The historic growth of man into the coming civilization

Front matter

-*•. •

THE

INTO

Chapter Second. Social Structures

The institutions of society should be in harmony with the nature and the wants of man.

This truth may seem self-evident to the average reader. Yet it has never been made the basis of action by the builders of our social structures. But science accepts this truth as the only safe and intelligent basis. Otherwise, we would be compelled to think that the constitution of man is in its very essence false and bad, and therefore institutions should be formed and carried on without any regard to mian's nature, his desires or his needs. The subject is so important that it must have several pages of discussion.

A life in some form of organized society is the natural condition of man. If we look at the maps of the brain we shall see that one-third of the faculties are social in their very nature. That is, these faculties of love or affection, in any person, m_ust always have some other person as their object of action. Thus I cannot exercise my faculty of friendship unless there is some person for me to love as a friend. I cannot exercise my parental love unless there is some

48 HISTORIC GROWTH OF MAX.

young person to be its object. And so of each social faculty. They bind human beings together in society ; they make association essential to our normal existence. More than that, science teaches us that every one of these social faculties must involve the intellect and the will in order to express itself. It is therefore a scientific truth that all of our faculties are involved in the relations of society. Man is not like a tree in this regard. You cannot isolate him from his fellows and yet have him live a full or complete life.

The eye of man adapts him to live in a world which is full of light ; the ear is fitted to a world where sounds are made, and the lungs are adapted to a w^de-spread atmosphere. And it is equally true that the social faculties adapt man to live in a world of society.

As the eye can only be satisfied by light, the lungs by air and the stomach by food, so each mental organ has wants of only one kind. Thus the wants of Friendship always relate to friends in some way; those of Integrity can only be satisfied by justice or right, and those of Reason by clear or scientific truth. For a negative example, you cannot satisfy the organ of Dignity by pro\4ng that a mixture of red and blue may produce a purple hue. But such an experiment might gratify the organ of Color.

All men admit that w^e may learn the laws of \'ision for the eye, or the laws of breathing for the lungs. But the brain is not an abstraction. It is a real physical organ, as much so as the eye or the lungs. It must be, therefore, that the social organs of the brain have natural laws to govern their normal action. And we may learn and apply these natural laws to our s^ocial institutions.

THE WANTS OF SOCIETY.

A TRUE SOCIAL SCIENCE must do Something more than to merely study the lessons of past human experience. Classified statistics do not constitute sociology. If true to its work, on the basis of natural laws, sociology must describe a definite constitution for society, including all of its necessary institutions and departments. We will now show on the next page how this must and can be done. We shall base the argument upon propositions which become self-evident when once they are stated.

If the method here proposed is new, then let our readers remember that science always gives us new methods, as in the railway, the telegraph and the telephone. And the new methods are quite as certain as the old, aside from their great gain in other essential qualities.

The wants of man in society arise from every group of faculties. They are a natural outgrowth. For example — the organs of memory, attention and language create the desire for knowledge and lead us to organize a system of schools where useful facts and truths may be easily learned.

These faculties also impel us to preserve public records, with history and literature.

The mental faculties of appetite and of the other senses in that group lead men to unite so that they may cultivate the earth for food; they induce men to form railway and other companies which may

HISTORIC GROWTH OP MAN.

transport this food to different parts of the country, and they lead us to form agricultural societies which may spread the best knowledge of food culture.

The passion of sex-love leads to the institution of marriage, and with parental love originates the family. The family itself, in early ages, increases to a tribe, and these tribes at last become a nation. The religious faculties require some kind of religious institutions; and the organs of rulership or ambition demand fixed forms of government and 'public life. The faculties of labor can only be satisfied by organized methods of industry; those of wealth require a public treasury with just economic conditions, and the organs of commerce demiand public highways and trade. The organs of perception lead to organized workshops, factories and fine arts; those of science lead to the higher institutions of learning, while those of culture require conditions for universal improvement and happiness. All this analysis shows that back of each institution stands some mental faculty as its producing cause and as its constant source of activity and power.

Men follow a natural impulse when they choose officers and form departments to represent and supply these collective wants. And it is self-evident that they should all be represented in a complete social organism.

Our conscious wants always start in the brain.

If we should cut off the

THE WANTS OF SOCIETY. 51

nerves that connect the stomach with the brain, then we should not be conscious that we needed food. We should not be hungry. And so of all parts of the body. A million of nerve fibers reach from these parts and connect them in responsive action with definite parts of the brain. Each muscle depends for its stimulus of movement upon some fibers of the brain which have the same direction as its own. And so of heart, lungs, kidneys and other vital organs. A special part of the brain is in close sympathy with each one. It therefore follows that in representing the organs of the brain by ofiicers of society we also make direct provision for all bodily wants.

