To that end we begin, in the readings below, with a consideration of the peculiar characteristics of the social "order" with which we are familiar. Among these its unity and the interdependence of its aspects are emphasized. For example, the influence of the ideals of the mediaeval church upon industrial development suggests many phases of this interdependence. The selections which follow on manorial and gild economy furnish material for a comparison of the spirit, values, activities, and institutions of our present system with others quite unlike it. Additional material for the same purpose is available in the selections devoted to mediaeval commercial development, policy, and theory. The readings also show that there is much in common between the social and industrial life of mediaevalism and the nineteenth century. The theory of the stewardship of wealth is to be found in modern sociology as well as in mediaeval theology; Italy in the fourteenth century faced many urban problems which are quite modern; the mediaeval artisan was familiar with the art of "soldiering"; few moderns could teach many new tricks of trade to the mediaeval craftsman; and there is much of modern plausibility in the mercantilist confusion of personal gain and social good.

Quite as important is the evidence furnished by these readings of a movement toward the "modern" system. The very ideals of an unworldly church were leading toward a material and humanistic culture; priestly inhibitions of usury, reinforced by superstitious stories of the torment in store for the money-lender, were increasingly impotent to remove the lure of jingling guineas promised by commercial ventures; the manor, a miniature world in itself, was losing its identity, and the gild was breaking down in the face of a wider and wider organization of industry; the commercial note of pecuniary profit was becoming more and more dominant; and the larger society was substituting the magic of price for personal relation as the means of organization. Developing society, at first unlike ours, was coming nearer and nearer to the system we know. Only the single movement of the Industrial Revolution was necessary to make it assume the form with which we are so familiar.

A. IDEALS UNDERLYING INDUSTRIAL DEVELOP

I. The Essential

MENT

An understandinracteristics of Modern Industrialism

An understanding of the nature of Modern Industrialism is essential to an intelligent grasp of its problems and a rational attempt at their solution. Such an understanding comes most easily from a study of the process by which modern industrial culture has come to be what it is. Like all historical work of value, such a study. must have a definite goal before it. It must aim to reveal those institutions, those intellectual and emotional forces, which have given character to the prevailing system, which are responsible for its problems, and which condition their solution. For that reason it is best to begin the historical account of modern culture with a brief statement of its essential characteristics.

Modern Industrialism is a peculiar culture; it is a thing apart. Nothing like it has previously existed. The Chinese system of the Far East, clinging tenaciously to the past, has developed a system which is a sprawling, conglomerate fact. The nearer Orient, India,

for instance, has repressed self-assertion, has subordinated the material side of social life, and has produced, as if from a mould, a rigidly hard social system. Even the European states of the ancient world failed to organize themselves as industrial and social wholes. For example, the Greeks showed nowhere their inability at organization more clearly than in failing to associate the individual's gain from his labor with a service to a larger group. The unity achieved by Rome was a mechanical, not an organic, unity. Both alike despised manual labor, and, for that reason, failed to lay an adequate foundation for a permanent industrial system. How distinct is Modern Industrialism is revealed by a brief citation of some of its peculiar aspects. The list mentioned below is not intended to be all comprehensive and the characteristics mutually exclusive. It is merely a statement of some of the charactertistics of our system which the student of current economic problems should keep clearly in mind.

First, America and Western Europe, Christendom, in fact, constitutes a single industrial society. Differences in race, language, government, and religious creed are almost negligible in comparison with what the Western World has in common. Even where these differences exist, the basic elements of these institutions are much the same. As ideal or actuality universality has long been a characteristic of the system. The Roman Empire was universal. When the earthly society disintegrated, it remained in idea as a universal, heavenly kingdom. The Catholic Church, patterned after this heavenly society, kept the ideal alive when more substantial unity was impossible. Towards the realization of universality society. tended to be organized in the Catholic Church. And, at last, when the spell of Catholicism was broken, political, social, and particularly industrial and commercial institutions had tied the Western World together into a single industrial culture.

Second, Western Civilization is an extremely fluid culture. Few legal and authoritative restrictions are placed upon one's right to choose his own occupation. There are no hard and fast class lines. In the thought of the people there are practically none. Freedom of movement from place to place is allowed. In all of life's relations there is such fluidity that the adaptation of population, natural resources, and acquired capital to each other and to changed conditions is not only rapid, but is constantly in process. Briefly, Christian teaching, the presence of the opportunities afforded by the American continent, and the Industrial Revolution, have all emphasized this characteristic.

Third, ours is a humanistic and a material culture. A contempt for human life and the material means to well-being, a denial "of the world, the flesh, and the devil," a desire to escape from "the vain pomp and glory of the world," has never been an essential part of the attitude of Western peoples towards life. Even monasticism came to be based upon the theory that life in this world is worth while. This institution became a means through which other-world obligations, placed upon man by the peculiar conditions accompanying the disintegration of Roman society, could be vicariously satisfied by a small part of society, and the greater part could be released to live the better life of the world. Men who fervently sing, "For such a worm as I," and "This world's a wilderness of woe, This world is not my home," do not discover new continents, invent printing and the steam-engine, and erect world-wide industrial systems. Unlike Greeks and Romans, with us the idea of the worthwhileness of life has carried with it the idea of the dignity of manual toil, which has furnished an adequate foundation upon which to build an industrial culture.

