PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION.

CIVILIZATION is a study. Is it under law, or is it the accidental result of forces that, turned in another way, would precipitate nations into barbarism? Is it the product of influences operating in a miscellaneous and hap-hazard manner, or are they under the control of a power ever working for the great end, and accomplishing it among a people susceptible of improvement and alive to possibilities? Great national movements that suddenly change the conditions of races or nations-are they those of divine ordaining, or are they to be credited to human ingenuity and the benevolent designs of mankind? In all resultant facts of the world's activity we must recognize God and man as co-operating agencies; but this recognition is not a solution of the problem: it is little more than a statement of it. In what proportion these agencies co-operate, or to what extent they are manifest, or by what laws they are governed, are the profounder aspects of the historical movement. We observe the movement; but what underlying principle is governing it, or who initiated it, and how long it will continue are not readily stated. We note the great results and the differences of one age from another; but it is not easy to establish that a particular principle produced one age and a very different principle produced another, and yet hold that one principle, operating throughout all ages, produced the successive forms and manifestations known to us through written history. If we attribute civilization to the intellectual spirit, we must account for the decadence of intellectual nations; if we say the scientific law of the survival of the fittest explains the progress of the world, we must account for degraded nations which, in spite of the law, have held on to time without relaxing their grip; if we say the art-loving impulse is at the bottom of all national glory then the decay of Mexico with its architecture and of Greece with its sculpture makes a troublesome problem for the theorist; if other theorists insist that the religious principle is the explanation of nations, civilizations, and all history, with its varied content of change of order and disorder, and withal of progress, we are tempted to acquiesce; but just how religion in its monotheistic, polytheistic, and Messianic aspects has operated upon inert nations, touched and quickened some into life and overturned and extinguished others, is an enchanting study, full of reward for those who will prosecute it in the spirit of a philosopher and with the devoutness of a theologian. Explained or unexplainable, civilization is the product of law, of the invisible law of the Almighty, and of the progressive spirit of mankind. and is as inevitable as the recurrence of the seasons or the revolution of the planets. It is the goal of human history; and, though centuries of time may be required, and chaotic conditions may alternate with orderly processes, the end of all active or latent forces will be the civilization of the world. In regular order barbarism, slavery, oppression, ignorance, and calamity will disappear, leaving the earth a fruitful field and man in harmony with righteousness, and the enjoyer of liberty. Herbert Spencer,

believing in the outcome, declares it will be the result of the natural evanescence of evil; but evil does not naturally evanesce. God and man

are united against it, and together will celebrate its extinction.

The archæologist is the unique servant of history. He is eclipsing the geologist, the chemist, and the naturalist, who, whenever they have spoken to the earth, have been answered by facts, laws, and systems that, constructed into sciences, have entered into the world's knowledge and guided it in further aspiration and achievement. Archæology, no less scientific in method, is more vitally related to history, and is searching the underground records of cities and nations for confirmation and elaboration of the scanty literature that survived their wreck and burial. Greece is a prolific field for the antiquarian, rewarding him with historic treasures wherever he chooses to excavate, whether in plain or mountain, in the interior or by the sea-shore. At this time Delphi, the site of Apollo's temple, is the objective point of the student, and preparations are making for a most thorough examination of the remains of the ancient city known to be buried beneath the village of Kastri. The discoveries at this point will revive an interest in classical literature and illuminate the religious customs of the most intelligent and aesthetical people of the antichristian world. Egypt is equally an interesting country for the historian and the archeologist. Herodotus, Pliny, and Strabo speak of a canal dug by the Israelites, and mention in particular that it was useful in conducting the surplus waters of the Nile to a lake over four hundred miles in circumference, and producing meteorological changes that contributed to the welfare of the country. Surviving for four thousand years, the canal has been doing its friendly offices for Egypt, the people, meanwhile, not knowing who built it, except that a tradition attributed it to Joseph, the prime minister of Pharaoh, and making no effort to ascertain its history. Within eight years it has been surveyed, the lake examined, the country studied, and the conclusion is that it was built by Joseph, and is a monument of his sagacity and statesmanship. In a visit to that country a few years ago we saw what, according to tradition, was a wall of one of the warehouses of Joseph, built for the storage of corn against the years of famine. Thus, little by little, some Old Testament history has confirmation in the discoveries of the nineteenth century. Nor is the New World, particularly Mexico and the Central American States, barren of evidences of an ancient civilization that, when profoundly studied, may certify to its kindredship with some of the early Asiatic or Egyptian institutions and governments. American scholars, eager enough to go to Babylon or Athens, are too negligent of countries quite as rich in archæological promises as the classical fields of antiquity, and situated within easy reach by railroad or steamer. Recently Guatemala and Mexico have responded to the archæologist with a disclosure of old paved roads, ruined cities, pyramidal houses, sculptured figures, bronze lamps, and an architecture that points to a scientific civilization. Much of what was found was suggestive of Egyptian styles and customs. Let the archa