For convenience of reference, we condense in a table below the twelve groups of collective wants.

I St. Institutions based on the collective wants of man.

2d. Art, beauty and utility in harmonic homes.

3d. Our unity with cycles, seasons and dates.

4th. Science with inspiration the measure of truth.

5th. Personal, social and physical culture.

6th. Dual work and offices for the two sexes.

7th. Religion as the responsive unity of all life.

8th. Members grouped by character in twelve departments.

9th. All officers chosen or deposed by election.

loth. Organized industries; assurance against want.

nth. Collective ownership for things of collective use.

12th. Equity, peace and unity between nations.

HISTORIC GROWTH OF MAN.

It is evident that the faculty of memory in each member creates the want and makes that micmber wilUng to unite with the rest to select one person as secretary or recorder, that he may remember for the society by keeping its records.

In doing this work he is filling a natural function of the organ of memory as much as when he is

remembering or noting a fact privately for himself. And so, too, the treasurer fills a natural function of the organ of economy when he is caring for the public funds. If the members had no organs of memory and economy, then they would never think of having a secretary or a treasurer. They would not be conscious of any such wants. Thus each officer really corresponds to some leading mental faculty.

A DUAL PHASE OF ACTION thus bclongs to cvcry mental faculty. One phase relates to our private, individual life. The other phase relates to our work and association with others in the collective actions of society. This latter phase is centered in the duties of the officers. The psychologists, scientists, and phrenologists have overlooked or omitted all these functions of the mental faculties which produce collective wants and lead to institutions.

CiviLiSM IN 1 88 1. A critical and extended examination of all institutions up to the year t88l

OLD AND NEW FORMS: 53

proves that they have left unrepresented all of the collective wants from the upper and nobler half of the brain. This is marked in the initial engraving on page 52. That is the best result that mere human experience and the light of history could give.

For three thousand years the statesmen undertook to learn these collective wants by the light of experience. They studied history with great diligence. They knew the conduct of men. The proud result of all their vain labor is summed up in our engraving of civilism. Their method itself was essentially imperfect. And they discovered less than half of the wants of man.

The statesmen knew, as Blackstone says, that ''The wants of individuals are the natural foundations of society." But they had no standard of completeness. In a disconnected way they multiplied institutions and officers by the hundreds. Thus we find state and municipal governments, legislators, senates, councils, cabinets, bureaus, agricultural societies, literary and scientific associations, public and private schools and colleges, art societies, fraternal and secret lodges, labor unions, railway companies, fighting armies, etc. Each of these has a board of officers, numbering from three up to forty.

With all this complication one would think that nothing should be left out. Yet the result was the vast deficiencies we have already noted. To imitate the past was to work after very imperfect copies.

The statesmen knew the outside of men. That was like studying the outside case of a watch. You could not learn its mechanism; could not learn to make one in that way. The statesmen did not see the vital connection between our social wants and the faculties. They did not discover the actual and living factors of society in the brain itself, the direct source of all human activities.

Now that this discovery is actually made, we can lay out the plan for a complete social organism. The engraving of social functions illustrates this plan, on the next page. In the place of each faculty is the title of an officer. In this model the two brain centers are represented by a president and a presidess. The marshal is in place of the centron, a great nerve center through which the brain and the body act and react upon each other.

The presiding centers of the brain, the motus and sensus, are duplicated in each hemisphere of the brain, right and left. The sensus or back center receives the impressions which come in from the various parts of the bod}^ on the nerves of sense. It is essentially receptive, and it dominates in the character of woman. But, like the front center, it has some power to combine and modify as well as to register these impressions.

The motus is the center for motor impulses. It combines currents from the intellect, the feelings and the will and sends these directive currents out to the various muscles throughout the body. The motus is essentially directive and positive. It dominates in tlie normal character of the male sex or man. Hence we have both a male and a female center in society, a presidess as well as a president.

These brain centers originate our idea that many different functions can be combined into a unity; that

THE MODEL OF SOCIETY.

THE MODEL OF SOCIETY,

56 HISTORIC GROWTH OF MAlSf.

a number of persons, each doing his special part, can be united and work for one common end. If these brain centers did not exist in man, then there would never be any concert of action, any combined labor among men. We could never have any distinct conception of such a thing. These centers exist in the ants and the bees as well as in the humans.

