(3) Development of writing. Every civilization has developed its means of recording ideas and events beyond the stage of the pictograph, or direct realistic picture of the thing to be communicated, and has elaborated a complex graphic symbolism whereby the symbols used in writing finally become more closely connected with certain sounds than with things. This is eminently true, for example, of our alphabet. The various letters of the alphabet do not stand for things, but for sounds (or rather groups of sounds), and it is by combining them in various ways that we name things. Such a system is much more flexible than one where every distinct thing has a separate symbol, for we are able to name anything by some combination of our twenty-six symbols, whereas when pictographs are employed an entirely new symbol is required for every thing that is named.

The advantages conferred by a flexible system of writing are obvious, and range all the way from the provision of an effective means of recording events and arrangements to the securing of greater control and direction over thought, which tends to be elusive and vague until it can be expressed. The activities of a culture with a highly developed system of writing, however, will be reflected in that medium, and it may finally happen that a good many initially derivative processes will begin to take on the aspect of self-existing phenomena. Men may then be said to be living in a paper age, for they will be guided in what they do and think by little marks made on pieces of paper.

(4) Existence of the state. Every society elaborates certain rules or laws pertaining to social relations, and enforces them, but in a civilization the chief enforcing authority is centralized at some point or other, and the group presents a solid compact front to all other groups. It is welded into an effective working unity under the control of a central power, which determines the general policies of the group, both towards its own members and towards other groups. Men become subject to the laws of this corporation by residing in the territory over which it has jurisdiction, and they are admitted to its membership under conditions which it lays down.

The state has played so large a part in western history, especially in modern times, and its rôle has been so greatly magnified by historians, that we are always in danger of confusing it with society itself. The two are by no means identical, as many thinkers have realized. Consider the following rather quaint passage from old Tom Paine: 5

ment in philosophy, as well as in every other business, improves dexterity, and saves time." 4 Or, in other words: under the impact of the division of labor, most men give up thinking; but this saves time!

Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness. . . Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the the bowers of Paradise.

The state is but one of the many institutions that make up modern society. Many societies have had no institution at all comparable to it, except by analogy; and even in modern society, in spite of the political theorists, it has not been the final source of all authority. Never, not even under the most autocratic of governments, have all the reins of power been held by the state; indeed, the course of our analysis has indicated that most of the pressures laid upon us by our group work directly, and are little if at all susceptible to conscious control. There are also many indications that the sovereignty of the state as a policy-enunciator for the group is now on the decline-witness internationalism on the one hand, and the growing importance of economic groups within the state on the other.

At the risk of oversimplifying the foregoing discussion the following definition of civilization is presented: Civilization is a form of culture characterized by a sedentary population grouped around the state as the central institution, and having a symbolic form of writing and an economic structure which makes fairly extensive use of the division of labor.

Civilization is not a term of praise.

As thus used the term is not intended to convey praise, but merely to describe a certain culture form which has existed numerous times in the past, and which happens still to exist in certain parts of the globe. It must not be thought that all persons who have experienced civilization join in its praise, for not a few sensitive individuals seem to dislike it heartily. Edward Carpenter, for example, has written a powerful and interesting essay entitled "Civilization: Its Cause and Cure," in which he calls it "this thousand-year long lapse of human evolution," while Stanton Coit is responsible for a little volume entitled "Is Civilization a Disease?" Carpenter, with his eye mainly on our own civilization, carries out this idea in the following fashion at the beginning of his essay: "

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We find ourselves to-day in the midst of a somewhat peculiar state of society, which we call Civilization, but which even to the most optimistic among us does not seem altogether desirable. Some of us, indeed, are inclined to think that it is a kind of disease which the various races of man have to pass through-as children pass through measles or whooping cough; but if it is a

disease, there is this serious consideration to be made, that while History tells us of many nations that have been attacked by it, of many that have succumbed to it, and of some that are still in the throes of it, we know of no single case in which a nation has fairly recovered from and passed through it to a more moral and healthy condition.

It is not necessary to agree with this opinion, but it does seem highly advisable to use the word descriptively, and not as an indiscriminate term of praise.

Western civilization.

Our own culture may be called western civilization, and it may be summarily described as the type of life which has resulted from the fusion of the Greco-Roman, barbarian (mainly Teutonic) and western-oriental cultures which began to make its appearance in western Europe at about the opening of the modern era. The broad outlines of western civilization in its contemporary form, however, can hardly be said to have been laid down until at least the late seventeenth century, after over fifteen centuries of slow accommodation and development, and some of its most prominent features have made their appearance only in the course of the last hundred years. It has probably as yet by no means reached its zenith, and its main contours still seem subject to change.

