THE MODERN MIND . 343
environment become relatively more and more important. In a survey of the history of human development it becomes apparent that progress has taken place, on the whole, step by step as the human group has become larger and human control over natural forms and forces has extended. The process of civilization has been a movement from a situation in which the human factor was at a minimum toward a sit uation in which it is at a maximum. As a general statement this unquestionably holds good, notwithstanding some facts which seem to contradict it. Sometimes an alarmed cry arises for a reversal of the process and a return to more primitive conditions ; but real improvement is to be effected not by a return to conditions in which the human environ ment is relatively less dominant, but by pressing forward to conditions in which the human control of the natural en vironment shall be more nearly complete and shall be directed by a more conscious social purpose.
In our study we may secure better results by having in mind the modern city, for there this characteristic feature of modern life is most pronounced and its significance most apparent. The gathering of people into these municipal ag gregations has always been a marked feature of social de velopment; but in recent times, especially under the influ ence of modern industrialism, the drawing of people in mul titudes from rural districts into these great centres has been a phenomenon of extraordinary importance. On account of the natural increase of the population and the city-ward tendency of the population under industrialism, we have such municipal aggregations as were never seen before, and they are growing at a rate which is astonishing. On account of the progress of invention, these masses of people live under conditions far more highly artificialized than men have ever dreamed of before. The characteristic feature of city life has always been the prominence of the human en vironment. The conditions of life are largely human and humanly controlled. But this is far more true of the mod- era city than of the cities of former ages. It is true also of
�� �
