Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-09-26
REAL SOCIAL PROGRESS
BY REV THOMAS B. GREGORY


/ In Facts and Comments" a work in which
he summed up the studies of half a century,
Herbert Spencer says: 81 detest that con-
ception of social progress which presents as
its aim increase Of population, growth of
wealth and spread of commerce. In this
politico-economic ideal of human existence
there is contemplated QUANTITY only, not
QUALITY"
James Martineau, the greatest thinker
along ethical lines that the race has pro-
duced since Aristotle, says: Aptitude for
business is not power of reason; and
the grande on the Exchange may be a
pauper in Gods universe
And 1t so turns out that the foremost
scientist and the greatest moralist of the
nineteenth century are found to be in perfect
agreement as to what constitutes real social
progress; that it is an affair of quality rather
than quantity, of spirit rather than Of bulk.
Spencer's conclusion came as the result of
NIFTY years of inductive research and reason
ing, while Martineau's conclusion was purely
apr1orl, an intuition IS it were; and vet they
are in substance id enticaI.
Both of these supreme thinkers agreed in
maintaining that, in the final analysis, our
real wealth is to be found not in material
progress but in spiritual growth, not in COM
merce and its profits but in intelligence and
wealth, tempered and beautified by kindness,
justice and the feeling of brotherhood
Measured by this rule--by quality rather
than by quantity, by the inner spirit and life
rather than by the outside things-how does
the average Captain of Industry or finan-
cial magnate compare, let us say, with So
crates, or Marcus Aurelius, or Emerson, or
Abraham Lincoln, or, for that matter, with
the humblest man of "plain living and high
thnkers?'
Judged by this canon, what are we to think
OF the great modern metropolis-London
Paris New York-with it's industries reachin q
out to the ends of the earth it's commerce on
eVery-sea,its skyscrapers laughing old BabeIs
towers to scorn, its :trong boxes making the
treasures Cf old Rome, Tyre and Venice look
like thirty cents?"
Is 1t glided sham, splendid poverty? All
depends upon the answer that is given to the
question, How many true men and women
does the great city contain, how many inhabi-
tants with unfeigned devotion to simple duty.
now much domestic purity and peace, how
much civic righteousness, how much whole
hearted square dealing and genuine good
will?
Little Atttca, not half as big as the state of
Rhode Island, made a greater advance IN
true civilization in the two generations be-
tween the Battle of Marathon AMI the open
ing of the Peloponnesian war than any of the
modern nations has mad in thousands of
years. Attica aimed after uuality-the
others after quantity.
Take Germany, for instance Attica strove
after the spiritual Germany after the ma
terial, with the result-a fine instance of
poetic justice-that she was destroyed by the
brutal god she so persstently adored
And now that the IDEAL of Bulk and Brute
dom has been overthrow let us hope that
the type of social progress advocated by
Spencer and Martineau may find a new
lease of life, and go on without further in
terruption toward the final fruition of it's
beauty and glory.