ABSTRACT

As the modern world gradually lost touch with the organized Christianity which had been the governing spirit of European civilization in the past, it began to find new inspiration for itself in the ideal of Progress. This chapter attempts to study the laws of social change and the positive development of civilizations, but this scientific theory of progress has naturally been slower in developing and less fertile in results than its more emotional companion. Civilization is essentially the co-operation of regional societies under a common spiritual influence. Behind every civilization there is a vision—a vision which may be the result of the joint labour of many minds, but which sometimes springs from the sudden flash of inspiration of a great prophet or philosopher. The essential fact of Progress is a process of integration, an increasingly close union between the spirit of the whole civilization and the personality of the local society.