WHITHER MANKIND A PANORAMA OF MODERN CIVILIZATION EDITED BY CHARLES A. BEARD CO-AUTHOR OF "THE RISE OF AMERICAN CIVILIZATION” LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. NEW YORK • LONDON • TORONTO 1928 PREFACE ^ S volume is a challenge, not a summary of fragile I dubiosities. No mystery hangs over it. Underlying it is the assumption that science and the machine are two invincible facts with which all must reckon who write, teach, preach, lead, or practice the arts in our time. Those who refuse to face them are condemned in advance to sterility and defeat. While recognizing the evils brought by these modern engines—evils which weigh heavily in the minds of the authors—the volume as a whole rejects the pessimistic views of writers like Chesterton, Belloc, and Spengler. For visions of despair, it substitutes a more cheerful outlook upon the future of modern civilization, without at the same time resorting to the optimism of the real-estate agent. A simple method has controlled the preparation of the volume. With the aid of friendly advice from many quarters, authorities of outstanding competence, possessing also the ability to present their ideas with clearness and vigor, were chosen to deal with the several phases of modern civilization. No limitations, save those of space, were laid upon them. Each writer was given a free hand. None of them was asked to assume any responsibility for the opinions of the others. The editor has not altered their copy, smoothed out contradictions, or taken on the duty of defending everything that appears in these pages. If the principle of liberty had not commanded this, the distinction of the co-operating authors would have made it imperative. The editor’s debt to Mr. Frank Ernest Hill, of Longmans, Green and Co. for editorial assistance passes all calculation. Charles A. Beard New Milford, Conn, August, 1928 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Introduction: Charles A. Beard.i I. The Civilizations of the East and the West: Hu Shih.25 II. Ancient and Medieval Civilizations: Hendrik Willem van Loon.42 III. Science: Bertrand Russell.63 IV. Business: Julius Klein.83 V. Labor: Sidney and Beatrice Webb.no VI. Law and Government: Howard Lee McBain .142 VII. War and Peace: Emil Ludwig.161 VIII. Health: C.-E. A. Winslow.187 IX. The Family: Havelock Ellis.208 X. Race and Civilization: George A. Dorsey . 229 XI. Religion: James Harvey Robinson.264 XII. The Arts: Lewis Mum ford.287 XIII. Philosophy: John Dewey .313 XIV. Play: Stuart Chase.3 3* XV. Education: Everett Dean Martin.354 XVI. Literature: Carl Wan Doren.387 Epilogue: Charles A. Beard.4°3 Vll INTRODUCTION By Charles A. Beard i ALL over the world, the thinkers and searchers who scan the horizon of the future are attempting to assess the values of civilization and speculating about its destiny. Europe, having just passed through a devastating war and already debating the hour for the next explosion, wonders whether the game is worth the candle or can be played to the bitter extreme without inviting disaster so colossal as to put an end to civilization itself. In America, where Europeans have renewed their youth, conquered a wilderness, and won wealth and leisure in the sweat of their brows, the cry ascends on all sides: "Where do we go from here?” Vivere deinde philosophari—the stomach being full, what shall we do next? Far away in Japan, the younger genera¬ tion, still able to see with their own eyes vestiges of a feudal order abandoned by their elders, are earnestly inquiring whether they must turn back upon their path or lunge forward with renewed energy into the age of steel and electricity. So for one reason or another, the intellectuals of all nations are trying to peer into the coming day, to discover whether the curve of contemporary civ¬ ilization now rises majestically toward a distant zenith or in reality has already begun to sink rapidly toward a nadir near at hand. On casual thought, names of anxious inquirers from every land come to mind: Ku Hung Ming and Hu Shih in China; Gandhi and Tagore in India; Yusuke Tsurumi and the late Arishima in Japan; Ferrero and Croce in Italy; Spengler and Kayserling in Germany; Fabre-Luce, Demangeon, and Georges Batault in France; Wells, I 2 WHITHER MANKIND Chesterton, Belloc, Shaw, and Dean Inge in England; Unamuno in Spain; Trotzky in Russia; Ugarte in Argentina. The very ti¬ tles of the books having a challenging ring: "The Decline of the West,” "Mankind at the Crossroads,” "The Rising Tide of Color,” "The Revolt of the Unfit,” "The Tragic Sense of Life,” "The Decline of Europe,” "War the Law of Life,” and "The Destiny of a Continent.” It is not alone the philosophers who display anxiety about the future. The policies of statesmen and the quest of the people in circles high and low for moral values