Discussion #3: The late 19th-century self-made man.

Industrialization brought great wealth to America, but the price was quite high. The growing extremes of poverty and wealth that were being exhibited at the end of the 19th century, caused some to seek ways to make possible a just and humane society, while others sought justification for the emerging social order. The promise of success was made, promoting the idea that America was the land of opportunity and that hard work led to success. Social Darwinism was used to provide a scientific explanation for why some acquired great wealth while others barely survived. Rags-to-riches stories presented a picture of the opportunities that were available to all, and the success of the self-made man.

In order to prepare for this discussion forum:

After you have completed your readings post your response to one of the topics in the following question:

  1. How would you respond to someone who presents you with the arguments proposed by Social Darwinists, OR the stories written by Horatio Alger,OR Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth (choose ONLY one of these), to explain the success or failures of individuals in the society? What evidence would you use to support your position? For this discussion, you must first identify and present their arguments, and then your counterargument. As you collect your information for this discussion you should keep in mind the opportunities that were available to many, but also the climate of racism that permeated parts of the American society and the legalized discrimination that existed.

 

Ragged Dick, available on this linked site. http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/gilded/people/text3/alger.pdfLinks to an external site.

Harvard Univ. Archives Horatio Alger, Jr., 1852 CHAPTER II. JOHNNY NOLAN A FTER Dick had finished polishing Mr. Greyson’s* boots he was fortunate enough to secure three other customers, two of them reporters in the Tribune establishment, which occupies the corner of Spruce Street and Printing House Square. When Dick had got through with his last customer the City Hall clock indicated eight o’clock. He had been up an hour, and hard at work, and naturally began to think of breakfast. He went up to the head of Spruce Street, and turned into Nassau. Two blocks further, and he reached Ann Street. On this street was a small, cheap restaurant, where for five cents Dick could get a cup of coffee, and for ten cents more, a plate of beef-steak with a plate of bread thrown in. These Dick ordered, and sat down at a table. It was a small apartment with a few plain tables unprovided with cloths, for the class of customers who patronized it were not very particular. Our hero’s breakfast was soon before him. Neither the coffee nor the steak were as good as can be bought at Delmonico’s; but then it is very doubtful whether, in the present state of his wardrobe, Dick would have been received at that aristocratic restaurant, even if his means had admitted of paying the high prices there charged. Dick had scarcely been served when he espied a boy about his own size standing at the door, looking wistfully into the restaurant. This was Johnny Nolan, a boy of fourteen, who was engaged in the same profession as Ragged Dick. His wardrobe was in very much the same condition as Dick’s. “Had your breakfast, Johnny?” inquired Dick, cutting off a piece of steak. “No.” “Come in, then. Here’s room for you.” “I ain’t got no money,” said Johnny, looking a little enviously at his more fortunate friend. “Haven’t you had any shines?” “Yes, I had one, but I shan’t get any pay till to-morrow.” “Are you hungry?” “Try me, and see.” “Come in. I’ll stand treat this morning.” Johnny Nolan was nowise slow to accept this invitation, and was soon seated beside Dick. “What’ll you have, Johnny?” “Same as you.” *Excerpted, and photographs added, by the National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, NC. 2005. Photographs by Lewis Wickes Hine courtesy Library of Congress. “Cup o’ coffee and beefsteak,” ordered Dick. These were promptly brought, and Johnny “That man in the brown coat.” attacked them vigorously. “What of him. You ain’t scared of him, are