Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/759

 SOCIAL DIFFERENTIA TION AND INTEGRA TION 739

The following are the geological periods, expressed in years in the first column and in hours, minutes, and seconds of the crea- tion day in the next three columns. The dial based on these figures follows :

Geologic Periods

Years

Hours

Minutes

Seconds

Archean

18,000,000

6

Algonkian

18,000,000

6

Cambrian

6 ooo ooo

2

Silurian

6,000,000

2

Devonian

6 000,000

2

Carboniferous

6 ooo ooo

2

Triassic

3,000,000

I

Jurassic

3,000,000

I

Cretaceous

3 ooo ooo

I

Tertiary

2 675 OOO

CO

Quaternary

300 ooo

6

Historic period

25 ooo

Total age of the earth

72 ooo ooo

24

Age of written language

6 ooo

7i-

/?

But what is the bearing of all this upon the problem of race integration? Let us see. The period of differentiation could scarcely have been less than 150,000 years. That of integration is probably less than 50,000 years. In other words, social integration has only just begun. It must increase in rapidity with the increase of population. This rate will slowly diminish with density and increasing intelligence, but ultimately the whole world must become filled with men. Races will mingle more and more, and the more they mingle the more they will fuse. Slow as this process now seems to be, it is rapid com- pared with former periods, and it will become still more rapid.

But someone may say that it will require a long time to bring about the final racial unity of all mankind. True, but the ques- tion how long? is not the one under discussion. Time is rela- tive. A million years is a short time compared with the age of the earth. Yet we can scarcely conceive of a million years five hundred Christian eras ! But the world is not going- to come to an end in that time. Man is here. What is there to prevent his remaining here? This question gives rise to a train of others.

In the first place we are told that science points to the decline