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Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society by Walter Bagehot
page 34 of 176 (19%)
tend to make us think that 'Progress' is the normal fact in human
society, the fact which we should expect to see, the fact which we
should be surprised if we did not see. But history refutes this. The
ancients had no conception of progress; they did not so much as
reject the idea; they did not even entertain the idea. Oriental
nations are just the same now. Since history began they have always
been what they are. Savages, again, do not improve; they hardly seem
to have the basis on which to build, much less the material to put
up anything worth having. Only a few nations, and those of European
origin, advance; and yet these think--seem irresistibly compelled to
think--such advance to be inevitable, natural, and eternal. Why then
is this great contrast? Before we can answer, we must investigate
more accurately. No doubt history shows that most nations are
stationary now; but it affords reason to think that all nations once
advanced. Their progress was arrested at various points; but
nowhere, probably not even in the hill tribes of India, not even in
the Andaman Islanders, not even in the savages of Terra del Fuego,
do we find men who have not got some way. They have made their
little progress in a hundred different ways; they have framed with
infinite assiduity a hundred curious habits; they have, so to say,
screwed themselves into the uncomfortable corners of a complex life,
which is odd and dreary, but yet is possible. And the corners are
never the same in any two parts of the world. Our record begins with
a thousand unchanging edifices, but it shows traces of previous
building. In historic times there has been little progress; in
prehistoric times there must have been much. In solving, or trying
to solve, the question, we must take notice of this remarkable
difference, and explain it, too, or else we may be sure our
principles are utterly incomplete, and perhaps altogether unsound.
But what then is that solution, or what are the principles which
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