Now, in the boot-blacking business, as well you?” as in higher avocations, the same rule prevails, that energy and industry are rewarded, and indolence suffers. Dick was energetic and on the alert for business, but Johnny the reverse. The consequence was that Dick earned probably three times as much as the other. “Yes, he got me a place once.” “Where?” “Ever so far off.” “What if he did?” “I ran away.” “Didn’t you like it?” “No, I had to get up too early. It was on a farm, and I had to get up at five to take care of the cows. I like New York best.” “How do you like it?” asked Dick, surveying Johnny’s attacks upon the steak with evident complacency. “It’s hunky.” “Didn’t they give you enough to eat?” I don’t believe “hunky” is to be found in “Oh, yes, plenty.” either Webster’s or Worcester’s big dictionary; but boys will readily understand what it means. “And you had a good bed?” “Yes.” “Then you’d better have stayed. You don’t get either of them here. Where’d you sleep last night?” “Do you come here often?” asked Johnny. “Most every day. You’d better come too.” “I can’t afford it.” “Well, you’d ought to, then,” said Dick. “Up an alley in an old wagon.” “What do you do with your money, I’d like to know?” “You had a better bed than that in the country, didn’t you?” “I don’t get near as much as you, Dick.” “Yes, it was as soft as  as cotton.” “Well, you might if you tried. I keep my eyes open  that’s the way I get jobs. You’re lazy, that’s what’s the matter.” Johnny had once slept on a bale of cotton, the recollection supplying him with a comparison. Johnny did not see fit to reply to this “Why didn’t you stay?” charge. Probably he felt the justice of it, and preferred to proceed with the breakfast, which he enjoyed the more as it cost him nothing. “I felt lonely,” said Johnny. Breakfast over, Dick walked up to the desk, and settled the bill. Then, followed by Johnny, he went out into the street. “Where are you going, Johnny?” “Up to Mr. Taylor’s, on Spruce Street, to see if he don’t want a shine.” “Do you work for him reg’lar?” “Yes. Him and his partner wants a shine most every day. Where are you goin’?” “Down front of the Astor House. I guess I’ll find some customers there.” At this moment Johnny started, and, dodging into an entry way, hid behind the door, considerably to Dick’s surprise. “What’s the matter now?” asked our hero. “Has he gone?” asked Johnny, his voice betraying anxiety. “Who gone, I’d like to know?” 2 Johnny could not exactly explain his feelings, but it is often the case that the young vagabond of the streets, though his food is uncertain, and his bed may be any old wagon or barrel that he is lucky enough to find unoccupied when night sets in, gets so attached to his precarious but independent mode of life, that he feels discontented in any other. He is accustomed to the noise and bustle and evervaried life of the streets, and in the quiet scenes of the country misses the excitement in the midst of which he has always dwelt. Johnny had but one tie to bind him to the city. He had a father living, but he might as well have been without one. Mr. Nolan was a confirmed drunkard, and spent the greater part of his wages for liquor. His potations made him ugly, and inflamed a temper never very sweet, working him up sometimes to such a pitch of rage that Johnny’s life was in danger. Some months before, he had thrown a flat-iron at his son’s head with such terrific force that unless Johnny had dodged he would not have lived long enough to obtain a place in our story. He fled the house, and from that time had not dared to re-enter it. Somebody had given him a brush and box of blacking, and he had set up in business on his own account. But he had not energy enough to succeed, as has already been stated, and I am afraid the poor boy had met with many hardships, and suffered more than once from cold and hunger. Dick had befriended him more than once, and often given him a breakfast or dinner, as the case might be. “How’d you get away?” asked Dick, with some curiosity. “Did you walk?” “No, I rode on the cars.” “Where’d you get your money? I hope you didn’t steal it.” “I didn’t have none.” “What did you do, then?” “I got up about three o’clock, and walked