Certainly these indices, like uniformity, are mere temporary measures of progress, since diversity in the population is not per se an evil. It becomes so only when the diversities in the community are so great as to endanger its solidarity. Applying his indices to the United States, Mr. Willcox sums up the result as follows:
The net result is to indicate for the United States a rapid increase of population and probable increase in length of life, and increase in racial uniformity and perhaps in uniformity of other sorts connected with immigration, and at the same time a decrease in uniformity in the stability and social serviceability of family life. Some of these indications look towards progress, others look towards retrogression. As they cannot be reduced to any common denominator, the statistical method is unable to answer the question with which we started.[348]
The securing of indices which will measure satisfactorily even such social values as are generally accepted is difficult. The problem of giving each index in the series a value or weight in proportion to the value of all the others is still more difficult. This statement, at any rate, illustrates the procedure and the method.
The whole subject of numerical indices for the measurement of civilization and progress has recently been discussed in a little volume by Alfredo Niceforo,[349] professor in the School of Criminal Law at Rome. He proposes as indices of progress:
1. The increase in wealth and in the consumption of goods, and the diminution of the mortality rate. These are evidences of material progress.
2. The diffusion of culture, and "when it becomes possible to measure it," the productivity of men of genius. This is the measure of intellectual superiority.
3. Moral progress he would measure in terms of crime.
4. There remains the social and political organization, which he would measure in terms of the increase and decrease of individual liberty.
In all these attempts to measure the progress of the community the indices have invariably shown progression in some direction, retrogression in others.
From the point of view of social research the problem of progress is mainly one of getting devices that will measure all the different factors of progress and of estimating the relative value of different factors in the progress of the community.
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(3) ——. Morals in Evolution. A study in comparative ethics. 2 vols. New York, 1906.
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1. The History of the Concept of Progress
2. Popular Notions of Progress
3. The Natural History of Progress: Evolution of Physical and Mental Traits, Economic Progress, Moral Development, Intellectual Development, Social Evolution
4. Stages of Progress: Determined by Type of Control over Nature, Type of Social Organization, Type of Communication, etc.
5. Score Cards and Scales for Grading Communities and Neighborhoods
6. Progress as Wish-Fulfilment: an Analysis of Utopias
7. Criteria or Indices of Progress: Physical, Mental, Intellectual, Economic, Moral, Social, etc.
8. Progress as an Incident of the Cosmic Process
9. Providence versus Progress
10. Happiness as the Goal of Progress
11. Progress as Social Change
12. Progress as Social Evolution
13. Progress as Social Control
14. Progress and the Science of Eugenics
15. Progress and Socialization
16. Control through Eugenics, Education, and Legislation
1. What do you understand by progress?
2. How do you explain the fact that the notion of progress originated?
3. What is the relation of change to progress?
4. What is Spencer's law of evolution? Is it an adequate generalization? What is its value?
5. Why do we speak of "stages of progress"?
6. To what extent has progress been a result (a) of eugenics, (b) of tradition?
7. What do you understand by progress as (a) a historical process, and (b) increase in the content of civilization?
8. What is the relation of progress to happiness?
9. "We have confused rapidity of change with progress." Explain.
10. "Progress is not automatic." Elaborate your position with reference to this statement.
11. What is the relation of prevision to progress?
12. Do you believe that mankind can control and determine progress?
13. "Our expectations of limitless progress cannot depend upon the deliberate action of national governments." Contrast this statement of Balfour with the statement of Dewey.
14. "A community founded on argument would dissolve into its constituent elements." Discuss this statement.
15. What is Galton's conception of progress?
16. What would you say to the possibility or the impossibility of the suggestion of eugenics becoming a religious dogma as suggested by Galton?
17. What is the relation, as conceived by the eugenists, as between germ plasm and culture?
18. Is progress dependent upon change in human nature?
19. How are certain persistent traits of human nature related to progress?
20. What is meant by the statement that progress is in the mores?
21. What are the different types of progress analyzed by Bryce? Has advance in each of them been uniform in the last one thousand years?
22. Does war make for or against progress?
23. What is the relation of freedom to progress?
24. What place has the myth in progress?
25. To what extent is progress as a process of realizing values a matter of temperament, of optimism, and of pessimism?
[322] Robert Flint, The Philosophy of History in Europe, I, 29-30. (London, 1874.)
