the less habitually misconceived-that progress has been on the whole the most constant and prominent feature of the history of a considerable and important portion of raazkind.

Around this cardinal fact have clustered, as I just hinted, many serious misconceptions. The illustrious thinkers of the last century, who endeavoured to study human history from a scientific point of view, were unconsciously led into an error from which contemporary writers have not as yet entirely freed themselves. The followers of Turgot and Condorcet were prone to regard progress as something necessary and universal They attempted to account for it, much as Lamarck tried to explain organic development, as the continuous and ubiquitous manifestation of an occult, inherent tendency toward perfection. Subsequent literature exhibits many traces of this metaphysical conception. Thus Dr. Whately, in his edition of Archbishop King's discourses, asserts that "civilization is the natural state of man, since he has evidently a natural tendency toward it." Upon which it has been aptly remarked that, "by a parity of reasoning, old age is the natural state of man, since he has evidently a natural tendency towards it." Indeed, as this comparison is intended to show, it is difficult to use such expressions as "natural state" and "natural tendency" without becoming involved in a confusion of ideas. And to ascribe progress to an inherent tendency, without taking into account the complex set of conditions amid which alonethat tendency can be realized, is to give us an empty formula instead of a scientific explanation. Whether the individual will die young or reach old age, and whether the community will remain barbarous or become civilized, depends, to a great extent, upon environing circumstances; and no theory of progress can have any value which omits the consideration. of this fact. Mr. William Adam labours under the confusion of ideas here signalized, when he finds fault with Sir G. C. Lewis for upholding the doctrine of progress while admitting

VOL. II.

that certain races have never advanced in civilization. For this, Mr. Adam accuses him of virtually dividing mankind into two differently-constituted races, of which the one possesses, while the other lacks, the inherent tendency toward perfection!1 He might as well maintain that because we admit that certain men are stunted, while others grow tall, we divide mankind into two differently-constituted races, of which the one possesses while the other lacks, the inherent tendency toward increase in size. Closely allied to this fallacy is that which associates lateness in time with completeness in development, and requires us to assume that nowhere at any time has there been a temporary retrogression. Thus Mr. Goldwin Smith appears to be confused by the impression that the temporary decline in the moral tone of English society after the Restoration of Charles II., is a fact inconsistent with the doctrine of a general progress. And Mr. Mansel still more preposterously declares that on the theory of progression we ought to regard the polytheism of imperial Rome as a higher form of religion than the earlier Hebrew worship of Jehovah. While another form of the same confusion is to be seen in the attempts which writers imbued with the conception of progress often make, to coax the annals of the past into affirming the uninterrupted advance of civilization.

These examples show how vaguely the doctrine of progress has hitherto been apprehended. The fallacy of supposing civilization to have proceeded serially, or uniformly, or in consequence of any universal tendency, is nearly akin to the fallacy of classifying the animal kingdom in a series of ascendng groups, a fruitful source of delusion, which it was Cuvier's great merit to have steadily avoided. The theological habit of viewing progressiveness as a divine gift to man,2 and the

1 W. Adam, Theories of History, p. 87.

Con

2 "It is impossible for mere savages to civilize themselves. sequently men must at some period have received the rudiments of civilization

metaphysical habit of regarding it as a necessary attribute of humanity, are equally unsound and equally fraught with error. Until more accurate conceptions are acquired, no secure advance can be made toward discerning the true order of social changes. Far from being necessary and universal, progress has been in an eminent degree contingent and partial. Its career has been frequently interrupted by periods of stagnation or declension, and wherever it has gone on, it has been forwarded, not by an inexplicable tendency or nisus, but by a concurrence of favourable conditions, external and internal. We must remember moreover, as Sir Henry Maine reminds us,' that the communities which have attained to a conspicuous degree of civilization constitute a numerical minority of mankind. Contemporaneous with the rapidly advancing nations of Europe exist the sluggish nations of Asia, and the almost stationary tribes of Africa and Polynesia.

"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay."

So irregular, indeed, has been the march of civilization, that most stages of progress may be made the subject of ocular investigation at the present day.

In the science of history, therefore, old "means not old in chronology, but in structure: that is most archaic which lies nearest to the beginning of human progress considered as a development, and that is most modern which is farthest removed from that beginning." 2

Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that the career of progress has been neither universal nor unbroken, it remains entirely true that the law of progress, when discovered, will be found to be the law of history. The great fact to be explained is

from a superhuman instructor." (!) Whately's Rhetoric, p. 94. A statement not altogether compatible with the one just quoted from the same author in the text.

1 Ancient Law, p. 24; cf. Lewis, Methods of Observation in Politics, vol. i. p. 302.

either the presence or the absence of progress. And when we have formulated the character of progress, and the conditions essential to it, we have the key to the history of the stationary as well as of the progressive nations. When we are able to show why the latter have advanced, the same general principle will enable us to show why the former have not advanced. Though in biogeny we habitually view the process of natural selection as the process whereby higher organisms are slowly originated, the principle loses none of its importance because sundry species from time to time suffer deterioration, or remain stationary, or become extinct. When we know how it is that some species advance, we know how it is that other species do not advance. So, in the science of language, which is equally with sociogeny a science of development—being, indeed, neither more nor less than a quite special province of sociogeny-we rightly consider the main problem solved when we have explained the process of phonetic integration, by which languages ascend from the primary, through the secondary, to the tertiary stage of structure. It matters not that Chinese remains to this day a primary language, and that the numerical majority of languages have not yet become tertiary by completely fusing together the component roots of their words. The process by which languages pass from a lower stage to a higher remains none the less the fundamental phenomenon to be investigated, and when we have generalized the conditions under which this process takes place, we can explain its absence as well as its presence. Now the case is the same with progress in society, that it is with progress in language or in organic life. Whether manifested or not manifested in any particular community, progress is still the all-important phenomenon to be investigated. It is the one grand phenomenon, to explain the presence and the absence of which, is to explain the phenomena of history. Just as the study of the languages which have advanced furnishes us the key for understanding those which have

not advanced, so the study of the progressive communities furnishes us, as we shall see, the law of history; a law which, in its most general expression, covers the phenomena presented by the non-progressive communities likewise. Comte was therefore right in restricting the main current of his inquiry to the course of that civilization which began on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and has extended over Europe and a portion of America. The same plan will be pursued in the present chapter. Although incidental confirmation will be sought in the history of the stationary communities, our main problem will be to formulate the law of progress from a comparison of the phenomena presented by the progressive communities.

But before we can fairly enter upon our task, it will be desirable for us to note the Factors of Progress with which we shall chiefly have to deal.

The prime factors in social progress are the Community and its Environment. The environment of a community comprises all the circumstances, adjacent or remote, to which the community may be in any way obliged to conform its actions. It comprises not only the climate of the country, its soil, its flora and fauna, its perpendicular elevation, its relation to mountain-chains, the length of its coast-line, the character of its scenery, and its geographical position with reference to other countries; but it includes also the ideas, feelings, customs, and observances of past times, so far as they are preserved by literature, traditions, or monuments; as well as foreign contemporary manners and opinions, so far as they are known and regarded by the community in question. Thus defined, the environment may be very limited or very extensive. The environment of an Eskimo tribe consists of the physical circumstances of Labrador, of adjoining tribes, of a few traders or travellers, and of the sum-total of the traditions received from ancestral Eskimos. These make up the sum of the conditions affecting the social existence of