to Albany.” “Where’s that?” asked Dick, whose ideas on the subject of geography were rather vague. “Up the river.” “How far?” “About a thousand miles,” said Johnny, whose conceptions of distance were equally vague. “Go ahead. What did you do then?” “I hid on top of a freight car, and came all the way without their seeing me. * That man in the brown coat was the man that got me the place, and I’m afraid he’d want to send me back.” “Well,” said Dick, reflectively, “I dunno as I’d like to live in the country. I couldn’t go to Tony Pastor’s or the Old Bowery. There wouldn’t be no place to spend my evenings. But I say, it’s tough in winter, Johnny, ‘specially when your overcoat’s at the tailor’s, an’ likely to stay there.” “That’s so, Dick. But I must be goin’, or Mr. Taylor’ll get somebody else to shine his boots.” Johnny walked back to Nassau Street, while Dick kept on his way to Broadway. “That boy,” soliloquized Dick, as Johnny took his departure, “ain’t got no ambition. I’ll bet he won’t get five shines to-day. I’m glad I ain’t like him. I couldn’t go to the theatre, nor buy no cigars, nor get half as much as I wanted to eat. Shine yer boots, sir?” . . . 3 * A fact. [footnote in original] CHAPTER XI. DICK AS A DETECTIVE . . . “Now,” said Frank, “I think I’ll go back to the Astor House. Uncle has probably got through his business and returned.” “All right,” said Dick. The two boys walked up to Broadway, just where the tall steeple of Trinity faces the street of bankers and brokers, and walked leisurely to the hotel. When they arrived at the Astor House, Dick said, “Good-by, Frank.” “Not yet,” said Frank; “I want you to come in with me.” Dick followed his young patron up the steps. Frank went to the reading-room, where, as he had thought probable, he found his uncle already arrived, and reading a copy of “The Evening Post,” which he had just purchased outside. “Well, boys,” he said, looking up, “have you had a pleasant jaunt?” “Yes, sir,” said Frank. “Dick’s a capital guide.” “So this is Dick,” said Mr. Whitney, surveying him with a smile. “Upon my word, I should hardly have known him. I must congratulate him on his improved appearance.” “Frank’s been very kind to me,” said Dick, who, rough street-boy as he was, had a heart easily touched by kindness, of which he had never experienced much. “He’s a tip-top fellow.” “I believe he is a good boy,” said Mr. Whitney. “I hope, my lad, you will prosper and rise in the world. You know in this free country poverty in early life is no bar to a man’s advancement. I haven’t risen very high myself,” he added, with a smile, “but have met with moderate success in life; yet there was a time when I was as poor as you.” “Were you, sir?” asked Dick, eagerly. “Yes, my boy, I have known the time when I have been obliged to go without my dinner because I didn’t have enough money to pay for it.” “How did you get up in the world,” asked Dick, anxiously. “I entered a printing-office as an apprentice, and worked for some years. Then my eyes gave out and I was obliged to give that up. Not knowing what else to do, I went into the country, and worked on a farm. After a while I was lucky enough to invent a machine, which has brought me in a great deal of money. But there was one thing I got while I was in the printing-office which I value more than money.” “What was that, sir?” “A taste for reading and study. During my leisure hours I improved myself by study, and acquired a large part of the knowledge which I now possess. Indeed, it was one of my books that first put me on the track of the invention, which I afterwards made. So you see, my lad, that my studious habits paid me in money, as well as in another way.” “I’m awful ignorant,” said Dick, soberly. “But you are young, and, I judge, a smart boy. If you try to learn, you can, and if you ever expect to do anything in the world, you must know something of books.” “I will,” said Dick, resolutely. “I ain’t 4 always goin’ to black boots for a livin’.” “All labor is respectable, my lad, and you have no cause to be ashamed of any honest business; yet when you can get something to do that promises better for your future prospects, I advise you to do so. Till then earn your living in the way