[323] W. R. Inge, Outspoken Essays, i, "Our Present Discontents," p. 2. (London, 1919.)
[324] Charles Booth, Labour and Life of the People, I, 154-55, 598. 2d ed. (London, 1889.)
[325] Charles Cooley, The Social Process, p. 284. (New York, 1918.)
[326] Charles Zueblin, American Municipal Progress, pp. xi-xii. New and rev. ed. (New York, 1916.)
[327] R. Austin Freeman, Social Decay and Regeneration. With an introduction by Havelock Ellis. Pp. 16-17. (Boston, 1921.)
[328] J. B. Bury, The Idea of Progress. An inquiry into its origin and growth, p. 1. (London, 1921.)
[329] W. R. Inge, The Idea of Progress, p. 9. The Romanes Lecture, 1920. (Oxford, 1920.)
[330] Author of The Passing of a Great Race, or the Racial Basis of European History. (New York, 1916.)
[331] See Stoddard Lothrop, The Rising Tide of Color against White World-Supremacy (New York, 1920); and William McDougall, Is America Safe for Democracy? (New York, 1921.)
[332] Thomas H. Huxley, Evolution and Ethics and Other Lectures, Lecture ii, pp. 46-116. (New York, 1894.)
[333] Adapted from F. S. Marvin, Progress and History, pp. 8-10. (Oxford University Press, 1916.
[334] Adapted from Herbert Spencer, Essays, I, 8-10. (D. Appleton & Co., 1899.)
[335] Adapted from Auguste Comte, Positive Philosophy, II, 124. (Trübner & Co., 1875.)
[336] Adapted from Leonard T. Hobhouse, Social Evolution and Political Theory, pp. 29-39. (The Columbia University Press, 1911.)
[337] From Lester F. Ward, Dynamic Sociology, II, 174-77. (D. Appleton & Co., 1893.)
[338] Adapted from John Dewey, "Progress," in the International Journal of Ethics, XXVI (1916), 312-18.
[339] From The Mind of Arthur James Balfour, by Wilfrid M. Short, pp. 293-97. (Copyright 1918, George H. Doran Company, publishers.)
[340] From Francis Galton, "Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope, and Aims," in the American Journal of Sociology, X (1904-5), 1-6.
[341] Adapted from G. Santayana, Winds of Doctrine, pp. 6-8. (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1913.)
[342] Adapted from W. G. Sumner, "The Mores of the Present and the Future," in the Yale Review, XVIII (1909-10), 235-36. (Quoted by special permission of the Yale Review.)
[343] Adapted from James Bryce, "War and Human Progress," in International Conciliation, CVIII (November, 1916), 13-27.
[344] From Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, translated by Arthur Mitchell, pp. 253-71. (Henry Holt & Co., 1913.)
[345] From Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, III, 107-18. (Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1909.)
[346] Scientific optimism was no doubt rampant before Darwin. For example, Herschel says: "Man's progress towards a higher state need never fear a check, but must continue till the very last existence of history." But Herbert Spencer asserts the perfectibility of man with an assurance which makes us gasp. "Progress is not an accident, but a necessity. What we call evil and immorality must disappear. It is certain that man must become perfect." "The ultimate development of the ideal man is certain—as certain as any conclusion in which we place the most implicit faith; for instance, that all men will die." "Always towards perfection is the mighty movement—towards a complete development and a more unmixed good."—W. R. Inge, The Idea of Progress, p. 9. (Oxford, 1920.)
[347] "Scale for Grading Neighborhood Conditions," Publications of the Whittier State School, Research Bulletin, No. 5, Whittier, Cal., May, 1917. "Guide to the Grading of Neighborhoods," Publications of the Whittier State School, Research Bulletin, No. 8, Whittier, Cal., April, 1918. Dwight Sanderson, "Scale for Grading Social Conditions in Rural Communities," New York State Agricultural College Bulletin [in press], Ithaca, N.Y., 1921.
[348] "A Statistician's Idea of Progress," International Journal of Ethics, XVIII (1913), 296.
[349] Les indices numériques de la civilisation et du progrès. (Paris, 1921.)