Part 24 (1/2)
351. =The Increasing Recognition of the Principle of Adaptation.=--This principle of adaptation has found limited application for a long time. Starting with individuals in the family and family groups in the clan, it extended until it included all the members of a state in their relations to each other. Many individual interests conflict in business and society and different opinions clash, but all points of difference within the nation are settled by due process of law, except when elemental pa.s.sions break out in a lynching, or a family feud is perpetuated among the hills. But war continued to be the mode of settling international difficulties.
Military force restrained a va.s.sal from hostile acts under the Roman peace. But the next necessary step was for states voluntarily to adjust their relations with one another. In some instances, even in ancient times, local differences were buried, and small federations, like the Achaean League of the Greeks and the Lombard League of the Middle Ages, were formed for common defense. These have been followed by greater alliances in modern times. But the striking instances of real interstate progress are found in the federation of such States as those that are included within the present United States of America, and within the new German Empire that was formed after the Franco-Prussian War. Sinking their differences and recognizing one another's rights and interests, the people of such united nations have become accustomed to a large national solidarity, and it ought not to require much instruction or persuasion to show them that what they have accomplished already for themselves is the correct principle for their guidance in world affairs.
352. =International Law and Peace.=--This principle of recognizing one another's rights and interests is the foundation of international law, which has been modified from time to time, but which from the publication of Hugo Grotius's _Law of War and Peace_ in the seventeenth century slowly has bound more closely together the civilized nations. There has come into existence a body of law for the conduct of nations that is less complete, but commands as great respect as the civil law of a single state. This law may be violated by a nation in the stress of conflict, as civil law may be derided by an individual lawbreaker or by an excited mob, but eventually it rea.s.serts itself and slowly extends its scope and power. Without international legislative organization, without a tribunal or a military force to carry out its provisions, by sheer force of international opinion and a growing regard for social justice it demands attention from the proudest nations. Text-books have been written and university chairs founded to present its claims, international a.s.sociations and conventions have met to define more accurately its code, and tentative steps have been taken to strengthen its position by two Hague Conferences that met in 1899 and 1907. Large contributions of money have been made to stimulate the cause of peace, and as many as two hundred and fifty peace societies have been organized.
353. =Arbitration and an International Court.=--Experiments have been tried at settling international disputes without resort to war. Great Britain and the United States have led the way in showing to the world during the last one hundred years that all kinds of vexatious differences can be settled peacefully by submitting them to arbitration. These successes have led the United States to propose general treaties of arbitration to other nations, and advance has been made in that direction. It was possible to establish at The Hague a permanent court of arbitration, and to refer to it really important cases. Such a calamity as the European war, of course, interrupts the progress of all such peaceful methods, but makes all the plainer the dire need of a better machinery for settling international differences. There is reasonable expectation that before many years there may be established a permanent international court of justice, an international parliament, and a sufficient international police force to restrain any one nation from breaking the peace. Only in this way can the dread of war be allayed and disarmament be undertaken; even then the success of such an experiment in government will depend on an increase of international understanding, respect, and consideration.
354. =Intercommunication and Its Rewards.=--The gain in social solidarity that has been achieved already is due first of all to improved communication between nations. In the days of slow sailing vessels it took several weeks to cross the Atlantic, and there was no quicker way to convey news. The news that peace had been arranged at Ghent in 1814 between Great Britain and the United States did not reach the armies on this side in time to prevent the battle of New Orleans. Even the results of the battle of Waterloo were not known in England for several days after Napoleon's overthrow. Now ocean leviathans keep pace with the storms that move across the waters, and the cable and the wireless flash their messages with the speed of the lightning. Power to put a girdle around the earth in a few minutes has made modern news agencies possible, and they have made the modern newspaper essential. The newspaper requires the railroad and the steams.h.i.+p for its distribution, and business men depend upon them all to carry out their plans. These physical agencies have made possible a commerce that is world-wide. There are ports that receive s.h.i.+ps from every nation east and west. Great freight terminal yards hold cars that belong to all the great transportation lines of the country.
Lombard Street and Wall Street feel the pulse of the world's trade as it beats through the channels of finance.
Improved communication has made possible the unification of a great political system like the British Empire. In the Parliament House and government offices of Westminster centre the political interests of Canada, Australia, South Africa, Egypt, and India, as well as of islands in every sea. Better communication has brought into closer relations the Pan-American states, so that they have met more than once for their mutual benefit.
Helpful social results have come from the travel that has grown enormously in volume since ease and cheapness of transportation have increased. The impulse to travel for pleasure keeps persons of wealth on the move, and the desire for knowledge sends the intellectually minded professional man or woman of small means globe-trotting. In this way the people of different nations learn from one another; they become able to converse in different languages and to get one another's point of view; they gain new wants while they lose some of their professional interests; they return home poorer in pocket but richer in experience, more interested in others, more tolerant. These are social values, certain to make their influence felt in days to come, and by no means unappreciable already.
355. =International Inst.i.tutions.=--These values are conserved by international inst.i.tutions. Societies are formed by like-minded persons for better acquaintance and for the advancement of knowledge.
