Chapter XXVII: Social Evolution

_The Evolutionary Processes of Society_.--Social activity is primarily group activity. Consequently the kind and nature of the group, the methods which brought its members together, its organization and purpose, indicate the type of civilization and the possibility of achievement. As group activity means mutual aid of members, and involves processes of co-operation in achievement, the type of society is symbolic of the status of progress. The function of the group is to establish social order of its members, protect them from external foes, as well as internal maladies, and to bring into existence a new force by which greater achievement is possible than when individuals are working separately.

_The Social Individual_.--While society is made of physio-psychic individuals, as a matter of fact the social individual is made by interactions and reactions arising from human association. Society on one hand and the social individual on the other are both developed at the same time through the process of living together in co-operation and mutual aid. Society once created, no matter how imperfect, begins its work for the good of all its members. It begins to provide against cold and hunger and to protect from wild animals and wild men. It becomes a feeling, thinking, willing group seeking the best for all. It is in the fully developed society that the social process appears of providing a water-supply, sanitation through sewer systems, preventative medicine and health measures, public education, means of establishing its members in rights, duties, and privileges, and protecting them in the pursuit of industry.

_The Ethnic Society_.--Just at what period society became well established is not known, but there are indications that some forms of primitive family life and social activities were {444} in existence among the men of the Old Stone Age, and certainly in the Neolithic period. After races had reached a stage of permanent historical records, or had even handed down traditions from generation to generation, there are evidences of family life and tribal or national achievements. Though there are evidences of religious group activities prior to formal tribal life, it may be stated in general that the first permanent organization was on a family or ethnic basis. Blood relationship was the central idea of cohesion, which was early aided by religious superstition and belief. Following this idea, all of the ancient monarchies and empires were based on the ethnic group or race. All of this indicates that society was based on natural law, and from that were gradually evolved the general and political elements which foreshadowed the enlarged functions of the more complex society of modern times.

_The Territorial Group_.--Before the early tribal groups had settled down to permanent habitations, they had developed many social activities, but when they became permanently settled they passed from the ethnic to the demographic form of social order--that is, they developed a territorial group that performed all of its functions within a given boundary which they called their own. From this time on population increased and occupied territory expanded, and the group became self-sufficient and independent in character. Then it could co-operate with other groups and differentiate functions within. Industrial, religious, and political groups, sacred orders, and voluntary associations became prominent, all under the protection of the general social order.

_The National Group Founded on Race Expansion_.--Through conquest, amalgamation, and assimilation, various independent groups were united in national life. All of the interior forces united in the perpetuation of the nation, which became strong and domineering in its attitude toward others. This led to warfare, conquest, or plunder, the union of the conquered with the conquerors, and imperialism came into being. Growth of wealth and population led to the demand for more territory {445} and the continuation of strife and warfare. The rise and fall of nations, the formation and dissolving of empires under the constant shadow of war continued through the ages. While some progress was made, it was in the face of conspicuous waste of life and energy, and the process of national protection of humanity has been of doubtful utility. Yet the development of hereditary leadership, the dominance of privileged classes, and the formation of traditions, laws, and forms of government went on unabated, during which the division of industrial and social functions within, causing numerous classes to continually differentiate, took place.

_The Functions of New Groups_.--In all social groupings the function always precedes the form or structure of the social order. Society follows the method of organic evolution in growing by differentiation. New organs or parts are formed, which in time become strengthened and developed. The organs or parts become more closely articulated with each other and with the whole social body, and finally over all is the great society, which defends, shields, protects, and fights for all. The individual may report for life service in many departments, through which his relation to great society must be manifested. He no longer can go alone in his relation to the whole mass. He may co-operate in a general way, it is true, with all, but must have a particularly active co-operation in the smaller groups on which his life service and life sustenance depend. The multiplication of functions leads to increased division of service and to increased co-operation. In the industrial life the division of labor and formation of special groups are more clearly manifested.

_Great Society and the Social Order_.--This is manifested chiefly in the modern state and the powerful expression of public opinion. No matter how traditional, autocratic, and arbitrary the centralized government becomes, there is continually arising modifying power from local conditions. There are things that the czar or the king does not do if he wishes to continue in permanent authority. From the masses of the {446} people there arises opposition to arbitrary power, through expressed discontent, public opinion, or revolution. The whole social field of Europe has been a seething turmoil of action and reaction, of autocracy and the demand for human rights. Thirst for national aggrandizement and power and the lust of the privileged classes have been modified by the distressing cry of the suffering people. What a slow process is social evolution and what a long struggle has been waged for human rights!