It would be a fascinating undertaking, did the limitations of space permit, to tell the story of the long process which gave birth to our contemporary culture. Men have followed many a winding path, through pleasant pasture, over hill and through briar, down into the valley of the shadow and out again, trudging now in circles, now forward, and now back again, in their great trek across the centuries, and to trace out their footprints and mark their resting places, their scenes of victory and of defeat, would indeed be a high enterprise. Instead it has seemed best to list and discuss in brief fashion a few of the great constructions characteristic of our culture. Every culture tends to focus at a relatively small number of points a great part of its energies, and it is perhaps by an inspection of these cultural foci that we can best come to grips with such a way of life.

Western civilization in its contemporary forms, then, is characterized by the following things:

(1) Natural science.

(2) Mechanical invention.

(3) The national state.

(4) The historical attitude.

(5) Mass education.

(6) Democracy.

(7) Individualism.

(1) Natural science. Our culture has been the scene of the most thoroughgoing and most successful attempt ever made to interpret the whole order of nature in mechanico-causal terms. In comparison its nearest competitor, the Epicurean atomism, seems the work of childish play. This, the most superb monument of western civilization, is worthy of standing unashamed beside the medieval cathedral, Greek philosophy, Buddhist and Hebraic religion, and Chinese common sense-those other great constructions of other times that have come down to us. The question, it should be clear, is not one of the truth or falsity of such things, but of their magnificence and grandeur. They are, each one, master creations of the imagination, working within set terms, elaborating each according to its lights an all-embracing world view, and capable each in its own way of warming the hearts of men. It is only when one such thing is praised to the exclusion of all others that men lower their patrimony.

The presiding genius of modern natural science is mathematics. Its great aspiration is to find the most general and abstract relationships possible between all natural objects, and to state these relationships in the simplest terms. The ideal consummation would be a single formula of absolute clarity which did full justice to every possible natural situation. Guided by this ambition, a succession of great men have sketched the outlines of a system of conceptions which unites in one glorious whole all terrestrial and all heavenly motions. The whole furniture of heaven and earth is made to tell the same story-a story that is summed up in three almost obviously simple laws of motion and the single principle of universal gravitation. It is not beyond the possibility of doubt that the whole reach and extent of this great scheme shall one day be proved to be false; it is more than likely that the time will eventually come when, disproved or not, it shall be cast aside in favor of some other construction elaborated upon quite different bases: this alone is certain, that nothing the future may hold will diminish its august splendor.

Perhaps the chief influence of natural science upon our lives is to be found in the manner in which it has molded our thinking. We are trained under its influence into the fixed habit of expecting things to have causes, and we tend to remain placid in the face of novelties until these causes have been disclosed. Such confidence in regularity and order, however precariously it may be founded, goes a long way toward making us feel at home in the world. We are led to minimize the possibility of events that run counter to the established uniformities. This attitude has not penetrated very deeply into our culture, it is true, for the ignorant awe of science is felt much farther than its spirit,

but it has permeated the lives of many individuals throughout western civilization.

(2) Mechanical invention. No other culture has ever made so extensive a use of machinery, or has so thoroughly harnessed to its uses the power resources of the globe. We live in the midst of a great industrial civilization, and we are almost inundated by its outflow of manufactured goods. As we look about us, our eye seldom falls upon anything made by hand. A large part of the surface of the earth has been artificialized-we cover one part with macadam, we dig out another, we fill in a third. We keep trees from growing in one place, and try to make them blossom in another. We have machines to make machines, and yet other machines to take care of these, until it has been suggested, only half fancifully, that some day the machines may get the upper hand and make us their slaves.9

In such a culture economic considerations become paramount, and tend to drive all others into the background. It was in the midst of this industrial civilization that Karl Marx framed his famous economic interpretation of history, which states that in all ages the social structure is determined throughout by the prevailing economic methods of production and exchange.10 Such a view is curiously grotesque when applied to all cultures everywhere, but holds more than a shadow of truth when our culture alone is considered. Whether valid or not, the theory is in itself a sufficient indication of the degree to which the machine has entered the mind of man in our own day, for countless others besides Marx have been led to conclude that his interpretation of history was sound.

(3) The national state. Everywhere throughout the western world men live today in aggressive national states. The old Roman Empire was international, for it contained peoples of many affiliations who were united only in the fact that they lived under the pax Romana. The national state aims to include within its boundaries all individuals of one blood, or all who are thought to be of one blood, and at the same time it aims to secure the utmost possible extension of its national territories. The feeling of nationality is really a very recent phenomenon. In many parts of Europe it was a by-product of the French Revolution, and in yet others it did not appear until much later. In central Macedonia as late as 1878, for example, the peoples can hardly be said to have belonged to any nationality. Thirty years later the region was a little hell-hole of conflicting and bickering peoples full of militant and sundering patriotisms, thanks to the propaganda of Serbs, Bulgars, Greeks, Albanians, Rumanians, Turks, Austrians, Russians, who endeavored to attach the Mace