The model on the preceding page should be compared with the engraving on the next page. This exhibits the general plan of the brain as now understood by scientific men. The faculties have definite lines of action. Two chief lines balance all the others. These two lines form the major and minor axis of an ellipse, as shown in the lower right-hand corner. They reach from front to back and from top to bottom.

Each mental organ consists of a group of microscopic nerve cells at the surface of the brain and of a bundle of fibers which extend from these cells to one of the brain centers. The functions gradually change as we pass from one region to another on the surface.

The central officers preside at meetings and collective work. They entertain and put motions to vote. They each have a single vote like the members. But they have no veto power as in civilism. They may offer suggestions or make arguments upon motions which originate with officers or members. And they have a right to appoint temporary officers to fill vacancies.

The perfect model. Our mental classification gives us twelve groups and thirty-six faculties. In another place we will give reasons for this analysis of the mind. We may note here, however, that the

PLAN Of THE SRAIN.

PLAN OF THE BRAIN.

existence of all these faculties is admitted at the present day by our leading scientific men and by our literary writers and linguists. But in English we have no single word for sex-love, or for parental love, nor for familism.

A complete social organism will therefore have twelve departments and three officers for each one, as given in the next table. There would also be three central officers. In the table, a sub- department is placed under each officer. Each of these thirty-six admits of divisions into lesser and lesser groups, each under an assistant.

The wife of the marshal acts as an assistant to him and this makes a complete list of forty officers, when the whole is fully organized.

In past times every step in social growth was an attempt to represent some of the social wants. With science to guide us, we may now carry out to completeness that which has been done in a blind and fragmentary way from the earliest ages.

THE SOCIAL MODEL.

DEPARTMENTS OF SOCIETY.

CENTERS— President and Presidess; Marshal.

CULTURE.

RECEPTOR,

Receptions.

CULTIST,

Reform.

Dramatist,

Manners.

SCIENCE.

SCIENTIST, Laws.

Seeress, Esthetics.

Artisan, Inventions.

LETTERS.

RECORDER, Records.

Curator, Publication.

Mtisician, Literature.

ARTS.

DESIGNER, Designs.

COSTUMIST,

Costume.

Furnisher,

Furnishing,

RELIGION.

PASTOR,

Worship.

Minister,

Interchanges.

Courier,

Messages.

MARRIAGE.

RITEMAN, Rites.

Matron, Heredity.

Waiter, Luxuries.

FAMILISM.

CONDUCTOR, Schools.

Guardian,

Amusements.

Server,

Service.

HOME.

PURVEYOR,

Foods.

Mistress,

Housework.

Sanatist,

Sanitation,

RULERSHIP.

RULER, Leaders.

Elector, Elections.

Ensign, Displays.

LABOR.

JUSTICE, Judgment.

Organizer,

Employment.

Watchman , Environs.

WEALTH.

FOREMAN, Factories.

Economist, Economics.

Keeper, Stores.

COMMERCE.

ENGINEER,

■ Roads.

Merchant, Distribution.

Tillman, Fertility.

60 HISTORIC GROWTH OF MA^f.

As examples of the lesser social groups, take the sub-department of Designs. It divides into designing, engraving and sculpture. That of Records includes statistics, history and libraries. That of Environs includes climate, herds and storm signals. That of fertility includes textile culture, fertilizers and forestry.

The ranks of society may, for convenience, be arranged as Primary Bands, Cities, Counties, States, Nations and the inter-nation or Unation. All these have the same constitution, the same number of departments and officers, because the wants of all of them are alike in kind. They differ only in the extent of territory and the amount of details which each one includes.

For illustration, it requires the same kind of knowledge and skill to build a short road that only reaches through a town, that it does to build one that extends across the country of a nation. The city road would be built under the supervision of the City Engineer and the national road under the National Engineer.

The change of titles for different ranks is only made in those of the two central officers. Thus, in the Primary Band these are called the center and centress; in the city they are mayor and mayoress ; in the county they are count and countess ; in the state, governor and governess; in the nation, president and presidess, and in the unation they are the prince and princess.

By this uniformity of constitution and of titles it is always easy to understand the relations which the different ranks sustain to each other, the manner in which they cooperate for all collective purposes.

REPRESENTATION. 61

And the boy or girl who learns the duties of the departments and offices in the town at home, will understand without further study those that belong to the county, the state or the nation. This uniformity is not only natural and true, but it is a great advantage over the disorderly ranks and confusing changes in the old forms of civilism.