_Great Society Protects Voluntary Organizations_.--Freedom of assembly, debate, and organization is one of the important traits of social organization. With the ideal of democracy comes also freedom of speech and the press. Voluntary organizations for the good of the members or for a distinctive agency for general good may be made and receive protection in society at large through law, the courts, and public opinion; but the right to organize does not carry with it the right to destroy, and all such organizations must conform to the general good as expressed in the laws of the land. Sometimes organizations interested in their own institutions have been detrimental to the general good. Even though they have law and public opinion with them, in their zeal for propaganda they have overstepped the rules of progress. But such conditions cannot last; progress will cause them to change their attitude or they meet a social death.

_The Widening Service of the Church_.--The importance of the religious life in the progress of humanity is acknowledged by all careful scholars. Sometimes, it is true, this religious belief has been detrimental to the highest interests of social welfare. Religion itself is necessarily conservative, and when overcome by superstition, tradition, and dogmatism, it may stifle the intellect and retard progress. The history of the world records many instances of this.

The modern religious life, however, has taken upon it, as a part of its legitimate function, the ethical relations of mankind. Ethics has been prominent in the doctrine and service of the church. When the church turned its attention to the {447} future life, with undue neglect of the present, it became non-progressive and worked against the best interests of social progress. When it based its operation entirely upon faith, at the expense of reason and judgment, it tended to enslave the intellect and to rob mankind of much of its best service. But when it turned its attention to sweetening and purifying the present, holding to the future by faith, that man might have a larger and better life, it opened the way for social progress. Its motto has been, in recent years, the salvation of this life that the future may be assured. Its aim is to seize the best that this life furnishes and to utilize it for the elevation of man, individually and socially. Its endeavor is to save this life as the best and holiest reality yet offered to man. Faith properly exercised leads to invention, discovery, social activity, and general culture. It gives an impulse not only to religious life, but to all forms of social activity. But it must work with the full sanction of intelligence and allow a continual widening activity of reason and judgment.

The church has shown a determination to take hold of all classes of human society and all means of reform and regeneration. It has evinced a tendency to seize all the products of culture, all the improvements of science, all the revelations of truth, and turn them to account in the upbuilding of mankind on earth, in perfecting character and relieving mankind, in developing the individual and improving social conditions. The church has thus entered the educational world, the missionary field, the substratum of society, the political life, and the field of social order, everywhere becoming a true servant of the people.

_Growth of Religious Toleration_.--There is no greater evidence of the progress of human society than the growth of religious toleration. In the first hundred years of the Reformation, religious toleration was practically unknown. Indeed, the last fifty years has seen a more rapid growth in this respect than in the previous three hundred. Luther and his followers could not tolerate Calvinists any more than they could {448} Catholics, and Calvinists, on the other hand, could tolerate no other religious opinion.

The slow evolution of religious toleration in England is one of the most remarkable things in history. Henry VIII, "Defender of the Faith," was opposed to religious liberty. Queen Mary persecuted all except Catholics. Elizabeth completed the establishment of the Anglican Church, though, forced by political reasons, she gave more or less toleration to all parties. But Cromwell advocated unrelenting Puritanism by legislation and by the sword. James I, though a Protestant wedded to imperialism in government, permitted oppression. The Bill of Rights, which secured to the English people the privileges of constitutional government, insisted that no person who should profess the "popish" religion or marry a "papist" should be qualified to wear the crown of England.

At the close of the sixteenth century it was a common principle of belief that any person who adhered to heterodox opinions in religion should be burned alive or otherwise put to death. Each church adhered to this sentiment, though, it is true, many persons believed differently, and at the close of the seventeenth century Bossuet, the great French ecclesiastic, maintained with close argument that the right of the civil magistrate to punish religious errors was a point on which nearly all churches agreed, and asserted that only two bodies of Christians, the Socinians and the Anabaptists, denied it.

In 1673 all persons holding office under the government of England were compelled to take the oath of supremacy and of allegiance, to declare against transubstantiation, and to take the sacrament according to the ritual of the established church. In 1689 the Toleration Act was passed, exempting dissenters from the Church of England from the penalties of non-attendance on the service of the established church. This was followed by a bill abolishing episcopacy in Scotland. In 1703 severe laws were passed in Ireland against those who professed the Roman Catholic religion. The Test Act was not repealed until 1828, when the oath was taken "on the true {449} faith of a Christian," which was substituted for the sacrament test.

