The level of social motion; an inquiry into the future conditions of human society

Front matter

THE GIFT OF i^j««JUiJa;dW..W

Cornell University Library arV11794

The level of social motion

Preface

The pages of this book are addressed to the man and to the woman of average education. I have followed this plan in view of the fact that the average man and woman of culture in the present time know more about social growth, and social life in general, than did the " learned " philosophers of any other age in the history of the human intellect. The time has long since passed when science can belong to the few, and the sooner this fact becomes impressed upon the minds of the men who dig in the laboratories the better it will be for the progress of science at large.

By way of preface I have little to say except to indicate the character of the work I have attempted to do. This book is the fruit of many years of investigation into the phenomena of human society and into the causes of social action in general. My purpose has been to discover a law of social motion which shall harmonize the bewildering facts of human history; account for the apparently inconceivable contradictions between human aspirations and human injustice ; and foreshadow the future of human society in its moral, intellectual, and economic forms. It appears that I have discovered a law of this kind, and I submit the result of my labors to the general public, and at the same time to the scientific world, in vi PREFACE

the belief that my theory will find capable critics on either hand. The most I can do in this preface is to state in the most general way the main conclusions flowing from the law of social motion developed in this book. These conclusions are as follow : —

Human society is rapidly moving toward a state of equality very similar in all essentials to that which is advocated by socialist philosophers as the ideal of a genuinely Christian life. The forces drawing the human race to this remarkable end are the very forces by which human history has been thus far wrought out. They are the same forces described by Darwin in his law of natural selection.

Accompanying this drift to economic equality will be found several facts of the highest importance in the social evolution of man.

The brain of civilized woman is increasing in weight. Her intellect is rapidly developing a new and extraordinary capacity, and the ultimate end of this progress in woman will be a social state in which men and women will be intellectually equal, or nearly so.

The human population of the earth is moving with accelerating force toward a mean, or normal number which, when once reached, can never again be disturbed.

The social conditions upon which this twofold equihbrium will rest — the equilibrium of economic equality and that of a stable number of population — are reacting now, and will react in the future upon the so-called inferior races. It would appear that through the force of progress itself these races must be totally eliminated from the earth. Their elimination will not be accompHshed by war or by pestilence ; but by

PREFACE Vli

the general diffusion of wealth and education which the march of progress demands. The elimination is now going on and is rapidly wiping out more than one race of these inferior men.

These are the principal conclusions flowing from the law I have attempted to demonstrate in this volume. There are many other conclusions having to do with the moral, intellectual, and aesthetic progress of the human family, but for light upon these I must refer the reader to the book itself.

M. A. L.

October, 1901.

Contents

I. The Flow of Moral Energy .

III. Organism and Environment

IV. Organism and Environment continued V. The Increment of Psychic Capacity

Chapter II

It would seem to be a self-evident truth that to all action there must be a purpose which is served or an end which is gained. To the ordinary affairs of human Hfe this statement would seem to be especially applicable ; and when we consider extraordinary affairs as, for example, the great and stirring events of history, the force of the seeming truth becomes striking in a high degree.

In most of the actions of individual men the purpose, or end in view, is obvious and easy to understand. Men eat to satisfy their hunger ; they build houses to protect themselves from the elements ; they bathe, and regulate their hours of sleep to secure health and a consciousness of ease ; they dress for warmth or for the purpose of conforming with the fashions ; they absorb stimulating beverages in order to enjoy the momentary excitation which flows from this habit; they pass about from place to place to encompass the ends of business or recreation ; they read books or newspapers to gratify their aesthetic tastes or their natural curiosity.

Turning our attention from individuals to groups of individuals we see the same order of fact. A community constructs a railroad to further the ends D 33 of transportation — to carry men and things about from one place to another. It organizes a system of government to insure peace and to administer the ends of justice. It pays taxes to gather and equip an army which shall protect the common welfare from obtrusive or aggressive communities near-by. The pui'pose of all these acts seems to be perfectly clear, perfectly intelligible, obvious and easy to the simplest of intellects.

It would seem., too, that this principle is applicable to orders of things other than man and living creatures in general. The comet, drifting from unknown places of nether space, speeds toward the sun as if busily bent upon reaching its destination ; the river flows on to the sea, snow and rain fall toward the centre of the earth, and the planets revolve in their orbits with apparently perfect sequence of movement and an apparently well devised plan.

