When in China one marks how much more the treaty port missonary gets from his little income laid out on the products of Western knowledge and skill than the rich mandarin from his wealth of Chinese products, one realizes how invention has mul

hed the categories of material goods. In his medicine case, eye-glasses, microscope, field glass, camera, talking machine, morecycle, swivel chair, vacuum cleaner, fruit orchard, driven. sel, etc., the missionary has values all the money in China cannot procure from native skill.

WHAT MAKES WEALTH APPRECIATE

Adds Con

Technique stantly to

the Categories of

Goods

The advance of technique constantly augments this power. Thus the introduction of perfumes and spices gave new sensuous gratifications, spirituous liquors provided a short-cut to social pleasure, armor opened a way to safety in battle, the coming in of cattle enabled heads of kine to be trophies as well as scalp Material kks and captives. The discovery of medicaments gave new weapons against disease. The art of embalming met in a way the longing for immortality. The origination of art products provided new embodiments of beauty. Since by exchange any material good may be converted into any other, each of these changes added to the desirability of wealth in general.

Shiftings of custom and opinion affect the importance of materal goo is sometimes favorably, sometimes adversely.

At various times the power of wealth and consequently the raving for it have been augmented by the custom of wife-purhase, the system of wergeld or money compensation for crimes, the acceptance of damages as a salve for injury, the passing of Prestige from trophies of personal prowess-such as heads, cas, and bear's claws to herds, acres, and bonds, the reliace upon clothing instead of tattooing as a means of charming the posite sex, the belief that burnt-offerings win the favor of te gods or that masses deliver the soul from purgatory, the ressing of political power from the Elders or the Fighters to the

ealthy, the decay of the distinction between "noble" and mean" employments, the yielding of patrician ranks to the pressure of the new-rich, the lapsing of birth as a ground of cal superiority, the gaining of "conspicuous consumption

3

conspicuous leisure" as a means of good repute, the enlist

CHAP. V

The Advance of

CHAP. V

Modern
Reforms

WHAT MAKES WEALTH DEPRECIATE

which

Redeem

of Individual or

from Mam. monism

On the other hand, there are movements which have shorn lucre of some of its power. Woman's resumption of free disStretches posal of herself, the rise of romantic love, the custom of courtship, and the dispensing with the "marriage portion," have nearly Social Life freed Cupid from Mammon! "Justification by faith," the suppression of masses, pilgrimages and indulgences, the dispensing with altar and image, the open Bible, the lay chalice and the unadorned "meeting house" have well-nigh separated the favor of God from the payment of money. The protection of the law is no longer exclusively for those who can pay for it. Public hospitals and free dispensaries socialize the healing art. The printing press and the free library have popularized the sweets of literature. The abolition of hireling armies, of imprisonment for debt, of child labor and of property qualifications for the suffrage are so many dykes reclaiming smiling stretches from dreary commercialism.

ment of the artist in the service of Croesus instead of the service of temple or church.

ROOTS OF THE RELIGIOUS INTEREST

A primary factor in the religious interest has been the desire to experience ecstasy. Primitive peoples know and highly value this enlargement of consciousness and no one who has seen persons "getting happy" at a camp meeting will doubt the reality or the seductiveness of such states. Then the wonder aroused by the more arresting phenomena of nature sets up speculations as to their causation which gratify the impulse of curiosity. Moreover, man's sense of helplessness before the personal powers. he conceives as causes of fear-inspiring natural events excites in him the instinct of submission and throws him into the attitude of self-abasement. Intimidated he seeks by acts and gestures of propitiation to assure his safety. In time he conceives Its Numer the idea of utilizing these imagined personal powers. He cov

ous Side Roots

enants with them that in return for regular praise and sacrifice they shall grant increase and prosperity. Thus the gods acquire economic importance. Becoming more fully domesticated they are approached with confidence and worship is prompted by love and gratitude as well as by fear, or expectation of benefits.

The
Tap-root
of the
Religious
Interest

With the advent of collective worship, religious feasts endear CHAP. V themselves as occasions of intense social pleasure. Moreover, the common worship of the gods for public ends makes them agents of social discipline, props of order, bulwarks of family, property, and state. As ethical thought develops, the gods are conceived as deliverers from temptation rather than from misfortune. Philosophy blends with the theory of the gods and religion provides answers for the Why? Whence? and Whither? of the restless intellect. In the priestly cults religion becomes a stepping stone to power and so enlists ambition. The Hebrew prophets incorporate into religion their passion for social justice. Thus a great variety of human passions, instincts, impulses, and yearnings have at one time or another joined to magnify religion to the dimensions of a history-making force. No wonder that men have suffered themselves to be hewed in pieces rather than give up their gods, that at times one has looked upon. co-worshippers as friends and all deniers of one's god as

enemies.