Representation. The wants of the lower ranks are answered by the higher through like parts of each. Thus, if a want in regard to food arises in the home departm^ent of some town and cannot be answered there, then it would be represented in and answered by the home department of that county. Or, if necessary, it would be carried up to the corresponding department in the state or nation. These wants may be made known through any of the ordinary channels of communication, by messages, or by special delegates. All the interests, employments and professions of society are organized, secured and represented in the twelve departments with invariable certainty and equality.

Thus, for the first time in history we have the plan for a truly representative system of government. In parliaments, reichstags, assemblies and congresses, the members are sent to represent so many people, or such and such a part of the country. But they do not represent the wants of the people. Except by accident, or in a disorderly way, or in case of unusual good will and intelligence. It was the inherent imperfection and badness of those systems that brought about such abortive and expensive results.

In the plans as here proposed we have forty officers in place of the hundreds which belonged to the plans

HISTORIC GROWTH OP MAN.

of civilism. Yet we represent much more; a greater number of functions. In the matter of economy as well as of clearness in working, the advantages are greatly in favor of the new order. The new is both order and harmony; the old was confusion and uncertainty.

Elective officers. The act of voting is the formal expression of a choice in regard to officers, laws, or social action. As this choice or preference naturally exists in all adult persons, therefore all have a natural right to vote. This right cannot be created or conferred by men. But we may state the conditions and methods for its expression. These conditions may vary with different phases of social evolution. We are here stating the methods after society becomes definitely or permanently organized.

All regular officers are elected, or impeached and deposed, by a direct and free vote of those they are to officially represent. But in case of vacancies, the centers, or the remaining officers, may appoint temporary officers until elections can be held.

The age for voting is fixed at the twentieth year, except in the minor or Pearl and Culture Bands, where the children and youth vote at the seventh and thirteenth year of age, respectively. In these classes and in the schools, the young learn how to

CHOOSING THE LEADERS. 63

vote before they have attained adult Hfe and have become fitted for its responsibihties.

Manner of voting. The voting members of each Primary Band gather at their own central mansion at nine o'clock in the morning of election day. The tellers, that is, two assistants of the elector, pass ballots containing the names of all the candidates, to each member. The members mark with a red pencil against the candidates of their own choice ; the tellers then collect the folded ballots, the curator and elector count them, and announce the result. This is set down by the recorder and reported to the central government. It thus needs only forty-five minutes to elect the national officers and the others who may be elected at the same time.

In the lesser groups the leaders may be elected by the members of each group.

A CANDIDATE should liavc served well in some lower office and be well-known to the public. This would save all need for the noise, expense and claptrap of political campaigns. A scientific examination should test the candidates' knowledge as well as the possession of those special talents required in the proposed office. The best persons must be secured for office by making the standard of qualification as high as possible in each age. The engineer must be a master of engineering, both civil and motor; the purveyor must thoroughly understand agriculture. And so of the rest.

If an officer does not behave well, does not fill the office in a satisfactory manner, then the people can vote him out of office just as they voted him in. They have the power of recall or impeachment in their own hands. But the charges against an officer must be sustained by competent witnesses and in a formal manner.

The time of elections is set for the 9th day of March, the officers entering upon their official duties the 21st, that is, at the Vernal Equinox. This is the true beginning of the year and is thus recognized in the new social order.

Of course elections to fill vacancies or to form new bands may take place at other times than March 21st.

In the primary band and city the elections are to be held every year; in the county, every three years; in the state, every five years; in the nation, every seven years, and in the unation every twelve years.

Nominating conventions are held twelve days previous to election, in the county, state or nation. These conventions are presided over by the two centers, the recorder, curator and marshal, who already hold office in that county, state or nation, as the case may be. These officers must leave the mass of the numbers entirely free in their election of nominees and in the presentation of subjects for political or social issues. Where two or more political parties exist with different issues, each shall be given one day for a convention. National conventions consist of three delegates from each state, chosen by mass meetings. State conventions have two delegates from each county, chosen in the same way. Only delegates, and not officers, have a vote in the conventions.

The argument. We have thus sketched a plan for the social organism which is in harmony, in each part, with the constitution of man. We have

CHOOSING THE LEADERS. 65

not based the argument upon analogies. We have dealt with the direct and natural functions of the faculties. If the social and other faculties do not produce social or collective wants, then where do such wants come from ? And if institutions do not supply these wants, then it is evident that we do not want the institutions.

