Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/347

Rh carries with it a sense of inferiority and insufficiency; the faculties are stinted, lacking completeness, whereas volume is added to every individual faculty by union.

But association, simply, is not enough; nothing materially great can be accomplished without union and coöperation. It is only when aggregations of families intermingle with other aggregations, each contributing its quota of original knowledge to the other; when the individual gives up some portion of his individual will and property for the better protection of other rights and property; when he intrusts society with the vindication of his rights; when he depends upon the banded arm of the nation, and not alone upon his own arm for redress of grievances, that progress is truly made. And with union and cooperation comes the division of labor by which means each, in some special department, is enabled to excel. By fixing the mind wholly upon one thing, by constant repetition and practice, the father hands down his art to the son, who likewise improves it for his descendants. It is only by doing a new thing, or by doing an old thing better than it has ever been done before, that progress is made. Under the régime of universal mediocrity the nation does not advance; it is to the great men, great in things great or small, that progress is due; it is to the few who think, to the few who dare to face the infinite universe of things, and step, if need be, outside an old-time boundary, that the world owes most.

Originally implanted is the germ of intelligence, at the first but little more than brute instinct. This germ in unfolding undergoes a double process: it throws off its own intuitions, and receives in return those of another. By an interchange of ideas, the experiences of one are made known for the benefit of another, the inventions of one are added to the inventions of another; without intercommunication of ideas the intellect must lie dormant. Thus it is with individuals, and with societies it is the same. Acquisitions are eminently reciprocal. In society, wealth, art, literature, polity, and religion, act and react on each other; in science, a fusion of antagonistic hypotheses is sure to result in important developments. Before much progress can be made, there must be established a commerce between nations for the interchange of aggregated human experiences, so that the arts and industries acquired by each may become the property of all the rest, and thus knowledge become scattered by exchange, in place of each having to work out every problem for himself. Thus viewed, civilization is a partnership entered into for mutual improvement; a joint-stock operation, in which the product of every brain contributes to a general fund for the benefit of all. No one can add to his own store of knowledge without adding to the general store; every invention and discovery, however insignificant, is a contribution to civilization.

In savagism, union and coöperation are imperfectly displayed. The warriors of one tribe unite against the warriors of another; a