It Is
True, Also, That We Have Vastly Extended The Sphere Of Those
Rights, And Include Within Them All The Brotherhood Of Man.
But
it is not too much to say, that the mass of our populations have
not at all advanced beyond the savage code of morals, and have in
many cases sunk below it.
A deficient morality is the great blot
of modern civilization, and the greatest hindrance to true
progress.
During the last century, and especially in the last thirty years,
our intellectual and material advancement has been too quickly
achieved for us to reap the full benefit of it. Our mastery over
the forces of mature has led to a rapid growth of population, and
a vast accumulation of wealth; but these have brought with them
such au amount of poverty and crime, and have fostered the growth
of so much sordid feeling and so many fierce passions, that it
may well be questioned, whether the mental and moral status of
our population has not on the average been lowered, and whether
the evil has not overbalanced the good. Compared with our
wondrous progress in physical science and its practical
applications, our system of government, of administering justice,
of national education, and our whole social and moral
organization, remains in a state of barbarism. [See note next
page.] And if we continue to devote our chief energies to the
utilizing of our knowledge the laws of nature with the view of
still further extending our commerce and our wealth, the evils
which necessarily accompany these when too eagerly pursued, may
increase to such gigantic dimensions as to be beyond cur power to
alleviate.
We should now clearly recognise the fact, that the wealth and
knowledge and culture of the few do not constitute civilization,
and do not of themselves advance us towards the "perfect social
state." Our vast manufacturing system, our gigantic commerce, our
crowded towns and cities, support and continually renew a mass of
human misery and crime absolutely greater than has ever existed
before. They create and maintain in life-long labour an ever-
increasing army, whose lot is the more hard to bear, by contrast
with the pleasures, the comforts, and the luxury which they see
everywhere around them, but which they can never hope to enjoy;
and who, in this respect, are worse off than the savage in the
midst of his tribe.
This is not a result to boast of, or to be satisfied with; and,
until there is a more general recognition of this failure of our
civilization - resulting mainly from our neglect to train and
develop more thoroughly the sympathetic feelings and moral
faculties of our nature, and to allow them a larger share of
influence in our legislation, our commerce, and our whole social
organization - we shall never, as regards the whole community,
attain to any real or important superiority over the better class
of savages.
This is the lesson I have been taught by my observations of
uncivilized man. I now bid my readers - Farewell!
NOTE.
THOSE who believe that our social condition approaches
perfection, will think the above word harsh and exaggerated, but
it seems to me the only word that can be truly applied to us. We
are the richest country in the world, and yet cue-twentieth of
our population are parish paupers, and one-thirtieth known
criminals. Add to these, the criminals who escape detection; and
the poor who live mainly on private charity, (which, according to
Dr. Hawkesley, expends seven millions sterling annually is London
alone,) and we may be sure that more than ONE-TENTH of our
population are actually Paupers and Criminals. Both these classes
we keep idle or at unproductive labour, and each criminal costs
us annually in our prisons more than the wages of an honest
agricultural labourer. We allow over a hundred thousand persons
known to have no means of subsistence but by crime, to remain at
large and prey upon the community, and many thousand children to
grow up before our eyes in ignorance and vice, to supply trained
criminals for the next generation. This, in a country which
boasts of its rapid increase in wealth, of its enormous commerce
and gigantic manufactures, of its mechanical skill and scientific
knowledge, of its high civilization and its pure Christianity, - I
can but term a state of social barbarism. We also boast of our
love of justice, and that the law protects rich and. poor alike,
yet we retain money fines as a punishment, and male the very
first steps to obtain justice a. matter of expense-in both cases
a barbarous injustice, or denial of justice to the poor. Again,
our laws render it possible, that, by mere neglect of a legal
form, and contrary to his own wish and intention, a man's
property may all go to a stranger, and his own children be left
destitute. Such cases have happened through the operation of the
laws of inheritance of landed property; and that such unnatural
injustice is possible among us, shows that we are in a state of
social barbarism. Ono more example to justify my use of the term,
and I have done. We permit absolute possession of the soil of our
country, with no legal rights of existence on the soil, to the
vast majority who do not possess it. A great landholder may
legally convert his whole property into a forest or a hunting-
ground, and expel every human being who has hitherto lived upon
it. In a thickly-populated country like England, where every acre
has its owner and its occupier, this is a power of legally
destroying his fellow-creatures; and that such a power should
exist, and be exercised by individuals, in however small a
degree, indicates that, as regards true social science, we are
still in a state of barbarism.
End of The Malay Archipelago by Alfred R. Wallace
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