Fourth, our culture is in a very high degree a pecuniary culture. More than by any one thing our economic conduct is actuated by the desire for pecuniary profit. We go into those occupations promising the highest pecuniary returns. Our capital breaks over national barriers when the rate of interest abroad mounts higher. Even back in the Middle Ages, penance, a sacrament of the church, was put on a pecuniary basis. Escape from the consequences of certain actions was allowed to those who had accumulated wealth. Thus the accumulation of wealth and the stratification of society upon a pecuniary basis was encouraged. Today in the court, in the church, in the press, in social circles, the man of wealth is treated with greater consideration because of his wealth. The three characteristics mentioned above, fluidity, humanism, and the dominance of the pecuniary motive have made our culture a highly industrial culture, for it is in industry that these motives find their fullest expression.

Fifth, our culture places the value of human actions and institutions in some end or institution over and beyond themselves. The justification of individual activity is not to be found in personal good. The actions of individuals are found worthy of praise only because of a larger and a greater "society," towards which they are as means to an end. Laissez-faire is defended not as a means to self-aggrandizement, but as a theory of social welfare. "Big business" talks in terms of "pay envelopes," "full dinner pails," and "general prosperity." But the end from which the value comes is

even less immediate than present society. The justification of the present is in the future. Back in the Middle Ages one's conduct was regulated by one's desire for his "soul's salvation." As men little by little ceased to have souls, and "life's fullness" came more and more to be recognized as life's end, the emphasis formerly attached to the other world associated itself with an ideal society which was striving for realization in the church. Even today, obscured as it may seem, an ideal future society is the potent force in evaluating conduct, individual and social. How potent is this idea of the future a few statements will show. We use "roundabout" processes of production. In legislation we seek to conserve the interests of capital, future goods, rather than give our attention to conserving immediate income. We speak in terms of progress and evolution. We condemn, as never before, industry and politics because of its "shortsightedness." We give serious consideration to such a radical program of industrial reform as socialism. The value of the present thing is in large part a value derived from a future ideal. Thus a spirit of idealism, seeing a realization of its purposes in a less immediate society is a very vital factor in determining the course of industrial development.

These several characteristics, material and emotional as all of them are, are vital, because they underlie our culture, condition our growth, and must be clearly recognized in any program of political, social, and industrial reform.

2. Christian Teaching and Industrial Development1

BY WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM

The debt of Christendom to ancient Rome is very deep, and centuries of gradual growth were required before mediæval could vie with ancient civilization in the external signs of material prosperity; but it would be a mistake to suppose that the new society was a mere reproduction of the old; it differed in every single feature. The contrast between the Roman Empire and medieval Christendom was a difference not in skill or in organization merely, but in the whole spirit of the civilization. Though this element is very important it is so subtle that analysis does not readily detect it; but the best that the Greeks had attained may be taken as the starting point from which the new advance began. The Greek regarded material wealth as a means to an end, and as offering opportunities.

'Adapted from An Essay on Western Civilization in Its Economic Aspects, II, 6-10, 35-36 (1900).

for the cultured life of free men in a City-State. A high respect for the dignity of man and the possibilities of human nature as essentially political, dominated his attitude toward the material world, and the pursuit of agriculture, commerce, and industry. Christian teaching carried this Greek conception of the supreme worth of human life much farther by presenting it in its supernatural aspects. The doctrine of the Incarnation asserted that the human body had afforded an adequate medium for the manifestation of the divine nature; the doctrine of the Resurrection held out a sure and certain hope of personal immortality for the human soul. Christianity thus involved a very high view of human life. The supreme dignity of man as man was set forth by Christian teaching and the conscious and habitual subordination of material things to human ideals and aspirations was carried further than it had ever been before.

One of the gravest defects of the Roman Empire lay in the fact that its system left little scope for individual ends, and tended to check the energy of capitalists and laborers alike. But Christian teaching opened up an unending prospect before the individual personally, and encouraged him to diligence and activity by an eternal hope. Nor did such a concentration of thought on a life beyond the grave divert attention from secular duties. Christianity brought out new motives for taking them earnestly. The Christian monk was deprived of civil rights, and was absolutely at the beck and call of his superior. But there was no degradation in monastic obedience, since it was voluntarily undertaken by a freeman as a discipline through which he might attain the noblest destiny.

In fact the chief claim of the monks to our gratitude lies in this that they helped to diffuse a better appreciation of the duty and dignity of labor. By the "religious" manual labor was accepted as a discipline which helped them to walk in the way of eternal salvation; it was not undertaken for the sake of reward, since the proceeds were to go for the use of the community or the service of the poor; it was not viewed as drudgery that had to be gone through from dread of punishment. There was neither greed of gain, nor the reluctant service of the slave, but simply a sense of a duty to be done diligently unto the Lord.

The acceptance of this higher view of the dignity of human life as immortal was followed by a fuller recognition of personal responsibility. Christianity introduced a new sense of duty in regard to the manner of using material things. The wealth of the old world. had been wasted in the perpetuation of regal pride and the gratification of personal luxury. Provinces had been despoiled and ruined