It has been a com.mon but false idea that there might be a number of different plans of government, and that any one of these might work successfully in securing universal happiness. Let us consider this for a moment. Suppose that we could put the soul or mind of man into the body of a horse, would the mind be able to use this just as well as it did the human body ? With the feet of the horse instead of hands, could we cultivate the earth, build houses and write books ? It is equally true that the very forms of our institutions, the plans of social structure, are of immense consequence. For these are the instruments, the organs, with which we do the collective work of society.

The transition steps to the higher social order are simple, easy and natural. At the end of the sixth chapter we shall briefly sketch the simplified plan for fraternal and culture bands. Each of these will require onl}^ twelve officers instead of thirty-six. They are schools for learning the new system and they take the place of all other fraternal orders.

We have not sketched a Utopia, a fanciful scheme which requires an experiment or trial before we could know whether it would be successful. If in past times men have blindly represented a part of the faculties by officers, then we are entirely certain that we can

66 HlSTOklC GROWTH OF MAN.

now go on and represent all of the group and faculties by departments and officers. For our list of faculies is complete, as human life is now known. We, therefore, know in advance that the new social Order will be more successful than any of the past forms of social structure.

In the following chapters we shall see how the natural laws furnish us an ample and specific guide in the administrative, judicial, industrial and all other actions of a perfect social order.

Social Mechanism and Action

Chapter Third. Social Mechanism And Action

A MILLION MEN when they are associated acquire no new powers or faculties. They only attain better conditions for using those which they already possess. They increase the quantity and the freedom of their powers, but do not change the kind. One man has not sufficient power to build a railway, a steamship or a temple. Unite a million men and the difficulty vanishes.

The units of society are persons. And whatever powers or rights society may possess, it must derive these from the nature of its component units. The laws of social order, of social action, are therefore in the nature of man. In ever}^ act of life man is either acting in harmony with some law of his nature or else he is acting contrary to some inherent law of his being.

Long ages passed before m.an could rise to a conception of this truth and of its application to public affairs or collective life. The old Romans thought it perfectly right for the rulers to invent or enact laws which pleased or favored themselves. It was the. business of the people to submit and not complain.

70 HISTORIC GROWTH OF MAX.

Yet if we look through the Justinian Code, 427 B. C, we shall find that many of its laws were simply codified statements of what had been established by ancient customs. In the Mosaic Code of the Bible the same is true. Many of its law^s and provisions simply stated in a more formal w^ay things that had long been done among the Israelites and the surrounding nations.

Is IT RIGHT then, for each man to follow his own momentary impulses in acting with his fellowmen, in affairs of public life ? Even in a mob, men do not follow^ individual impulses. All the great ends of social or collective action would be defeated in that way. Collective action requires a common thought, unity of purpose, and a w^ell understood plan of procedure.

Men differ in their ideas because they have been born with their faculties developed in different degrees and the}^ have been subjected to different conditions and influences, as well as teachings. Men come to agree with each other by a comparison of their ideas and by a common study of how their ideas originated. In this way they at length reach that form of knowledge which is called science.

Now scientific proof is always of such a character that all persons can understand it alike. Hence, science can always be made a safe basis for united action among men. Science discovers laws; it does not invent them. Science explains, but it does not dictate. Its authority is not personal, but is in the very nature of the objects which it describes.

When man was created, or evolved, as you like, nature did not overlook the great fact that in all

STATICS AND DYNAMICS. 71

ages men would associate with each other in communities and nations. Nature did not overlook the twelve social organs in the brain through which this result has been made a perpetual necessity. And nature did not fail to provide inherent laws for these organs of the brain, just as she did for the eye, the ear, the lungs, and all other organs. We cannot invent or make laws for seeing, or hearing, or breathing. Neither can we make nor invent true laws for the social faculties, for the collective action and institutions am.ong men.

But we may discover and apply these laws. We may supply them with good conditions for their higher and more perfect action, and we may write these laws down in clear statements so that they shall become the common basis of agreement and collective activities.

''Social statics ' should describe natural institutions, and "social dynamics" should describe the natural and therefore normal actions of society. If man's faculties did not remain permanently the same, then these two branches of sociology could not be developed and would never reach a practical form.

No legislative or other lawmaking bodies are required in the new social order. Instead of these, we have the deparments of science. The work of discovering, formulating and applying the natural social laws is done in these departments and those of culture. In any case where the required natural law is not known, then temporary expedients may be adopted until the natural law can be discovered.