you are accustomed to, avoid extravagance, and save up a little money if you can.” “Thank you for your advice,” said our hero. “There ain’t many that takes an interest in Ragged Dick.” “So that’s your name,” said Mr. Whitney. “If I judge you rightly, it won’t be long before you change it. Save your money, my lad, buy books, and determine to be somebody, and you may yet fill an honorable position.” “I’ll try,” said Dick. “Good-night, sir.” “Wait a minute, Dick,” said Frank. “Your blacking-box and old clothes are upstairs. You may want them.” “In course,” said Dick. “I couldn’t get along without my best clothes, and my stock in trade.” “You may go up to the room with him, Frank,” said Mr. Whitney. “The clerk will give you the key. I want to see you, Dick, before you go.” “Yes, sir,” said Dick. “Where are you going to sleep to-night, Dick?” asked Frank, as they went upstairs together. “P’r’aps at the Fifth Avenue Hotel  on the outside,” said Dick. “Haven’t you any place to sleep, then?” “I slept in a box, last night.” “In a box?” “Yes, on Spruce Street.” “Poor fellow!” said Frank, compassionately. “Oh, ‘twas a bully bed  full of straw! I slept like a top.” “Don’t you earn enough to pay for a room, Dick?” “Yes,” said Dick; “only I spend my money foolish, goin’ to the Old Bowery, and Tony Pastor’s, and sometimes gamblin’ in Baxter Street.” “You won’t gamble any more,  will you, Dick?” said Frank, laying his hand persuasively on his companion’s shoulder. “No, I won’t,” said Dick. “You’ll promise?” “Yes, and I’ll keep it. You’re a good feller. I wish you was goin’ to be in New York.” “I am going to a boarding-school in Connecticut. The name of the town is Barnton. Will you write to me, Dick?” “My writing would look like hens’ tracks,” said our hero. “Never mind. I want you to write. When you write you can tell me how to direct, and I will send you a letter.” “I wish you would,” said Dick. “I wish I was more like you.” “I hope you will make a much better boy, Dick. Now we’ll go in to my uncle. He wishes to see you before you go.” They went into the readingroom. Dick had wrapped up his blacking-brush in a newspaper with which Frank had supplied him, feeling that a guest of the Astor House should hardly be seen coming out of the hotel displaying such a professional sign. 5 “Uncle, Dick’s ready to go,” said Frank. “Good-by, my lad,” said Mr. Whitney. “I hope to hear good accounts of you sometime. Don’t forget what I have told you. Remember that your future position depends mainly upon yourself, and that it will be high or low as you choose to make it.” He held out his hand, in which was a fivedollar bill. Dick shrunk back. “I don’t like to take it,” he said. “I haven’t earned it.” “Perhaps not,” said Mr. Whitney; “but I give it to you because I remember my own friendless youth. I hope it may be of service to you. Sometime when you are a prosperous man, you can repay it in the form of aid to some poor boy, who is struggling upward as you are now.” “I will, sir,” said Dick, manfully. He no longer refused the money, but took it gratefully, and, bidding Frank and his uncle good-by, went out into the street. A feeling of loneliness came over him as he left the presence of Frank, for whom he had formed a strong attachment in the few hours he had known him. . . . CHAPTER XIV. A BATTLE AND A VICTORY . . . “What’s that chap been doing?” asked the policeman of Dick. “He was amoosin’ himself by pitchin’ into me,” replied Dick. “What for?” “He didn’t like it ‘cause I patronized a different tailor from him.” “Well, it seems to me you are dressed pretty smart for a boot-black,” said the policeman. “I wish I wasn’t a boot-black,” said Dick. “Never mind, my lad. It’s an honest business,” said the policeman, who was a sensible man and a worthy citizen. “It’s an honest business. Stick to it till you get something better.” “I mean to,” said Dick. “It ain’t easy to get out of it, as the prisoner remarked, when he was asked how he liked his residence.” “I hope you don’t speak from experience.” “No,” said Dick; “I don’t mean to get into prison if I can help it.” “Do you see that gentleman over there?” asked the officer, pointing to a well-dressed man who was walking on the other side of