The sciences are cherished internationally, interparliamentary unions and other agencies for the preservation of peace hold their conferences, working men meet to air their grievances or plan programmes, religious denominations consult for pus.h.i.+ng their campaigns. The organizations that grow out of these relations and conferences develop into inst.i.tutions that have standing. The international a.s.sociations of scholars are as much a part of the world's inst.i.tutional a.s.sets as the educational system is a recognized a.s.set of any country. They are clearing-houses of information, as necessary as an international clearing-house of finance. The World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the International Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation are moral agencies that bring together those who have at heart the same interests, and when they have once made good they must be reckoned among the established organizations that help to move the world forward. Not least among such inst.i.tutions are the religious organizations. The closely knit Roman Catholic Church, that has held together millions of faithful adherents in many lands for centuries, and whose canon law receives an unquestioning obedience as the law of a nation, is an ill.u.s.tration of what an international religious inst.i.tution may be. Protestant Churches, naturally more independent, have moved more slowly, but their world alliances and federations are increasing to the point where they, too, are likely to become true inst.i.tutions.
356. =Missions as a Social Inst.i.tution.=--Those inst.i.tutions and movements are most useful that aim definitely to stimulate the highest interests of all mankind. It is comparatively simple to provide local stimulus for a better community life, but to help move the world on to higher levels requires clear vision, patient hope, and a definite plan on a large scale. Christian missionaries are conspicuous for their lofty ideals, their personal devotion to an unselfish task, their persistent optimism, and their unswerving adherence to the programme marked out by the pioneers of the movement. It is no argument against them that they have not accomplished all that a few enthusiasts expected of them in a few years. To socialize and Christianize half the people of the world is the task of centuries. With broad statesmans.h.i.+p missionary leaders have undertaken to do both of these.
Mistakes in method or detail of operation do not invalidate the whole enterprise, and all criticism must keep in mind the n.o.ble purpose to lift to a higher level the social, moral, and religious ideas and practices of the most backward peoples. The purpose is certainly no less laudable than that of a Chinese mission to England to persuade Great Britain to end the opium traffic, or a diplomatic mission from the United States to stop civil strife in Mexico.
357. =Education as a Means to Internationalism.=--Internationalism rests on the broad basis of the social nature of mankind, a nature that cannot be unsocialized, but can be developed to a higher and more purposeful socialization. As there are degrees of perfection in the excellence of social relations, so there are degrees of obligation resting upon the nations of the world to give of their best to a general levelling up. The dependable means of international socialization is education, whether it comes through the press, the pulpit, or the school. Every commission that visits one country from another to learn of its industries, its inst.i.tutions, and its ideals, is a means to that important end. Every exchange professor between European and American universities helps to interpret one country to the other. Every Chinese, Mexican, or Filipino youth who attends an American school is borrowing stimulus for his own people. Every visitor who does not waste or abuse his opportunities is a unit in the process of improving the acquaintance of East and West, of North and South. Internationalism is not a social Utopia to be invented in a day; it is rather an att.i.tude of mind and a mode of living that come gradually but with gathering momentum as mutual understanding and sympathy increase.
READING REFERENCES
STRONG: _Our World_, pages 3-202.
FOSTER: _Arbitration and the Hague Court._
FAUNCE: _Social Aspects of Foreign Missions._
MAURENBRECKER: ”The Moral and Social Tasks of World Politics,”
art. in _American Journal of Sociology_, 6: 307-315.
TRUEBLOOD: _Federation of the World_, pages 7-20, 91-149.
PART VI--SOCIAL a.n.a.lYSIS
CHAPTER XLV
PHYSICAL AND PERSONAL FACTORS IN THE LIFE OF SOCIETY
358. =Constant Factors in Social Phenomena.=--Our study of social life has made it plain that it is a complex affair, but it has been possible to cla.s.sify society in certain groups, to follow the gradual extension of relations from small groups to large, and to take note of the numerous activities and interests that enter into contemporary group life. It is now desirable to search for certain common elements that in all periods enter into the life of every group, whether temporary or permanent, so that we may discover the constant factors and the general principles that belong to the science of society. Some of these have been referred to already among the characteristics of social life, but in this connection it is useful to cla.s.sify them for closer examination.
First among these is the physical factor which conditions human activity but is not a compelling force, for man has often subdued his environment when it has put obstacles in his way. This physical element includes the geographical conditions of mountain, valley, or seash.o.r.e, the climate and the weather, the food and water supply, the physical inheritance of the individual and the laws that control physical development, and the physical const.i.tution of the group. A second factor is the psychic nature of human beings and the psychical interaction that goes on between individuals within the group and that produces reactions between groups.
359. =The Natural Environment.=--The early sociologists put the emphasis on the physical more than the psychic factors, and especially on biological a.n.a.logies in society. It seemed to them as if it was nature that brought men together. Mountains and ice-bound regions were inhospitable, impa.s.sable rivers and trackless forests limited the range of animals and men, violent storms and temperature changes made men afraid. Avoiding these dangers and seeking a food-supply where it was most plentiful, human beings met in the favored localities and learned by experience the principles of a.s.sociation. Everywhere man is still in contact with physical forces.