UPS AND DOWNS OF RELIGION

The

Is Ex

Fluctu

The religious interest cannot but wax and wane with the rela- Religious tion of religion to men's necessities. The gods are remembered Interest in danger, forgotten in security, valued when the state rests on tremely authority, ignored when government is founded on consent, ating adored as guardians of the right, but neglected after Justice gains her sword. Every forward stride in man's mastery of Nature and control over men lessens his dependence on the Unseen. sense of security from violence, plague, calamity, and future terment weakens the fears behind religion. As people come to book to the policeman for protection, to the physician for healing, to the inventor for victory and to themselves for worldly success, their anxious zeal in worship abates. Religion abides, purer and nobler to be sure, but less potent as a maker of history.

ROOTS OF THE POLITICAL INTEREST

of the

for Gov

Partly ally, partly rival of the religious interest is the political Origins interest. At certain epochs of social history, people worry as Demand much about keeping a whole skin as about getting the next meal. rnment Hence, for the creators and organs of security, they feel emotrs scarcely weaker than their feelings for wealth or for the

CHAP. V gods. In fear of having their throats cut by the enemy they cheerfully submit to the will of the war leader. In dread of evildoers they rally round a power that can make law respected. They come to feel intense love and loyalty toward the statebuilding kings and dynasties who have allayed their terrors, and hate the recalcitrant and disloyal.

Origin
of the
Supply
of Govern-

ment

Bringing

Govern

ment

under

Control

Funda

mental Social

Evolution Changes the Value

ment and Therewith the Strength of the Political Interest

The appetite for power, however, impels the masterful to supply more than enough government. In time the absolute state reveals its true inwardness and men start back in affright before a Frankenstein. Then ensues a struggle to wrest from government guarantees of individual liberties and rights. The next step is to dispense with governing families and classes and organize a state whose master is the people. Finally the people's state is used for a multitude of services which never occurred to government in an earlier day.

FLUCTUATIONS IN THE POLITICAL INTEREST

The intensity of feeling about the state varies with its apparent importance in the general scheme. Political loyalty is strongest when enemy blows rain harmless on the shield the of Govern- state holds over its people. The flame of patriotism rises or sinks with the approach or retreat of violence. To the degree that peace and order, individual liberty and democratic control are attained, the old fears and passions die. Free associations take over the promotion of culture. Public opinion comes to be the chief regulator of conduct and law but reflects public opinion. The non-political side of society comes forward and politics ceases to be an arch joiner and sunderer of men. If, however, social evolution should cause the state to absorb so much of the industrial organization as to play the rôle of a supreme earthly Providence, no doubt men's interest in it would grow again.

The Intel

lectual Interest Springs

osity at First, but

ROOTS OF THE INTELLECTUAL INTEREST

The intellectual interest has far outgrown the craving for knowledge inspired by the instinct of curiosity. For one thing from Curi- intellectual subtlety, always a coveted species of prowess, gratifies the instinct for self-assertion. Even in the early stages of Has Grown culture a reputation for extraordinary wisdom brings the sage fame, favor and wealth. Later, learning confers distinction and has a value in bread-winning and mate-winning. As for real

Far Be

Instinct

knowledge, it has been means as well as end. Its branches were first cultivated as badges of leisure-class superiority. Later the sciences were promoted because they relieved pain, prolonged Efe, brought military victory and vastly augmented the production of wealth.

CHAP. V

WHY SCIENCE HAS BEEN TOLERATED

Despite
Her Dis-

and

Habits,

Will Be
Tolerated

of Her

Practical

Down to about the middle of the eighteenth century it was a question whether supernaturalism might not crush or enslave turbing science; but since then science has so won the favor and confi- Upsetting dence of the people by her triumphs over disease and her con- Science quest of the forces of Nature, that it does not seem possible for the conservatives to bind her again in chains. Although to the Because great majority of men their religious traditions are infinitely Great dearer than the quest of Truth, they have been made to see that they cannot have from science the immense practical services she is rendering them unless they tolerate free inquiry. So, although the craving to find out is a very weak thing in human nature in comparison with the passions and interests which fear and hate. it, it enjoys immunity because the world has learned that knowledge is power. Science labors ever with the noose about her neck; but it will not be drawn while science grants the health vainly besought by the worshipper; turns aside the pestilence; insures the husbandman his increase; and overcomes one's enencies.

THEORIES OF SOCIAL DETERMINISM

Theories

Make Some

one Inter

The dominance of now this interest and now that, creates the One-sided Mlusion that some one force is the shaper of social destiny. At Which the moment when the state attains its broadest significance the tary-political interest seems to be the swaying force in history. At the moment when religion reaches its broadest significance the religious interest appears as the chief uniter and divider of Now it happens that in modern times certain well-understed influences have weakened the political and religious interests and thereby thrown into bolder relief other interests, chief among wh.ch is the economic. Economism, so helpful a key to the evolution of modern society, is now. offered as the "Open sesame!" to the locked chambers of the past, the one magic formula for the interpretation of history. Its one rival is intel

est Re

sponsible for the

Course of

Develop

Society's ment