But these movements would appear to differ from those of sentient creatures in that the latter are seen to have some conscious purpose ; that is to say, their actions are consciously directed toward the ends that are sought ; whereas the motions of inanimate things are apparently without this peculiar qualification. And yet if we dive a little more deeply under the surface of things, this difference loses much of its importance. Let us compare the comparatively minute and insignificant actions of an ant with those of a giant world like Saturn, with his rings and his satellites. The purpose of the ant's motions is obvious. But if there is purpose in the actions of the ant why should we deny it to the vast and magnificent order of motion observed in the great luminous-ringed world of the solar system ? We do not know that Saturn is itself imbued with life and sentiency such as those possessed by the ant ; but would it not be irrational to exclude from the action of the planet a purpose of some kind, either to be found in the planet itself, or in some Power by which its mighty mass is held in motion, rhythmic and sure, and when compared with the activities of the ant, endless in time ? For, it may be asked, if there be no end of any kind served by the stupendous movements of the planets, why is their action so regular, and why, in fact, are they there at all ?

This may seem to be a childish question, but it assumes a tremendous import to man when we turn from the planets and apply the query to man himself. A very little reflection will make this clear. For, if we eliminate the obvious purpose existing in the minds of men for their ordinary, or extraordinary, actions, we are looking at men from that very point of view from which we have been looking at the planets. We know very well why men eat. They eat to satisfy their hunger ; and we know that in such satisfaction they indirectly, and, for the most part, unwittingly, sustain life. But eliminate the purpose found in the satisfaction of hunger, and we are reduced to the query. Why do they live at all .?

Thus we are brought to the conviction that the word "purpose" is at very best an inadequate one when we attempt to define it by any terms other than the conscious desire of a sentient being to gratify a want. Yet, such a narrow and empty definition of the word would be shocking to the minds of most intelligent persons. Shall we say that there is no higher purpose, no general and ultimate end served by the existence of the human race, save that to be found in the vulgar wants of the body or even in the higher aspirations of the mind ? Is the only purpose and the only end of man's existence that w^hich he can see in the common, or even in the uncommon, motives which animate him and define the bounds of his intent and his activities ? Is there, perchance, a purpose for his existence which is not to be found in these obvious actions, these proximate ends, these immediate gratifications ? A purpose over and above the wants of the individual and the desires of nations ? An end toward which he is drawn as helplessly and as surely as the planet is moved in its course or the stream in its bed onward to the sea ?

This is the meaning in which we shall use the word "purpose" here; and if we wrench it somewhat from its narrow sense, we do so only because it would appear that some such process were needed to convey an idea which shall unify natural forces operating in things that live with natural forces at work in what has been called — rightly or wrongly — the "inanimate world."

If we are perfectly honest with ourselves, we will admit that it is vain for the human intellect to try to discern a general purpose, such as we have hinted at above, in the large operations of nature. We know very httle about the stars. Millions of suns rush hither and thither through space with no conceivable fixed process of action. Some of them move slowly, some with unthinkable rapidity. If we leave the stars and come to our own solar system, all we can observe is a rhythmic revolution about axis and in orbit — a revolution in which there is no design perceptible or even conceivable to the human intellect. Upon the earth the same ceaseless activity is everywhere manifest and the same evident lack of purpose. Evaporation, condensation, precipitation, the movements of air currents, electric energy, the flow of the tides, the action of glaciers, fluctuations of the earth's crust, the gravitation of water to the sea — all these things proceed in an order as regular as that which marks the revolution of the planet in its orbit or its rotation about itself. Yet who can answer the simple question of the child who asks, Why .'

As we approach our own sentiency, and look about us upon the great tide of life abounding upon the earth, the difficulty grows no smaller. With living things there is the same ceaseless flow of action as that observed in what we have been accustomed to call "dead matter." The races of the earth, animal and vegetable, have come down from old time in an unbroken sequence, changing into forms determined by forces as blind — so far as the most careful scrutiny can see — as the force of gravitation which draws the river downward to the sea, or the force of the sun's heat which draws the vapor up. Purpose there is, and has been, if by the term we are to understand the immediate and proximate end of action. And final purpose we cannot know save as that general end of action which appears when the several and proximate ends are completed in one united sum.

