Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/240

226 induction of science, be it in physics or astronomy, are not new. They are to be found in every volume of history, whether ancient or modern, narrative or analytical, and when once pointed out thrust themselves into consciousness with resistless force, Not otherwise could it be. The historian that sought to transfer to his pages the phenomena of social and political life in any country or age could no more fail to contribute the data that enabled Mr. Spencer to frame his induction than the physicist and astronomer that contributed to Newton's great achievement. When he described a war, he had to describe the butchery, plunder, devastation, and degradation it entailed; he had to note the enlargement of the power of the monarch or oligarchy that carried it on with the most success. When he described the return of peace, he had to describe the revival of industry and prosperity; he had to note the impatience of the people under the restraints that the necessities of conflict always impose, the refinement of their feelings, manners, and tastes, the growth of their intelligence in depth and breadth. But only a mind unusually skilled in the art of interpretation could grasp the significance of these varied phenomena, and bind them with the indissoluble bond of an immutable law of social life.

Now that Mr. Spencer has done this memorable service for science, it is possible for minds of less power and originality to scan the pages of history, and to observe for themselves the play of the forces that make for barbarism. As they follow the path that he has blazed, they will see that nothing could be more obvious than the relation of cause and effect between the ravages of war and social degeneration. The very word war, which General Sherman once defined as hell itself, conjures up a picture of economic, social, and moral devastation that does not require the aid of poets or orators to heighten. The avowed object of this form of human activity is destruction pure and simple—destruction of property and destruction of life. The obvious corollary is the destruction of everything in the social fabric that conserves either life or property—freedom, honesty, virtue. Most vividly does Motley, who had no social theory to defend, bring out the truth in his story of one of the fearful raids of Alva in the Netherlands. "The page which records that victorious campaign" he says, speaking of the attack on Groningen at the opening of the struggle with Spain, "is foul with outrage and red with blood. Not one of the horrors which accompany the passage of hostile troops through a defenseless country was omitted. Maids and matrons were ravished in multitudes; old men butchered in cold blood. As Alva returned with the rear guard of his army, the whole sky was red with a constant conflagration; the very earth seemed changed to ashes. Every peasant's hovel, every