difications of
tradition due to the interactions of social causes. Progress is not
racial but social.

B. PROGRESS AND SCIENCE

1. Progress and Happiness[337]

Human progress may be properly defined as that which secures the
_increase of human happiness_. Unless it do this, no matter how great a
civilization may be, it is not progressive. If a nation rise, and
extend its sway over a vast territory, astonishing the world with its
power, its culture, and its wealth, this alone does not constitute
progress. It must first be shown that its people are happier than they
would otherwise have been. If a people be seized with a rage for art,
and, in obedience to their impulses or to national decrees, the wealth
of that people be laid out in the cultivation of the fine arts, the
employment of master artists, the decoration of temples, public and
private buildings, and the embellishment of streets and grounds, no
matter to what degree of perfection this purpose be carried out, it is
not to progress unless greater satisfaction be derived therefrom than
was sacrificed in the deprivations which such a course must occasion. To
be progressive in the true sense, it must work an increase in the sum
total of human enjoyment. When we survey the history of civilization, we
should keep this truth in view, and not allow ourselves to be dazzled by
the splendor of pageantry, the glory of heraldry, or the beauty of art,
literature, philosophy, or religion, but should assign to each its true
place as measured by this standard.

It cannot be denied that civilization, by the many false practices which
it has introduced, by the facilities which its very complexity affords
to the concealment of crime, and by the monstrous systems of corruption
which fashion, caste, and conventionality are enabled to shelter, is the
direct means of rendering many individuals miserable in the extreme; but
these are the necessary incidents to its struggles to advance under the
dominion of natural forces alone.

It would involve a great fallacy to deduce from this the conclusion that
civilization begets misery or reduces the happiness of mankind. Against
this gross but popular mistake may be cited the principle before
introduced, which is unanimously accepted by biologists, that an
organism is perfect in proportion as its organs are numerous and varied.
This is because, the more organs there are, the greater is the capacity
for enjoyment. For this enjoyment is