From this time on Protestant dissenters might hold office. In the year following, the Catholic Relief Act extended toleration to the Catholics, permitting them to hold any offices except those of regent, lord chancellor of England or Ireland, and of viceroy of Ireland. In 1858, by act of Parliament, Jews were for the first time admitted to that body. In 1868 the Irish church was disestablished and disendowed, and a portion of its funds devoted to education. But it was not until 1871 that persons could lecture in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge without taking the sacrament of the established church and adhering to its principles.

The growth of toleration in America has been evinced in the struggle of the different denominations for power. The church and the state, though more or less closely connected in the colonies of America, have been entirely separated under the Constitution, and therefore the struggle for liberal views has been between the different denominations themselves. In Europe and in America one of the few great events of the century has been the entire separation of church and state. It has gone so far in America that most of the states have ceased to aid any private or denominational institutions.

There is a tendency, also, not to support Indian schools carried on by religious denominations, or else to have them under the especial control of the United States government. There has been, too, a liberalizing tendency among the different denominations themselves. In some rural districts, and among ignorant classes, bigotry and intolerance, of course, break out occasionally, but upon the whole there is a closer union of the various denominations upon a co-operative basis of redeeming men from error, and a growing tendency to tolerate differing beliefs.

_Altruism and Democracy_.--The law of evolution that involves the survival of the fittest of organic life when applied to humanity was modified by social action. But as man must {450} always figure as an individual and his development is caused by intrinsic and extrinsic stimuli, he has never been free from the exercise of the individual struggle for existence, no matter how highly society is developed nor to what extent group activity prevails. The same law continues in relation to the survival of the group along with other groups, and as individual self-interest, the normal function of the individual, may pass into selfishness, so group interest may pass into group selfishness, and the dominant idea of the group may be its own survival. This develops institutionalism, which has been evidenced in every changing phase of social organization.

Along with this have grown altruistic principles based on the law of love, which in its essentials is antagonistic to the law of the survival of the fittest. It has been developed from two sources--one which originally was founded on race morality, that is, the protection of individuals for the good of the order, and the other that of sympathy with suffering of the weak and unprotected. In the progress of modern society the application of Christian principles to life has kept pace with the application of democratic principles in establishing the rights of man.

Gradually the duty of society to protect and care for the weak has become generally recognized. This idea has been entirely overemphasized in many cases, on the misapplication of the theory that one individual is as good as another and entitled to equality of treatment by all. At least it is possible for the normal progress of society to be retarded if the strong become weakened by excessive care of the weak. The law of love must be so exercised that it will not increase weakness on the part of those being helped, nor lessen the opportunities of the strong to survive and manifest their strength. The history of the English Poor Law is an account of the systematic care of pauperism to the extent that paupers were multiplied so that those who were bearing the burden of taxation for their support found it easier and, indeed, sometimes necessary to join the pauper ranks in order to live at all.

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Many are alarmed to-day at the multiplication of the number of insane, weak-minded, imbeciles, and paupers who must be supported by the taxation of the people and helped in a thousand ways by the altruism of individuals and groups. Unless along with this excessive altruistic care, scientific principles of breeding, of prevention, and of care can be introduced, the dependent, defective, and delinquent classes of the world will eventually become a burden to civilization. Society cannot shirk its duty to care for these groups, but it would be a misfortune if they reach a status where they can demand support and protection of society. It is a question whether we have not already approached in a measure this condition. Fortunately there is enough knowledge in the world of science regarding man and society to prevent any such catastrophe, if it could only be applied.

Hence, since one of the great ideals of life is to develop a perfect society built upon rational principles, the study of social pathology has become important. The care of the weak and the broken-down classes of humanity has something more than altruism as a foundation. Upon it rest the preservation of the individual and the perpetuation of a healthy social organism. The care of the insane, of imbeciles, of criminals, and of paupers is exercised more nearly on a scientific basis each succeeding year. Prevention and reform are the fundamental ideas in connection with the management of these classes. Altruism may be an initial motive power, prompting people to care for the needy and the suffering, but necessity for the preservation of society is more powerful in its final influences.

