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CHAPTER XIII.

HAPPINESS AND PROGRESS.

THE most interesting question in relation to our subject is undoubtedly that of the worth of progress. It is here that the conflict between the despairing and the hopeful view of life becomes most intense. Both parties in the dispute are dimly aware that our final judgment respecting the worth of the world must be decided on this issue. For even if the pessimists succeed in showing that the world, as it has hitherto existed, is an appalling excess of misery, there remains the question whether this balance is a fixed quantity, or whether it may be indefinitely reduced, and even transformed into a positive remainder of good.

It is seen, too, more or less distinctly, that this question of progress, however complex it may at first sight appear, is a much more definite and tractable problem than that of the relative amounts of happiness and misery coexisting now or at any past period in the world's history. Not only so, it is recognised, by one side at least, that the former inquiry is to a large extent rendered unnecessary through the introduction of the latter question. If, the opponent of pessimism reasons, progress makes for an increase of happiness, it matters but little what are the exact proportions of joy or sorrow in the world at this fleeting point of time. Provided only happiness be shown to be possible under certain conditions, the demonstration that the onward move

ment of things tends, however slowly, to the fuller realisation of these conditions suffices to redeem the world as a whole from the damning charge of the pessimist. Finally, the present concentration of scientific thought on the dynamical aspects of the universe, on the development of its various products, on the origin and tendencies of life, and on the development of the human race, serves to invest the problem of progress with a peculiar interest for the present generation.

In considering the value of human progress, the first desideratum is a scientific conception of the nature and chief factors of this complex movement. We have seen how utterly Hartmann fails to appreciate human advance by not setting out with some such scientific idea. Modern science enables us to some extent to construct such a scheme. It furnishes us with a conception of the essential characters of the onward current of human events sufficiently definite and complete to enable us to arrive at a fairly certain conclusion respecting its aggregate value.

For the present we will look away from what the new science of organic development tells us about the phenomenon, and will confine ourselves to what seems to be the result of inductive historical research. These investigations tell us little, if anything, respecting any change in native capacity. They conceive progress, mainly if not exclusively, as a change in influences which are external to the individual, residing in the social medium into which he is born, whether in its industrial, moral, intellectual, æsthetic, or some other department. That this medium does, under certain conditions, change according to a discoverable plan, is one of the most certain conclusions of historical science.

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Its mode of change constitutes what is meant by progress. With reference to the conditions which ultimately determine these changes, and the extent to which they have operated in affecting the aggregate condition of the race, something will be said by and by. Here it is enough to know that such progress has been realised by has been realised by a certain portion of

mankind.

I do not purpose here going very fully into the question of the various constituents of progress and their exact proportions. The reader may find these well expounded in the best historical literature of our age. While much is uncertain, there is sufficient agreement with respect to some of the main features of the subject.

Thus it is accepted as indisputable that one of the most fundamental elements of progress is increase of knowledge. The contrast between the wild fancies of the savage mind in presence of the impressive phenomena of nature, and the most advanced modern scientific conceptions of the physical world, may serve as a measure of the change which intellectual progress has already achieved. The gradual accumulation and transmission of knowledge respecting physical nature and human character, and of the various agencies by which the scope of human action may be enlarged, may be said in a sense to underlie all other modes of progress.

As a direct consequence of this factor we have a growing dominion over the forces of nature, those which menace our safety and comfort, as well as those which contribute to our enjoyment. The step already taken from the blank helplessness of the primitive man before the evils of storm, flood, and disease, to the command of these evils implied in modern agricultural and sanitary science, illustrates

this side of progress.

All practical science, as seen in the various useful arts, and in the processes of industry as a whole, clearly advances directly as human intelligence in its totality advances.

The second great factor in human progress consists of emotional changes. The ruling sentiments, the cherished forms of imagination, the great action-prompting motives of a people, tend to vary in a certain manner, and this change constitutes one of the leading features of social progress as a whole. There has been a wide transition from the wild fancies which gratify the savage mind, as his few elementary passions, his childlike wonder and pitiable terror, and his limited selfish impulses, to the imaginations which are quickened into life by new scientific discoveries, the emotions born of modern conceptions of nature, the love of beauty which dwells in the artist-mind, and finally the moral sentiments of sympathy and benevolence which bind the civilised men of to-day in common bonds.

Again, any given state of society acts as a training influence for the individual will. Not only does our social medium provide us with a store of knowledge, and a set of emotional influences, the acceptance of which hardly involves our volition; it brings to bear a number of forces which act directly on our voluntary actions. As members of society we are trained and disciplined by a number of such forces which answer to the modes of education, the pressure of family or public sentiment, the restraints of the law, and so on.

Now these controlling and directing influences vary in a progressive society no less than the others, and their changes form another important factor of this progress. In a primitive age the individual is educated only to per

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form a few simple actions, involving no great prevision or protracted concentration. The motives, too, which are brought into play are few in number, and of a low moral order. Again, the discipline enforced by ruling sentiment and law is exceedingly limited. Custom or public opinion is satisfied if only a few of the worst crimes are avoided, and a few of the rudest virtues, such as bodily courage, are exhibited. In contrast to this, the discipline of a highly civilised society is exceedingly far-reaching, penetrating, and comprehensive. The influences of education, of the prevailing moral sentiment, and of law, train the individual will to a self-control which is at once intensive and extensive, strong in its degree and ample in its range. It serves to develop and exercise all the complex impulses which enter into moral action—such as the motives of a far-seeing prudence, of a refined pride or sense of dignity, the love of approval, the several family affections, public spirit, a large-hearted sympathy, and the desire to benefit one's country and one's race.

Progress, then, implies an advance in those social influences which serve to develop the individual intelligence, emotions, and will. It is continually substituting a higher for a lower kind of influence, supplying the external conditions of a larger, more varied, and more refined type of knowledge, sentiment, and action.1

Now, so far as it does this, it clearly tends to deepen and to heighten the individual's capacity for happiness. The vast increase in the number of emotional susceptibilities which marks off the civilised and cultured man from

1 This result is distinctly implied in Mr. Herbert Spencer's definition of development as a whole, including both that of the individual and that of the community or the race.