Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/102

98

exploitation and superstition—the chief obstacles to progress—are rooted in general ignorance and may be removed by the diffusion of knowledge. Universal education is, therefore, the one means government may employ to hasten the advancement of mankind.

His "Psychic Factors of Civilization" published in 1893 laid a deeper foundation for his program of willed social progress by setting forth the role of mind in organic evolution. His daring comparison of "the economy of Nature and the economy of Mind" would, at any time between the sixth century and the seventeenth, have been generally regarded as impious and inspired by the devil. Twenty years ago biological adaptation was still regarded as something to pattern after. Ward showed, however, that improvement by natural selection is frightfully wasteful. Nature's way of getting results is costly and should not be imitated by man. As soon as mind comes into the world a better method of adaptation is discovered. It is, therefore, in order for intelligence to search for shortcuts to happiness. Beyond democracy Ward sees a form