To care for paupers without increasing pauperism is a great question, and is rapidly putting all charity upon a scientific basis. To care for imbeciles without increasing imbecility, and to care for criminals on the basis of the prevention and decrease of crime, are among the most vital questions of modern social life. As the conditions of human misery become more clearly revealed to humanity, and their evil effects on the social system become more apparent, greater efforts will be {452} put forward--greater than ever before--in the care of dependents, defectives, and delinquents. Not only must the pathology of the individual be studied, for the preservation of his physical system, but the pathology of human society must receive scientific investigation in order to perpetuate the social organism.

_Modern Society a Machine of Great Complexity_.--While the family remains as the most persistent primary unit of social organization out of which differentiated the great social functions of to-day, it now expresses but a very small part of the social complex. It is true it is still a conserving, co-operating, propagating group of individuals, in which appear many of the elemental functions of society. While it represents a group based on blood relationship, as in the old dominant family drawn together by psychical influences and preserved on account of the protection of the different members of the group and the various complex relations between them, still within its precincts are found the elementary practices of economic life, the rights of property, and the beginnings of education and religion. Outside of this family nucleus there have been influences of common nationality and common ancestry or race, which are natural foundations of an expanded society.

Along with this are the secondary influences, the memories and associations of a common birthplace or a common territorial community, and by local habitation of village, town, city, or country. But the differentiation of industrial functions or activities has been most potent in developing social complexity. The multiplication of activities, the choice of occupation, and the division of labor have multiplied the economic groups by the thousand. Following this, natural voluntary social groups spring up on every hand.

Again, partly by choice and partly by environment, we find society drawn together in other groups, more or less influenced by those just enumerated. From the earliest forms of social existence we find men are grouped together on the basis of wealth. The interests of the rich are common, as are also the {453} interests of the poor and those of the well-to-do. Nor is it alone a matter of interest, but in part of choice, that these groupings occur. This community of interests brings about social coherence.

Again, the trades, professions, and occupations of men draw them together in associated groups. It is not infrequent that men engaged in the same profession are thrown together in daily contact, have the same interests, sentiments, and thought, and form in this way a group which stands almost aloof from other groups in social life; tradesmen dealing in a certain line of goods are thrown together in the same way. But the lines in these groupings must not be too firmly drawn, for groups formed on the basis of friendship may cover a field partaking in part of all these different groups. Again, we shall find that the school lays the foundation of early associations, and continues to have an influence in creating social aggregates. Fraternal societies and political parties in the same way form associated groups.

The church at large forms a great organizing centre, the influence of which in political and social life enlarges every day. The church body arranges itself in different groups on the basis of the different sects and denominations, and within the individual church organization there are small groups or societies, which again segregate religious social life. But over and above all these various social groups and classes is the state, binding and making all cohere in a common unity.

The tendency of this social life is to differentiate into more and more groups, positive in character, which renders our social existence complex and difficult to analyze. The social groups overlap one another, and are interdependent in all their relations. In one way the individual becomes more and more self-constituted and independent in his activity; in another way he is dependent on all his fellows for room or opportunity for action.

This complexity of social life renders it difficult to estimate the real progress of society; yet, taking any one of these {454} individual groups, it will be found to be improving continually. School life and school associations show a marked improvement; family life, notwithstanding the various evidences of the divorce courts, shows likewise an improved state as intelligence increases; the social life of the church becomes larger and broader. The spread of literature and learning, the increase of education, renders each social group more self-sustaining and brings about a higher life, with a better code of morals. Even political groups have their reactions, in which, notwithstanding the great room for improvement, they stand for morality and justice. The relations of man to man are becoming better understood every day. His fickleness and selfishness are more readily observed in recent than in former times, and as a result the evils of the present are magnified, because they are better understood; in reality, social conditions are improving, and the fact that social conditions are understood and evils clearly observed promises a great improvement for the future.

_Interrelation of Different Parts of Society_.--The various social aggregates are closely interrelated and mutually dependent upon one another. The state itself, though expressing the unity of society, is a highly complex organization, consisting of forms of local and central government. These parts, having independent functions, are co-ordinated to the general whole. Voluntary organizations have their specific relation to the state, which fosters and protects them on an independent basis. The school, likewise, has its relation to the social life, having an independent function, yet touching all parts of the social life.

