Page:Challenge of Facts and Other Essays.djvu/440

Rh behind and sloughed off all old things. We have not. We carry with us survivals of all the old things. Sometimes those survivals appear to be dogs upon us; sometimes they seem to be stepping-stones by which we rise higher.

But now observe what a grand chance of error is offered to any one who goes out to look around upon our civilized society of to-day and to say how it pleases him. Of course he sees the most grotesque contrasts side by side. If we begin to boast of some of our triumphs, we do not finish the boast before some one of these contrasts bursts into view like the face of a grinning demon rising to deride us. If our social observer has imbibed the humanitarian sentiments which are afloat in our most refined society and if he looks at the horrors, cruelties, and sufferings which underlie our society, he cries out in dismay. He does not know that he is looking at a feeble reflection of the only scene which this earth presented to the sun for thousands of years. He does not see that the wonder is that we have gained a certain peace and security for a part of the human race, not that there yet remain at the bottom of society vast realms of misery and strife.

Of course the sentimental observer, terrified at the disease, is in haste for a remedy. The first step is to make a diagnosis, which is done by fastening the blame on some things or some persons. Let me repeat that the real marvel is that civilization has triumphed so far that, in three or four great civilized nations, a few million people can so far control the condition of existence that they can live their lives out in peace and security. One of the commonest and most baseless popular notions is that all men could be or ought to be to-day on that same status and that there is blame to be dispensed if they