ologist continue; he will prove history where it needs proof, and make history where it has been unwritten; and in the end he will solve the enigma of historians: the relation of the one hemisphere to the other.

The world has underestimated China because it has been persistent in underestimating itself. With a vast population of nearly four hundred millions; with natural resources equal to those of any country in Asia; with a long sea-coast prophetic of commercial possibilities; with a climate as favorable to longevity and enterprise as that of any other country on the globe, and quite as well situated, geographically, as the United States, China might soon bound into greatness, and rank with the superior nations. If it would, it might be the controlling power of the continent. The reasons for delay are not external but internal. The ancestral spirit, which has ever turned the thought of the people backward; the belief that the Flowery Kingdom was established by the gods and that it would exist forever; and the self-satisfaction that was perpetuated from generation to generation, operated against all change, checked all ambition, and lethargized both the government and people. At last, however, a new idea has broken through the crust of centuries and entered into the living thought of the kingdom. The gods, Confucius, the Chinese wall, and the conservatism of the fathers are losing their hold upon the younger race now in power, and, indeed, upon the people at large. China is learning of Occidental greatness, and is imbibing the secret of national development. The school is the center of the new movement; universities in which Occidental sciences are taught have been established; and the native scholar is demanding conformity to modern systems and modern ideas of life. The military spirit, which has quickened all nations, has seized the rulers, and they have resolved upon and are supporting a military establishment of a million men, and are providing a large and efficient navy. Internal improvements, including railroads, telegraphs, canals, and all the appliances of civilized countries, are in process of adoption, giving idle hands something to do, and invigorating the people with the progressive spirit of the present century. Christianity, too, is playing its part in the transformation, quietly but systematically undermining faith in the institutions of idolatry, lodging the thought of the Messianic religion in the public mind, and introducing agencies for evangelization that, under divine providence, will not be allowed to fail. Religious persecution, still a probability in that land, and legal opposition to the presence of the American in retaliation for American restriction upon Chinese immigration to our shores, may stay for a time the progress of Christian civilization; but in spite of obstacles the upheaval will go on until the overthrow of paganism will be accomplished. Whether rejuvenated by scholarship, quickened into fraternal relations with the world by the military contagion, or fashioned into a Christian civilization by the all-powerful forces of the true religion, China is to be congratulated on these initial steps, and should be assisted out of its great darkness into the light that shines from the eternal throne.

