Weekly Chillicothe crisis., 1883-05-10
PROBLEMS OF THE TIME.
The Necessity for Giving Greater Atten-
tion to Social Questlons.

| Try lule MEN,
Henry George, In Frank Leslie's Illustrated News
| paper
| propose in these articles to discuss
some problems of the time. Space SO
limited forbids exhaustive treatment
but may excite thought even if | can
not develop theories.
There come moments in our lives
that summon all our Dowers-whCn we
feel that, casting away illusions, we
must decide and act with our utmost
intelligence and energy. So in national
life come periods specially calling for
earnestness and intelligence.
We seem to have inferred one of these
periods. Over and again have nations
and civilizations been confronted with
problems, which like the riddles of the
SPHINX, not to answer was to be de-
stroyed; but never before have prob
lens so vast and intricate been pre-
sented. This is not strange. That the
closing year of this century must bring
up momentous social questions follows
from the material and intellectual pro-
gress that has marked its course.
Between the development of society
and the development of species there
is a close analogy. In thelowest forms
of animal life there is little difference
of parts; both wants and powers are
few and simple; movement seems auto
matte; and instincts are scarcely dis
tinguishable from those of the vegetable.
So homogeneous are some of these liv
ing things, that if cut in pieces, each
piece will live. But as life rises into
higher manifestations, simplicity gives
way to compleyity, the parts develop
into organs having separate functions
and reciprocal relations, new wants
and powers arise. and n greater and
greater degree of intelligence is needed
to secure food and avoid danger. Did
fish, bird or beast possess no higher in.
telligence than the pollp, nature could
bring them forth only to die.
This law-that the increasing COM
plexity and delicacy of organization
which gives higher capacity and in
creased power, is accompanied by in
creased wants and dangers, and re-
quires, therefore, increased intelligence
runs thrOughnaturc. In the ascend
ing scale of life at last comes man, the
most highly and dclicately organized
of animals. Yet not only do his higher
powers require for their use higher
intelligence than exists in other ami
mails, but without higher intelligence
he could not live. His skin is too thin;
his nails too brittle; he is too poorly
adapted for running, climbing, swim
ming, or burrowing. Were he not
gifted with intelligence greater than
that of any beast, he would perish from
cold, starvc from inability TO get food,
or Re exterminated by animals better
equipped for the struggle in which
brute instinct sutiices.
In man, however, the intelligence
which increases all through natures
rising scale passes at one bound into
an intelligence so superior, that the
difference seems of kind rather than
degree. In him that narrow and seem
ingly unconscious intelligence that We
call instinct becomes conscious reason,
and the godlike power Of adaption and
invention makes feeble man nature $
king.
But with man the ascending line
stops. Animal life assumes no higher
form, nor can we affirm that in all his
generations man, as an animal, has a
whit improved But progression in
another line begins. Where the de-
velopment of species ends, social dcycl-
opment commences, and that advance
of society that we call civilization SO
increases human powers, that between
savage and civilized man there isl gulf
so vast as to suggest the gulf between
the highly organized animal and the
oyster glued TO the rocks. And with
every advance upon this line, new Wis
tas open. When we try to think what
knowledge and power progressive
civilization may give to the men of the
future, Imagination fails.
In this progression which begins with
man. rs in that which leads up to him,
the same law holds. Each advance
makes n demand for higher intelligence.
With the beginnings Of society arises
the need for social intelligence for
that consensus of individual intcll.
gencc which forms public opinion, a
public conscience, public will, and is
manifested in law, institutions, and adj
ministration. As society develops, u
higher and higher degree of this social
intelligence is required, for the relation
of individuals to each other becomes
more intimate and important, and the
increasing compleXity of the social
organization brings liability to new
dangers.
In the rude beginning each family
produces its own food, makes its own
clothes, builds its own house, and,
when 1t moves, furnishes its own trans
portation. Compare with this inde-
pendence the intricate dependence OF
the denizens Of a modern city. They
may supply themselves with greater
certainty, and in much greater variety
and abundance than the savage; but il
is by the cooperation Of thousands.
Even the water they drink, and the
artificial light they use, are brought to
them by elaborate machinery, rcquir-
ing the constant labor and watchful-
ness of many men. They may travel
at speed incredible to the savage;
but in doing so resign life and limb to
the care of others. A broken rail- a
drunken engineer, q careless switch
man, may hurl them to eternity. And
the power of applying labor to the sat
isfaction of desire passes, in the same
way, beyond the direct control of the
individual. The laborer becomes but
part of great machine, which may at
any time be paralyzed by causes beyond
his power or even his foresight. Thus
does the well-being of each become
more and more dependent upon the
well-being of all-the individual moro
and more subordinate to society.
And so come new dangers. The rude
society resembles the creatures that
though cut into pieces will live; the
highly civilized society is like highly
organized animal; a stab in vital
part, tho suppression of single fInc-
tion, is death. A savage village may
be burned and its people driven Off
but, used to direct recourse to nature,
they can maintain themselves. Highly
civilized man, however, accustomed to
capital, to machinery, to the minute
division of labor, becomes helpless
when suddenly deprived of these and