For the sake of illustration let us consider the actions of a man who purchases a coat of a certain fashion. He goes to his tailor, and in doing so he uses the muscles of his legs, calls into his service a cab, ascends a flight of stairs, and submits himself to be measured. Here we see in process several varied and complicated actions on the part of the man himself, associated with like groups of other and complex motions on the part of the cabman and his horse, and of the tailor and his helpers. But is it not plain that the obvious purpose of all these, and of still others in the more remote background, is the possession of the garment which was desired .''

The purchaser of the coat may have other and larger ends in view. The possession of the coat may be only the means to another end, let us say attendance at an evening reception at which the owner of the garment is to meet a politician of influence, who is to secure him an appointment abroad which, in turn, shall enable him to study the customs of a strange people in whom he has long been interested. It would be absurd to point out these very commonplace connections did we not bear in mind that the illustration goes to prove the analogy, if no more, of human conduct to the processes seen in nature at large, animate or inanimate, and, furthermore, clearly to illustrate our meaning of the word "purpose."

To return to our illustration of the river. A stream flowing down a steep gradient abruptly changes its course, and runs in a direction at right angles with its former direction. The change is caused by an obstacle in the formation of the earth's surface. The purpose here served by the action of the current is the avoidance of the obstacle. Many such changes are made in the entire course of the stream, and each has its particular cause and its proximate purpose ; but the sum of all of these actions and of all these ends is contained in the remote end which is accomplished when the stream reaches the level of the sea. A person whose range of observation was limited to a few of these shiftings in the current of the river, and who had no knowledge of that remote destination upon which the stream was bent, could readily understand the end served in each particular variation of the stream's channel. So far as his observation could carry him, his conclusions would be perfectly true. And is it not manifest that the self-same logic appHes to the purchaser of the coat, the sum of whose motions may be Hkened to those of a river which, flowing with innumerable changes of direction, and a thousand variations in the speed of its current, is brought at last to the accomplishment of that purpose toward which all its manifold and complicated activities carry it ?

Let us then define purpose as that object which is discernibly sought by action ; and define higJiest purpose as that discernible object toward which the sum of all actions is directed. With the limitations of this definition in mind, we can safely set out upon the quest of an object so formidable as the purpose of mankind upon the earth. Nor need we be discouraged by the seeming stupendousness of the prospect. An undertaking of apparently grave difficulty becomes more hopeful when we address ourselves calmly to a close examination of its nature and its causes ; and problems of seemingly hopeless complexity are sometimes made clear when the relations which exist between their simpler parts are perceived. Proceeding from simple quantities and their relations to each other, we begin to see the bearing of these relations on the relations between other quantities. Thus we rise to a comprehension of groups of quantities (and their relations together) as associated with other groups of quantities (and their relations between themselves). In this analysis we are led to generalizations which are seen to have an intimate relation with other generalizations arising simultaneously; and in the last and highest generalization we find a solution of the problem which, at first glance, seemed inscrutably obscure.

This is perfectly true of every generalization of science, and by generalization is meant what is ordinarily called a " law of nature." It is true of Kepler's laws as well as of the law of gravitation and the law of natural selection ; of the conservation of energy, of the indestructibility of matter, and of other and numerous laws formulated by special sciences, and approved and accepted by scientific standards, although not so familiar to the man of ordinary culture as are those grand and striking generalizations which have been named above.

Any theory which shall satisfactorily explain the phenomena of social life must be built upon the lines here indicated. If we are to arrive at a generalization, or a law, which shall formulate the process through which society passes, we must arrive at our conclusions only by understanding the particular aspects of the general movement. We must understand, first, the individual unit itself ; then the relations between individuals ; then the relations which groups of individuals bear to other groups ; and lastly the relations borne by individuals, by groups, and by groups of groups to the whole. Having done this, we will have before us the parts of the process we desire to comprehend ; and then by ascertaining the relations which these parts bear to the sum of them all, we will be enabled to state those relations in the form of a generalization which shall be the law by which the process operates.

