Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/573

Rh trader of old, who fetched and carried between Babylon and Tyre? Such questions as these are not easy to answer, and very few persons will be willing to meet them with affirmations, in any positive and unqualified way.

We are brought, then, face to face with the fact that there are certain directions in which the process of civilization appears to be much more certainly a process of moral development, as evinced in human conduct and character, than it does in others; certain particulars of conduct, that is, in which the fact of moral progress is undeniable, and certain others in which, at least, it is open to doubt. Now, this is assuredly a fact of great significance. For the inference is plain that, if the progress of the race in intellectual culture and in social organization is attended with a certain moral development in some particulars of conduct more distinctly than in others, there must be reasons for this difference, and most likely they will be found in some bearing which the one process of culture has upon the other. It is to pursue this suggestion a little that I have taken the subject up.

The moment we pause to reflect upon the difference in question, one fact concerning it arrests attention. It is this: that the particulars of conduct in which the moral advancement of the human race is most obvious and indisputable are exactly and entirely those which we have seen to be incident to the direct relations of human fellowship, and that the qualities developed are entirely those which appertain to that relationship, having their root in benevolence and justice alone. On the one hand, charities, friendships, institutions of kindly helpfulness, and all generous, gentle amenities of social intercourse; on the other hand, charters, ordinances, constitutions—defined equities and broad determinations of personal rights: these are plainly the greater moral fruits of civilization which show signs of approach to ripening, as yet, and they all lie within the domain of those direct relationships which exist between man and man as human fellows, and which connect themselves with nothing else.

This fact leads us quickly to the recognition of a second one, which becomes just as plain on examination—namely, that the particulars of conduct in which the moral advancement of mankind appears most questionable are exactly and entirely those which we have seen to be incident to the indirect relations of human fellowship; to the relations, that is, which involve some intermediate thing, through which the line of relationship to our fellow is drawn. These take in, as has been said, all the relationships in which "property" is concerned, embracing the whole organization of trade and of labor under hire: and they also take in a great part of the political relationships that arise out of the institutions of government. Now, it is undeniably in these spheres of conduct that the moral effects of civilization present the most discouraging appearance. Are men as honest in work and trade as they were in more primitive times? Is there not more