reveal a concern about des¬ tiny that works as a dynamic force in the affairs of great nations. In Italy, the Fascisti repudiate both democracy and socialism, bring about the most effective organization of capital and labor yet accomplished in any country, and prepare the way for the co¬ operation of these two forces or for a class war all the more ter¬ rible on account of the social equipment of the contending parties. In Russia, the Bolsheviki join the Italians in rejecting democracy but attempt to create a communist state which, if a success, would be a standing menace to all the governments of the world founded on different principles. Germany writhes and turns, torn by an inner Zerrissenheit, with Nationalists cursing international capital¬ ism and longing for buried things, with Socialists and Communists still active if shorn of their former confidence, and with the mass of the people once more absorbed in the routine of the struggle for existence, yet dimly aware that the Faustian age may not be closed after all. In an hour of victory, France reckons the ter¬ rible cost and stirs restlessly, wondering about the significance of the ominous calm. Likewise triumphant, England sits as of yore enthroned amid her Empire, with all her old goods intact and val¬ uable additions made; but the self-governing dominions assert an unwonted independence; top-heavy capitalism, having devoured domestic agriculture, feverishly searches for new markets among the half-civilized and backward races of the earth, hoping to keep its machinery turning and its profits flowing, while American and German competition in the same enterprise presses harder and harder upon the merchants of London, Manchester, and Liverpool. INTRODUCTION 3 Apparently secure between two seas, and enriched by the for¬ tunes of the European war, America reaches out ever more vig¬ orously, huckstering and lending money, evidently hoping with childlike faith that sweet things will ever grow sweeter; but critics, foreign and domestic, disturb the peace of the new Levia¬ than. Einstein frankly sneers at American intelligence; Siegfried finds here sounding brass, tinkling cymbals, noise, and materialism. If many are inclined to discount the aspersions of the alien, they are immediately confronted by a host of domestic scoffers. The appearance and success of the American Mercury, the weekly, nay, almost daily, blasts of H. L. Mencken, so deeply stir the Rotarians and Kiwanians that one of the richest chemical companies buys space in his magazine to make fun of the editor. In a milder vein, but perhaps still more ruinous to the counsels of perfection, the Saturday Review of Literature, edited by H. S. Canby, steadily undermines naive valuations of every sort, bringing artistic judg¬ ments ever nearer to the test of realism. And still more ruth¬ less in dealing with moss-grown conventions, V. F. Calverton, with too much assurance perhaps, slashes at the preciosities of American art and thought, threatening them all with the cruel touch of economic appraisal. The age of Victorian complacency has closed everywhere; those who are whistling to keep up their courage and deceive their neighbors merely succeed in hoodwink¬ ing themselves. II This inquisitive wondering about civilization is no fitful fever of a day, likely to pass soon, to be followed by the calm satisfaction of an Indian summer. On the contrary, its emotional sources lie deep in the nature of things. While the doubts and pessimism raised by the World War might pass with the flow of time if the "normalcy” craved by the late President Harding could really be recovered, the prospects for "healing and serenity” are not good and the situation in which the world finds itself is not encourag¬ ing to advocates of seraphic peace and benevolence. Although the League of Nations and the inevitabilities of Locarno give 4 WHITHER MANKIND promise of a respite, the restlessness of Italy, whose swelling pop¬ ulation overflows her narrow borders, the hundred sources of un¬ ending friction in the Balkans, the discontent of Germany with a treaty that makes her a guilty criminal and tears from her side six or eight million German citizens, the turmoil of the Orient, and the constant menace of Russia to the imperialist powers of Europe, all tend to keep alive the interest of mankind in the fu¬ ture of modern civilization. To these are added even more potent irritants, disturbing hu¬ manity with threats of destiny. It is not to be supposed that the revolutions in Russia and Italy, flouting as they do the whole bourgeois scheme of things, will pass, if they pass, without leaving scars in the mind of the race. Nor will the antagonism between socialism and capitalism struggling for the possession of the helm of state disappear soon in a wave of brotherly affection.