The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-04-10
CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS.

If this world had been so construct
ed that individual energy was un-
necessary, the human race would long
since have become extinct. 1t is not
difficult to imagine such condition.
Suppose gold, instead of its distribu-
ton in quartz or gravel, had been lald
I'D in accessible heaps, SO that every
man could have helped himself IL
there had been any use for the pre-
cious metal, it would have become
drug Suppose all crops had soWn,
harvested and distributed themselves,
SO that every human being would have
been supplied without effort Sup
pose animals. through some invisible
law. had slaughtered, divided and
cooked themselves and the only duty
of hungry mouths had been receptive.
Suppose clothes, adapted to any eli
mate and temperature and changing
with the seasons, had shaped themselves
upon the human back, sides and limbs.
Suppose armies and navies had
purely automatic existence. Suppose
the means of transportation were self
generated and met the listless wants of
travellers without even the necessity
of motion on their part. Suppose life
in all its phases had consisted merely
of the act of breathing, itself without
effort, and the very conception of Ia
| Dor and struggle were nonresident,
! Under any and all of these illustrative
| assumptions where would humanity
have been in this year of grace?
| The failures in life are the men and
women who await conditions, without
personal exertion. and who practically
aim to exist in such world as has
: been briefly suggested To these drones
/ in the fncessant whirl of progress, Who
| lie back, expecting Providence to do
! their work inertness is the supreme
law. Their incessant cry is that, when
all the conditions essential to success
have been produced by the Presiding
! Intelligence of the universe, they vii,
allow themselves to be propelled in
/ that direction. It never occurs to them
that. in the order of creation and adj
vancement. they are to be the direct
! instrumentalities in their own achieve
ments, under that Providence which
has established laws and principles
that, when strenuously employed, in
J the accomplishment of definite pur-
poses. They never realize that the
most beneficent provision in the Code
of the Almighty is that which predi-
Gates all realization of the perpetual
struggle with obstacles and the ap-
preparation of opportunities.
| And as with individuals, so with
communities. Lazy Indifference and
development. The activities of the
modern and civilized world are intense
( and at once concentrated, diffused and
systematized. Let them be brought
stagnant populations. and fertilization
and prosperity inevitably follow. But,
if repealed by the unreceptive stolidity
of a people sunk in a Rip Van Wrinkle
sleep, they flow EDWARDS on either side
and allow somnolence to be converted
into at least temporary petrifaction.
The awakening process is usually
slow and hard to endure and. like
every great change in the modes of
life, is attended by pain and difficult
ty. But it is the order of Providence
that those who are plunged into torpor
shall be aroused at length and drawn
into the tumultuous vortex of aspiring
civilization. This is the process
through which Hawaii is now slowly
passing. Its advancement. however
toward complete Americanization Is
exhibiting signs of increased vitality
and of more complete Identification
with the Twentieth Century.