We find the closest interdependence of individuals in the economic life. Each man performs a certain service which he exchanges for the services of others. The wealth which he creates with his own hand, limited in kind, must be exchanged for all the other commodities which he would have. More than this, all people are ranged in economic groups, each group dependent upon all the others--the farmers dependent upon {455} the manufacturers of implements and goods, upon bankers, lawyers, ministers, and teachers; the manufacturers dependent upon the farmers and all the other classes; and so with every class.

This interdependent relation renders it impossible to improve one group without improving the others, or to work a great detriment to one group without injuring the others. If civilization is to be perpetuated and improved, the banker must be interested in the welfare of the farmer, the farmer in the welfare of the banker, both in the prosperity of manufacturers, and all in the welfare of the common laborer. The tendency for this mutual interest to increase is evinced in all human social relations, and speaks well for the future of civilization.

_The Progress of the Race Based on Social Opportunities_.--Anthropologists tell us that no great change in the physical capacity of man has taken place for many centuries. The maximum brain capacity has probably not exceeded that of the Cro-Magnon race in the Paleolithic period of European culture. Undoubtedly, however, there has been some change in the quality of the brain, increasing its storage batteries of power and through education the utilization of that power. We would scarcely expect, however, with all of our education and scientific development, to increase the stature of man or to enlarge his brain. Much is being done, however, in getting the effective service of the brain not only through natural selective processes, but through education. The improvement of human society has been brought about largely by training and the increased knowledge which it has brought to us through invention and discovery, and their application to the practical and theoretical arts.

All these would have been buried had it not been for the protection of co-operative society and the increased power derived therefrom. Even though we exercise the selective power of humanity under the direction of our best intelligence, the individual must find his future opportunity in the better {456} conditions furnished by society. Granted that individual and racial powers are essential through hereditary development, progress can only be obtained by the expression of these powers through social activity. For it is only through social co-operation that a new power is brought into existence, namely, achievement by mutual aid. This assertion does not ignore the fact that the mutations of progress arise from the brain centres of geniuses, and that by following up these mutations by social action they may become productive and furnish opportunity for progress.

_The Central Idea of Modern Civilization_.--The object of life is not to build a perfect social mechanism. It is only a means to a greater end, namely, that the individual shall have opportunity to develop and exercise the powers which nature has given him. This involves an opportunity for the expression of his whole nature, physical and mental, for the satisfaction of his normal desires for home, happiness, prosperity, and achievement. It involves, too, the question of individual rights, privileges, and duties.

The history of man reveals to us somewhat of his progress. There is ever before us the journey which he has taken in reaching his present status. The road has been very long, very rough, very crooked. What he has accomplished has been at fearful expense. Thousands have perished, millions have been swept away, that a single idea for the elevation and culture of the race might remain. Deplore it as we may, the end could be reached only thus. The suffering of humanity is gradually lessening, and destruction and waste being stayed, yet we must recognize, in looking to the future, that all means of improvement will be retarded by the imperfection of human life and human conditions.

The central principle, however, the great nucleus of civilization, becomes more clearly defined, in turn revealing that man's happiness on earth, based upon duty and service, is the end of progress. If the achievements of science, the vast accumulations of wealth, the perfection of social organization, {457} the increased power of individual life--if all these do not yield better social conditions, if they do not give to humanity at large greater contentment, greater happiness, a larger number of things to know and enjoy, they must fail in their service. But they will not fail. Man is now a larger creature in every way than ever before. He has better religion; a greater God in the heavens, ruling with beneficence and wisdom; a larger number of means for improvement everywhere; and the desire and determination to master these things and turn them to his own benefit. The pursuit of truth reveals man to himself and God to him. The promotion of justice and righteousness makes his social life more complete and happy. The investigations of science and the advances of invention and discovery increase his material resources, furnishing him means with which to work; and with increasing intelligence he will understand more clearly his destiny--the highest culture of mind and body and the keenest enjoyment of the soul.

SUBJECTS FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. What were the chief causes of aggregation of people?

2. Are there evidences of groups without the beginning of social organization?

3. What is the relation of the individual to society?

4. The basis of national groups.

5. Factors in the progress of the human race.

6. Growth of religious toleration in the world.

7. Name ten "American institutions" that should be perpetuated.

8. Race and democracy.

9. What per cent of the voters of your town take a vital interest in government?

10. The growth of democratic ideas in Europe. In Asia.

11. Study the welfare organizations in your town, comparing objects and results.

12. The trend of population from country to city and its influence on social organization.

13. Explain why people follow the fashions.

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