The inventive faculty of man was never in more lively exercise than it is at the present time. This is a day of ideas, and the old or unsuitable apparatus of a former period must give way to something new; something simpler in construction, and wider in the range of its utility. We may admire the skill that constructed an Assyrian war-chariot or batteringram, the pharmaceutical knowledge that in Egypt devised successful embalmment of the dead, the art of the Phenician in extracting dye from a fish's mouth, and the chemical ingenuity of the Rome of the Caesars that provided imperishable colors for palace and capital; but none of these things will compare for utility with the Gatling gun, the mower, the reaper, the sewing-machine, the thread-cutting machine, the submarine telegraph, the steamship, the locomotive, the telephone, the phonograph, the printing-press, and the photographic camera of the nineteenth century. In minor inventions, such as the making of pressed glass, and paper from wood-pulp, and wood-carving, steel-engraving, electric light, lucifer matches, and perfumes, the list is exhaustless, showing the superiority of the moderns over the ancients, and that the chief end of these is to reduce labor to a minimum, and afford mankind time for intellectual and religious development. The latest invention in printing is the autostereotypic process, by which books and papers may be reprinted from stereotype plates obtained from the original, a process now in use in Switzerland, and which, adopted every-where, will again revolutionize the printer's art. The majority of inventors are men, but it is worth noting that since 1790 at least twenty-five hundred women have obtained patents from Washington for their artistic inventions, many of them being useful, and displaying a scientific ability that is suggestive of further successes in the domain of matter. To be sure, every inventor is not of the first rank, as every discoverer or scientist is not a giant or a revealer of great secrets. One astronomer will discover an asteroid, another a planet. One inventor will proclaim something new in mowing or horse-shoeing; another will give the world an ocean cable or a phonograph; but, with these divergencies in value, inventions are in progress and serving a purpose that the race appreciates. The outcome is the subordination of matter to the influence of mind and the service of humanity. In the olden time the inventive spirit was largely engaged in the science of idolatry or oppression, images and instruments of torture being the chief products; hence an inventor was limited in his operations and rendered little of permanent value to the race. That inventions were once denounced in the biblical period is proof that they rather corrupted than elevated the people, and turned their thoughts away from benevolence and religion. In these times the inventor ranks with the discoverer and the benefactor, obtaining recognition from his government and from all peoples, provided he has added to man's capabilities for improvement, relieved him of exacting labors, and furnished him a new agent for his prosperity and happiness. 9-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. VI.

SPIRIT OF THE REVIEWS AND MAGAZINES.

WHEN one finds a telling paper on the suppression of intemperance, in a review or magazine devoted to ethical and religious discussions, it causes no surprise, because that question has rooted itself in the Christian conscience, and naturally finds a place in such periodicals. But when one stumbles on such a paper in a review which is characteristically literary, he accepts it as evidence that the intellect of the times is beginning to perceive the need of doing something to reform the drinking habits of the people. Hence the temperance reformer will be pleased to find a paper of uncommon pith and merit in the Contemporary Review for October, entitled, "The Ethics of the Drink Habit," written by a man who says of himself, "I have come through the valley of the shadow into which I ventured with a light heart, and those who know me might point and say what was said of a giant, ‘There is the man who has been in hell.' Through the dim and sordid Inferno I moved as in a trance for awhile, and that is what makes me so discontented with the peculiar ethics of society which bows down before the concocter of drinks and spurns the lost one whom drink seizes." This writer paints a thrilling picture of "the drink habit," which reminds one of De Quincey's Confessions of an Opium Eater, in that, though lacking that writer's graces of style, it yet brings out, with thrilling distinctness, the effects of the kindred vice of drunkenness, as experienced by one of its victims. It also treats, with burning irony, of the social and political honors often conferred on rich distillers and brewers, and of those legislators who gloat over the millions paid into the public exchequer for licensing this "state-protected vice." Singularly enough, this writer underrates the potency of law to fight this vice out of existence, thinking it may be uprooted by individual effort to keep the many from falling into it, and to pluck out of the horrible pit those already fallen. He would have shown higher wisdom had he insisted on both prohibitory law and personal effort. In another paper, on our “State Legislatures," the Contemporary strongly defends the right of prohibition by constitutional amendments, because (1) the sale of liquors involves public and social interests; (2) it is a question which commends itself to the comprehension and convictions of ordinary citizens; (3) it is of sufficient importance to be determined by the direct authority of the people; and (4) it is a matter which the welfare of society requires should be made more stable than ordinary statutes. Thus, in these two papers, the Contemporary indicates at least the birth of sound opinion in the British literary world on the temperance question, which is, perhaps, the vital question of the hour. The drift of thought on this question among American thinkers is forcibly set forth in Our Day for October, which contains Joseph Cook's views on "The Sunday and the Saloon as Rivals." Its key-note is in this pregnant sentence, "The citadel of lawlessness in the American Republic is the Sunday saloon." He proves the saloon to be, in most of our States and