the street. “Yes.” “Well, he was once a newsboy.” “And what is he now?” “He keeps a bookstore, and is quite prosperous.” Dick looked at the gentleman with interest, wondering if he should look as respectable when he was a grown man. It will be seen that Dick was getting ambitious. Hitherto he had thought very little of the future, but was content to get along as he could, dining as well as his means would allow, and spending the evenings in the pit of the Old Bowery, eating peanuts between the acts if he was prosperous, and if unlucky 6 supping on dry bread or an apple, and sleeping in an old box or a wagon. Now, for the first time, he began to reflect that he could not black boots all his life. In seven years he would be a man, and, since his meeting with Frank, he felt he would like to be a respectable man. He could see and appreciate the difference between Frank and such a boy as Micky Maguire, and it was not strange that he preferred the society of the former. In the course of the next morning, in pursuance of his new resolutions for the future, he called at a savings bank, and held out four dollars in bills besides another dollar in change. There was a high railing, and a number of clerks busily writing at desks behind it. Dick, never having been in a bank before, did not know where to go. He went, by mistake, to the desk where money was paid out. “Where’s your book?” asked the clerk. “I haven’t got any.” “Have you any money deposited here?” “No, sir, I want to leave some here.” “Then go to the next desk.” Dick followed directions, and presented himself before an elderly man with gray hair, who looked at him over the rims of his spectacles. “I want you to keep that for me,” said Dick, awkwardly emptying his money out on the desk. “How much is there?” “Five dollars.” “Have you got an account here?” “No, sir.” “Of course you can write?” The “of course” was said on account of Dick’s neat dress. “Have I got to do any writing?” asked our hero, a little embarrassed. “We want you to sign your name in this book,” and the old gentleman shoved round a large folio volume containing the names of depositors. Dick surveyed the book with some awe. “I ain’t much on writin’,” he said. “Very well, write as well as you can.” The pen was put into Dick’s hand, and, after dipping it in the inkstand, he succeeded after a hard effort, accompanied by many contortions of the face, in inscribing upon the book of the bank the name DICK HUNTER. “Dick!  that means Richard, I suppose,” said the bank officer, who had some difficulty in making out the signature. “No; Ragged Dick is what folks call me.” “You don’t look very ragged.” “No, I’ve left my rags to home. They might get wore out if I used ‘em too common.” “Well, my lad, I’ll make out a book in the name of Dick Hunter, since you seem to prefer Dick to Richard. I hope you will save up your money and deposit more with us.” Our hero took his bank-book, and gazed on the entry “Five Dollars” with a new sense of importance. He had been accustomed to joke about Erie shares, but now, for the first time, he felt himself a capitalist; on a small scale, to be sure, but still it was no small thing for Dick to have five dollars which he could call his own. He firmly determined that he would lay by every cent he could spare from his earnings towards the fund he hoped to accumulate. But Dick was too sensible not to know that there was something more than money needed to win a respectable position in the world. He felt that he was very ignorant. Of reading and writing he only knew the rudiments, and that, with a slight acquaintance with arithmetic, was all he did know of books. Dick knew he must study hard, and he dreaded it. He looked upon learning as attended with greater difficulties than it really possesses. But Dick had good pluck. He meant to learn, nevertheless, and resolved to buy a book with his first spare earnings. When Dick went home at night he locked up his bank-book in one of the drawers of the bureau. It was wonderful how much more independent he felt whenever he reflected upon the contents of that drawer, and with what an important air of joint ownership he regarded the bank building in which his small savings were deposited.