Reverting to our illustration of the river, it will be admitted that he who follows the river from its source, observing its various deviations of direction, cannot but ascertain the end of its action when he finds that it empties its volume into the sea. He can then understand its persistent avoidance of obstacles, its tortuous windings, its hurrying over steep declivities, even its backward flow, at times, in the direction opposite to that toward which its general action tends. In drawing an analogy between the purpose of a river gravitating to the sea and the purpose of human society let it not be supposed that we are attempting to prove the equality, either in kind or in degree, of these two things. The comparison is made only to show that a knowledge of the two things may be won by the same general method.

In asking, What is the purpose of man upon the earth .? we will find the suggestions made in the last paragraph but one of some use. Light may be thrown upon the purpose of man upon the earth, if we determine, first, what is the purpose of men upon the earth. But before proceeding to this inquiry, it will be advisable to examine into the life of an individual organism much lower in the scale of creation than the human species.

Let us take for example a single stalk of Indian corn, or maize. We can watch the cycle of the life of a common corn-stalk from its birth to its death.

By a mechanical process of assimilation and excretion, the plant absorbs water from the earth and gives off oxygen. In this operation are developed, from the first signs of growth in the tiny, tender shoot, all the parts and substance of the full-grown plant ; the jointed stalk with its top crowned by a beautiful terminal panicle ; the generative organs enclosed by protecting sheaths ; and the strong framework whose structure is nicely calculated to bear the weight of the ears when full-grown and mature. In the growth of this giant blade of grass the only purpose visible is the very process itself of this growth, maturity, and fecundation. The function and purpose of vegetable life were well described by Alexander Pope in one of his biting epigrams upon a stupid individual who, he said, was

" Fixed like a plant to his peculiar spot. To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot."

Search as we may for any purpose other than that so tersely defined by the poet, and we must fail. Nutrition and propagation are the sole purposes of all the exuberant activities of vegetable life, from the microscopic bacillus to the gigantic palm.

But we find that the same truth holds when we ascend a step in the scale and pass from vegetable life to the protozoa, or those creatures in which the beginnings of life called animal are found. As we advance still higher to the observation of more highly organized forms of animal life, the same two purposes are the only ones discernible. The numberless tribes of animals in the vast oceans of the earth are, so far as man has been able to find out, moved by two forces only — those forces which impel the organism to activities sustaining the life of the individual and maintaining the life of the race. This truth remains when we transfer our attention from aquatic animals to those inhabiting the land. Everywhere throughout that part of creation within the range of human observation, plant or animal, large or minute, directs its energies to these two ends and to these two ends alone.

Must we include man himself in this broad generalization .'' Are we to reduce man to the level of beasts ; to allow him no more latitude in his purposes and aims than that allowed to the microscopic germ of cholera or tuberculosis ; to extend the category of Pope's clod to the highest productions of the human race, and to place a Newton and a Shakespeare beside the sea urchin and the sponge .■' To suggest such inference naturally leads us to inquire wherein the purpose of man differs from that of all other animals, if differ it really does. The distinction ordinarily made to separate the conduct of men from that of the rest of animate creation gives to human action an intelligent purpose, while this quality is denied to the conduct of all creatures below the level of mankind. This distinction was pointed out by Rene Descartes who invented the theory that lower animals were automata and that their vital functions were merely mechanical movements, such as were seen in the ingenious devices known as puppet shows. But to man he gave intelligent action ; i.e. action rationally directed toward preconceived ends.

This distinction would seem to be a valid one upon a superficial consideration of the facts. It would appear at first sight that the activities of the painter of a great historical picture were different in kind, as well as in degree, from those of a hawk searching for prey and seizing it when found. Or that the activities, mental and bodily, of the musician who creates a symphony were in no wise to be compared with those of an East Indian vampire. But such is not the verdict of comparative psychology. An intimate study of the forces which impel the painter and the hawk, the musician and the bat, will reveal identity of motive in all four instances.

