Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. 4 of 4
At the beginning of the chapter on the Evolution of Society, we remarked upon the error of those metaphysical writers who have gone so far as to ascribe progressiveness to an occult tendency inherent in human nature. It need not take a very long survey of human societies, past and present, to assure us that beyond a certain point stagnation has been the rule and progress the exception. Over a large part of the earth's surface the slow progress painfully achieved during thousands of prehistoric ages has stopped short with the savage state, as exemplified by those African, Polynesian, and American tribes which can neither work out a civilization for themselves, nor appropriate the civilization of higher races with whom they are brought into contact. Half the human race, having surmounted savagery, have been arrested in an immobile type of civilization, as in China, in ancient Egypt, and in the East generally.
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