 

Social Darwinism, Links to an external site.written by Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer (1820­1903) was thinking about ideas of evolution and progress before Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species (1859). Nonetheless, his ideas received a major boost from Darwin’s theories and the general application of ideas such as “adaptation” and “survival of the fittest” to social thought is known as “Social Darwinism”. It would be possible to argue that human evolution showed the benefits of cooperation and community. Spencer, and Social Darwinists after him took another view. He believed that society was evolving toward increasing freedom for individuals; and so held that government intervention, ought to be minimal in social and political life.

Here Spencer specifically discusses race and class.

From Herbert Spencer. Progress: Its Law and Cause

The current conception of Progress is somewhat shifting and indefinite. Sometimes it comprehends little more than simple growth-as of a nation in the number of its members and the extent of territory over which it has spread. Sometimes it has reference to quantity of material products-as when the advance of agriculture and manufactures is the topic. Sometimes the superior quality of these products is contemplated; and sometimes the new or improved appliances by which they are produced. When again we speak of moral or intellectual progress, we refer to the state of the indivdual or people exhibiting it; whilst, when the progress of Knowledge, of Science, of Art, is commented upon, we have in view certain abstract results of human thought and action. Not only, however, is the current conception of Progress more or less vague, but it is in great measure erroneous. It takes in not so much the reality of Progress as its accompaniments-not so much the substance as the shadow. That progress in intelligence which takes place during the evolution of the child into the man, or the savage into the philosopher, is commonly regarded as consisting in the greater number of facts known and laws understood: whereas the actual progress consist in the produce of a greater quantity and variety of articles for the satisfaction of men’s wants; in the increasing security of person and property; in the widening freedom of action enjoyed whereas, rightly understood, social progress consists in those changes of structure in the social organism which have entailed these consequences The current conception is a teleological one. The phenomena are contemplated solely as bearing on human happiness. Only those changes t are held to constitute progress which directly or indirectly tend to heighten human happiness. And they are thought to constitute progress simply because they tend to heighten human happiness. But rightly to understand Progress, we must inquire what is the nature of these changes, considered apart from our interests. Ceasing, for example, to regard the successive geological modifications that have taken place in the Earth, as modifications that have gradually fitted it for the habitation of Man, and as therefore a geological progress, we must seek to determine the character common to these modifications-the law to which they all conform. And similarly in every other case. Leaving out of sight concomitants and beneficial consequences, let us ask what Progress is in itself.

In respect to that progress which individual organisms display in the course of their evolution, this question has been answered by the Germans. The investigations of Wolff, Goethe, and Van Baer have established the truth that the series of changes gone through during the development of a seed into a tree, or an ovum into an animal, constitute an advance from homogeneity of structure to heterogeneity of structure. In its primary stage, every germ consists of a substance that is uniform throughout, both in texture and chemical composition. The first step in its development is the appearance of a difference between two parts of this substance; or, as the phenomenon is described in physiological language-a differentiation. Each of these differentiated divisions presently begins itself to exhibit some contrast of parts; and by these secondary differentiations become as definite as the original one. This progress is continuously repeated-is simultaneously going on in all parts of the growing embryo; and by endless multiplication of these differentiations there is ultimately produced that complex combination of tissues and organs constituting the adult animal or plant. This is the course of evolution followed by all organisms whatever. It is settled beyond dispute that organic progress consists in a change from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous.

Now, we propose in the first place to show, that this law of organic progress is the law of all progress. Whether it be in the development of the Earth, in the development of Life upon its surface, the development of Society, of Government, of Manufactures, of Commerce, of Language, Literature, Science, Art, this same evolution of the simple into the complex, through a process of continuous differentiation, holds throughout. From the earliest traceable cosmical changes down to the latest results of civilization, we shall find that the transformation of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous, is that in which Progress essentially consists….

Whether an advance from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous is or is not displayed in the biological history of the globe, it is clearly enough displayed in the progress of the latest and most heterogeneous creature-Man. It is alike true that, during the period in which the Earth has been peopled, the human organism has become more heterogeneous among the civilized divisions of the species ­ and that the species, as a whole, has been growing more heterogeneous in virtue of the multiplication of races and the differentiation of these races from each other….

…. In the course of ages, there arises, as among ourselves, a highly complex political organization of monarch, ministers, lords and commons, with their subordinate administrative departments, courts of justice, revenue offices, &c., supplemented in the provinces by municipal governments, county governments, parish or union governments – all of them more or less elaborated. By its side there grows up a highly complex religious organization, with its various grades of officials from archbishops down to sextons, its colleges, convocations, ecclesiastical courts, &c.; to all which must be added the ever­multiplying independent sects, each with its general and local authorities. And at the same time there is developed a highly complex aggregation of customs manners, and temporary fashions, enforced by society at large, and serving to control those minor transactions between man and mar which are not regulated by civil and religious law. Moreover it is to be observed that this ever­increasing heterogeneity in the governmental appliances of each nation, has been accompanied by an increasing heterogeneity in the governmental appliances of different nations all o which are more or less unlike in their political systems and legislation in their creeds and religious institutions, in their customs and ceremonial usages.

