Civilization, it is said, multiplies wants, but then they are ennobling wants, better called aspirations, and many of these civilization satisfies.
If civilization breeds new vices, old ones are extinguished by it. Decency and decorum hide the hideousness of vice, drive it into dark corners, and thereby raise the tone of morals and weaken vice. Thus civilization promotes chastity, elevates woman, breaks down the barriers of hate and superstition between ancient nations and religions; individual energy, the influence of one over the many, becomes less and less felt, and the power of the people becomes stronger.
Civilization in itself can not but be beneficial to man; that which makes society more refined, more intellectual, less bestial, more courteous; that which cures physical and mental diseases, increases the comforts and luxury of life, purifies religions, makes juster governments—must surely be beneficial: it is the universal principle of evil which impregnates all human affairs, alloying even current coin, which raises the question. That there are evils attending civilization as all other benefits, none can deny, but civilization itself is no evil
If I have succeeded in presenting clearly the foregoing
thoughts, enough has been said as to the nature
and essence of civilization; let us now examine some
of the conditions essential to intellectual development.
For it must not be forgotten that, while every department
of human progress is but the unfolding of a
germ; while every tendency of our life, every custom
and creed of our civilization finds its rudiment in
savagism; while, as man develops, no new elements of
human nature are created by the process; while, as the
organism of the child is as complex and complete as the
organism of the man, so is humanity in a savage state
the perfect germ of humanity civilized,—it must not
be forgotten in all this, that civilization cannot unfold
except under favorable conditions. Just as the plant,
