ed that, in the complicated life of modern cities, at
least one-tenth of the population is not competent to maintain an
independent, economic existence, but requires an increasing amount of
care and assistance from the other nine-tenths.[324] To the inferior,
incompetent, and unfortunate, unable to keep pace with progress, the
more rapid advance of the world means disease, despair, and death. In
medicine and surgery alone does progress seem wholly beneficent, but the
eugenists are even now warning us that our indiscriminate efforts to
protect the weak and preserve the incompetent are increasing the burdens
of the superior and competent, who are alone fit to live.

On the other hand, every new invention is a response to some specific
need. Every new form of social control is intended to correct some
existing evil. So far as they are successful they represent progress.
Progress in the concrete has reference to recognized social values.
Values, as Cooley points out, have no meaning except with reference to
an organism.

"The organism is necessary to give meaning to the idea [value];
there must be worth _to_ something. It need not be a person; a
group, an institution, a doctrine, any organized form of life
will do; and that it be conscious of the values that motivates
it is not at all essential."[325]

Any change or adaptation to an existing environment that makes
it easier for a person, group, institution, or other "organized
form of life" to live may be said to represent progress.
Whether the invention is a new plow or a new six-inch gun we
accept it as an evidence of progress if it does the work for
which it is intended more efficiently than any previous device.
In no region of human life have we made greater progress than
in the manufacture of weapons of destruction.

Not everyone would be willing to admit that progress in weapons
of warfare represents "real" progress. That is because some
people do not admit the necessity of war. Once admit that
necessity, then every improvement is an evidence of progress,
at least in that particular field. It is more easy to recognize
progress in those matters where there is no conflict in regard
to the social values. The following excerpt from Charles
Zueblin's preface to his book on American progress is a
concrete indication of what students of society usually
reco