - Saxon vigor has extended to 

 every part and corner of the great prov- 

 ince ; in Japan it is represented rather 

 by ideas and mechanical devices than by 

 blood ; in China it has been represented 

 by the protection of the weak rather 

 than the destruction of the strong ; in 

 the Philippines it is represented by the 

 most patient efforts toward peaceful pos- 

 session in the history of the world ; in 

 Australia, despite many dark chapters, 

 it has been represented by the conver- 

 sion of the wilderness to blossom as the 

 rose ; in New Zealand, as well shown 

 by one of our number (Henry Demarest 

 Lloyd), it has been represented by the 

 world's most promising social experi- 



