The Future of Mankind

If we compare the present with the past, if we trace events at all epochs to their causes, if we examine the elements of human growth, we find that Nature has raised us to what we are, not by fixed laws, but by provisional expedients, and that the principle which in one age effected the advancement of a nation, in the next age retarded the mental movement, or even destroyed it altogether. War, despotism, slavery, and superstition are now injurious to the progress of Europe, but they were once the agents by which progress was produced. By means of war the animated life was slowly raised upward in the scale, and quadrupeds passed into man. By means of war the human intelligence was brightened, and the affections were made intense; weapons and tools were invented; foreign wives were captured, and the marriages of blood relations were forbidden; prisoners were tamed, and the women set free; prisoners were exchanged, accompanied with presents; thus commerce was established, and thus, by means of war, men were first brought into amicable relations with one another. By war the tribes were dispersed all over the world, and adopted various pursuits according to the conditions by which they were surrounded. By war the tribes were compressed into the nation. It was war which founded the Chinese Empire. It was war which had locked Babylonia, and Egypt, and India. It was war which developed the genius of Greece. It was war which planted the Greek language in Asia, and so rendered possible the spread of Christianity. It was war which united the world in peace from the Cheviot Hills to the Danube and the Euphrates. It was war which saved Europe from the quietude of China. It was war which made Mecca the centre of the East. It was war which united the barons in the Crusades, and which destroyed the feudal system.

Even in recent times the action of war has been useful in condensing scattered elements of nationality, and in liberating subject populations. United Italy was formed directly or indirectly by the war of 1859, 1866, and 187O. The last war realised the dreams of German poets, and united the Teutonic nations more closely than the shrewdest statesmen could have conceived to be possible a few years ago. That same war, so calamitous for France, will yet regenerate that great country, and make her more prosperous than she has ever been. The American War emancipated four million men, and decided for ever the question as to whether the Union was a nationality or a league. But the Crimean War was injurious to civilisation; it retarded a useful and inevitable event. Turkey will some day be covered with corn-fields; Constantinople will some day be a manufacturing town; but a generation has been lost. Statesmen and journalists will learn in time that whatever is conquered for civilisation is conquered for all. To preserve the Balance of Power was an excellent policy in the Middle Ages, when war was the only pursuit of a gentleman, and when conquest was the only ambition of kings. It is now suited only for the highlands of Abyssinia. The jealousy with which 'true Britons' regard the Russian success in Central Asia is surely a very miserable feeling. That a vast region of the earth should be opened, that robbery and rapine and slave-making raids should be suppressed, that waste-lands should be cultivated, that new stores of wealth should be discovered, that new markets should be established for the products of European industry, our own among the rest, that Russia should adjoin England in Asia as she adjoins Germany in Europe--what a lamentable occurrence, what an ominous event! In Central Africa it often happens that between two barbarous. and distrustful nations there is a wide neutral ground, inhabited by wild beasts, which prey upon the flocks and herds on either side. Such is the policy which maintains the existence of barbarous kingdoms between two civilised frontiers.

The great Turkish and Chinese Empires, the lands of Morocco, Abyssinia, and Tibet, will be eventually filled with free, industrious, and educated populations. But those people will never begin to advance until their property is rendered secure, until they enjoy the rights of man; and these they will never obtain except by means of European conquest. In British India the peasant reaps the rice which he has sown; and the merchant has no need to hide his gold beneath the ground. The young men of the new generation are looking forward to the time when the civil appointments of their country will he held by them. The Indian Mutiny was a mutiny only, and not a rebellion; the industrial and mercantile classes were on the English side. There is a sickly school of politicians who declare that all countries belong to their inhabitants, and that to take them is a crime. If any country in Asia did belong to its inhabitants, there might be some force in this objection. But Asia is possessed by a few kings and by their soldiers; these rulers are usually foreigners; the masses of the people are invariably slaves. The conquest of Asia by European Powers is therefore in reality emancipation, and is the first step towards the establishment of Oriental nationality. It is needless to say that Europe will never engage in crusades to liberate servile populations; but the pride and ignorance of military despots will provoke foreign wars, which will prove fatal to their rule. Thus war will, for long years yet to come, be required to prepare the way for freedom and progress in the East; and in Europe itself, it is not probable that war will ever absolutely cease until science discovers some destroying force, so simple in its administration, so horrible in its effects, that all art, all gallantry, will be at an end, and battles will be massacres which the feelings of mankind will be unable to endure.

A second expedient of Nature is religion. Men believe in the existence of beings who can punish and reward them in this life or in the next, who are the true rulers of the world, and who have deputed certain men, called priests, to collect tribute and to pass laws on their behalf. By means of these erroneous ideas, a system of government is formed to which kings themselves are subjected; the moral nature of man is improved, the sciences and arts are developed, distinct and hostile races are united. But error, like war, is only provisional. In Europe, religion no longer exists as a political power, but it will probably yet render service to civilisation in assisting to Europeanise the barbarous nations whom events will in time bring under our control.

A third expedient of Nature is inequality of conditions. Sloth is the natural state of man; prolonged and monotonous labour is hard for him to bear. The savage can follow a trail through the forest, or can lie in ambush for days at a time; this pertinacity and patience are native to his mind,; they belong to the animals