It is not precisely that the painter and the musician are spurred by economic motives as directly as are bird and beast ; but it will not be denied that all are animated by a desire, the gratification of which will bring pleasure — pleasure to the bird and bat in the consumption of food secured, and to the painter and musician in the concrete expression of their intimate thoughts. The desire resident in the animal is mental, quite as much so as the desire which moves the man. Both desires are gratified by activities as purely mechanical as those of any device artificially wrought by the genius of mechanical construction ; and the satisfactions themselves pertain to the mental perceptions of both organisms. The profound researches of George John Romanes into the intellectual life of animals leaves little room for doubt of this uniformity of the psychic life of all orders of sentient beings — an uniformity which had been before believed and accepted by many, and which hardly needed the inductive verification in the establishment of which Romanes has been at so very great pains.

If we say, then, that happiness is the end and purpose of the actions of individual men, we shall postulate that with which all men will readily agree. It matters little what may be the nature of the happiness sought, what may be the objects in which it finds expression, or the means taken to reach the end desired. Neither are we concerned whether the happiness sought be positive or negative ; whether it consist in the possession of pleasure, or in the absence of pain. To be deprived of something which in itself is a positive pleasure, may be, and often is, a cause of positive pain. Extremes meet here as elsewhere. And in precise proportion as the pleasure is great, or the pain keen, will the resultant exercise of energy prove to be intense. There is no exception to this rule. The possession of happiness, here or hereafter, is the purpose toward which all human actions are directed. The widest antitheses of conduct are thus explained, and thus only. In this respect the monk and the voluptuary, the spendthrift and the miser are one. In the entire range of asceticism — from the pious person who deprives himself of slight indulgences, or lengthens his prayer during Lent, to the friar who scourges his body and sleeps in a coffin — the purpose ever in mind is happiness, however so extraordinarily conceived. So powerful, indeed, may the motive become that in the very pain which accompanies ascetic practices the ascetic himself may find a kind of pleasure — perverted and abnormal if you like, but pleasure still.

However minutely we may examine the motives, the actions, and the purposes of animals and men, we can find no differences between them save that of degree in complexity. If the purpose of a man in painting a picture is an intelligent purpose, so is that of the dog or the horse who sets out to find his way home by scent, or by the observation of familiar landmarks. The one is only a larger intelligence than the other, and both are alike in kind. The difference between the conduct of a kitten, which seeks a comfortable spot on the hearth rug, and that of a child which strives to obtain the possession of a toy, will be admitted to be slight. But great as may be the difference between the conduct of the child and that of a statesman who designs a great reform in government, the difference is one of quantity only. There is comparatively little intelligence in the activities of the child ; comparatively much intelligence in those of the architect of a realm.

If, now, we inquire into the nature of the happiness sought for by men generally, we will find that, at bottom, it is precisely the same as that which has been observed in animals lower than man in the scale of creation. It may be stated that the first purpose arousing the energies of the individual is to live. In order to live he must acquire by personal exertion, either of himself or of others, the food which sustains his life. In doing this he is impelled by the strongest motive of his nature. One by one we may strike down the other purposes spurring him into action ; remove from him all the concomitants of civilization ; take him from the association of his fellow-men and isolate him from the contact of all but creatures which may be of use to him in supplying the wants of his vital functions — and this purpose will remain the motive of all of his activities, bodily and mental.

Sustentation of the life of the individual is thus found to be the first motive of all human action.

Without this, the individual can be happy in no degree whatsoever, and he will rate his happiness by the measure in which the functions of nutrition and assimilation are satisfied. With him, food which is at once agreeable to the taste, readily digested, and easy of accessibility, is the greatest desideratum; and the continuous life of his body, as free as may be from disagreeable exertions in the obtainment of the food required, is the highest purpose of all of his energies.

Given the fulfilment of this first purpose we find that from its accomplishment will arise another, as powerful, in its way, as the first. That is the production of other individuals, each of which has all the physical attributes of the parent, and is moved by like desires. In the functions by which these two purposes are served — the healthy nutrition of the individual, and the reproduction of like individuals — the great mass of mankind finds its keenest enjoyments and its most desirable ends ; and these are the two objects pursued by all but an insignificant part of the human race. All other activities are secondary to those which serve these two ends. Pleasures of the intellect and the emotions are only possible — at least for the majority of men — when the basic functions of life are left free to operate with more or less fruition. Esthetic and emotional enjoyments are entirely dependent on physiological enjoyments. Every truly pleasurable process of the mind — apart from those perverted and abnormal ones already noted in the case of the ascetic — may be measured by the quantity in which the functions of life have been satisfied.