Simultaneously there has been going on a second differentiation of a still more familiar kind; that, namely, by which the mass of the community has become segregated into distinct classes and orders of workers. While the governing part has been undergoing the complex development above described, the governed part has been undergoing an equally complex development, which has resulted in that minute division of labour characterizing advanced nations. It is needless to trace out this progress from its first stages, up through the caste divisions of the East and the incorporated guilds of Europe, to the elaborate producing and distributing organization existing among ourselves. Political economists have made familiar to all, the evolution which, beginning with a tribe whose members severally perform the same actions each for himself, ends with a civilized community whose members severally perform different actions for each other; and they have further explained the evolution through which the solitary producer of any one commodity, is transformed into a combination of producers who united under a master, take separate parts in the manufacture of such commodity. But there are yet other and higher phases of this advance from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous in the industrial structure of the social organism. Long after considerable progress has been made in the division of labour among different classes of workers, there is still little or no division of labour among the widely separated parts of the community: the nation continues comparatively homogeneous in the respect that in each district the same occupations are pursued. But when roads and other means of transit become numerous and good, the different districts begin to assume different functions, and to become mutually dependent. The calico manufacture locates it self in this county, the woollen­cloth manufacture in that; silks are produced here, lace there; stockings in one place, shoes in another; pottery, hardware, cutlery, come to have their special towns; and ultimately every locality becomes more or less distinguished from the rest by the leading occupation carried on in it. Nay, more, this subdivision of functions shows itself not only among the different parts of the same nation, but among different nations. That exchange of commodities which free­trade promises so greatly to increase, will ultimately have the effect of specializing, in a greater or less degree, the industry of each people. So that beginning with a barbarous tribe, almost if not quite homogeneous in the functions of its members, the progress has been, and still is, towards an economic aggregation of the whole human race, growing ever more heterogeneous in respect of the separate functions assumed by separate nations, the separate functions assumed by the local sections of each nation, the separate functions assumed by the many kinds of makers and traders in each town, and the separate functions assumed by the workers united in producing each commodity.

Not only is the law thus clearly exemplified in the evolution of the social organism, but it is exemplified with equal clearness in the evolution of all products of human thought and action; whether concrete or abstract, real or ideal…

We might trace out the evolution of Science; beginning with the era in which it was not yet differentiated from Art, and was, in union with Art, the handmaid of Religion; passing through the era in which the sciences were so few and rudimentary, as to be simultaneously cultivated by the same philosophers; and ending with the era in which the genera and species are so numerous that few can enumerate them, and no one can adequately grasp even one genus. Or we might do the like 0 with Architecture, with the Drama, with Dress. But doubtless the reader is already weary of illustrations; and our promise has been amply fulfilled. We believe we have shown beyond question, that that which the German physiologists have found to be the law of organic development, is the law of all development. The advance from the simple to the complex, through a process of successive differentiations, is seen alike in the earliest changes of the Universe to which we can reason our way back, and in the earliest changes which we can inductively establish; it is seen in the geologic and climatic evolution of the Earth, and of every single organism on its surface; it is seen in the evolution of Humanity, whether contemplated in the civilized individual, or in the aggregation of races; it is seen in the evolution of Society in respect both of its political and economical organization; and it is seen in the evolution of all those endless concrete and abstract products of human activity which constitute the environment of our daily life. From the remotest past which Science can fathom, down to the novelties of yesterday, that in which Progress essentially consists, is the transformation of the homogeneous into the heterogeneous.

Herbert Spencer: “Progess: Its Law and Causes”, The Westminster Review, Vol 67 (April 1857), pp 445-447, 451, 454-456, 464-65

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(c)Paul Halsall Aug 1997