Progress: True and False
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His Justice. — Matt. vi, 33
The graduate of a Catholic University, in passing out into the larger world, is confronted in our day with a great responsibility. The training and culture imparted by this renowned institution should give her sons a preeminence and a leadership in life; a preeminence in real power, that is, in virtue; and a leadership in the emulation of well doing, in unselfish devotion to the public weal, and in loyal adherence to the principles of our Holy Faith. Whosoever has received a special gift of nature, of fortune, or of grace, has receiveth it from God, not alone for his own peculiar profit, but for the benefit of his fellow-man as well. You, the students of the University of Notre Dame, are the products of Christian culture, and your Alma Mater and your friends, your country and your Church look to you to show forth lives that shall be the unfolding and not the contradiction of the principles and examples you have learned in these hallowed walls.
We live in an age of great aspiration, and in a country which is playing an important, perhaps the most important, or at least the most conspicuous role at the moment, in the great drama of history. This is the country of the future, as we love to call it; and the popular sentiment and conviction among us is that we are the leaders in the forward march of civilization. We need leaders; the world always feels a profound need of leaders, never more so than now; and the call of leadership is addressed to you.
Let us study the spirit of this age. Let us ask ourselves, What are the things on which this age relies and of which it boasts so much? Whither is humanity tending? What is the great, the fundamental, the real need of our time? The popular word of the day, the word that is on a thousand tongues is "progress." It is an urgent duty for you, my friends, who will undoubtedly be called on to play a part, and perhaps not an unimportant one in the maelstrom of modern, social, industrial, and political agitation, to study this spirit of progress, and the philosophy that lies at the basis of it.
Every age has its shibboleth. The world is no more constant in its thinking than it is in its fashions, and the history of civilization and of philosophy is, to a great extent, a history of human aberrations and vagaries. Men may be momentarily swayed by passion, they may be apparently governed by sentiment; in the long run, however, the thoughts and the ideas of the thinkers work themselves out in the great movements of men, and the revolutions of history. The philosophy of an age comes to the surface in the watchwords, the catch phrases, the shibboleths of the day. An age is often under the tyranny of a phrase; we are enslaved by our shibboleths. In the past century the significant word was "liberty"; today it is "progress."
But what is progress? Does humanity move on in an ascending path, each age and generation carrying the race forward to a higher plane of perfection than that attained by its predecessors? Or, does humanity keep on moving in a never ceasing agitation, like the motion of the wheel, rota nativitatis? Or, are we moving from a higher to a lower plane, while under the delusion that we are really advancing? Is progress nothing but perpetual motion? Are the waves of humanity, that in successive generations people the countries of the earth, like the waves that rise and fall in the sea? What is that "increasing purpose which," the Poet tells us, "through the ages runs"; and how are "the thoughts of men widened with the process of the sun"? No man can explain to you the meaning of this word, and yet we are told that progress is universal law; all things human are subject to its way. Progress is the law of evolution, and evolution is as pervasive as gravitation. Vague and indefinite as this word is, the spirit, the hopes, the aspirations, the ideals, the practical philosophy of the age, are summed up in this magic word, progress.
When we speak of progress our minds are naturally directed to the marvellous development in the control which man has attained over the forces of nature in the last century, and more especially in the last generation. There is practically no limit to the field of discoveries, for each invention causes new adjustments and opens up new fields for discovery. Nature is inexhaustible, and the ingenuity of man, while it draws abundance from her store, can never compass all her secrets. But a very passion of discovery has seized us, and as a consequence, industry has been developed; commerce has been organized and extended as never before in history; and today it takes the whole world to serve the individual. We have brought the ends of the world together in intimate contact; we delve into the recesses of the earth; we scorn even the lofty mountain tops in our aeroplanes; and we say, what obstacle remains that the hardihood of man will not attempt? Like Alexander, we would fain regret that there are no more worlds to conquer.
When we analyze this material progress we find that it is partly based on man's elementary natural desire to avoid pain and labor. The first aim of material progress, therefore, is comfort. "Let us," say the advocates of progress, "attain to the irreducible minimum of pain in human life; let us invent machinery to do the drudgery of the world." No matter what inconvenience or suffering must ensue in the displacement and dislocation caused by the turmoil of industry, everything is supposed to yield to progress. The iron heel of invention may stamp out a man's means of livelihood, but this is only an incident and he must suffer, that future generations may be comfortable and happy. So, labor and pain are regarded as synonymous, and evils that progress will eliminate from human life, or reduce to harmless proportions.
The sustaining of life depends on the proper satisfaction of man's primary needs for food, clothing and shelter, but he also has cravings for pleasure and enjoyment. The ministry of sense and pleasure is the second great function of material progress, and this function augments as progress advances. The senses are ever seeking new stimulation and sensation, and the mind seeks novelty and amusement. Why that constant procession of the young from the farm to city? Why those thousands that throng the glittering streets at night? Why that growing dislike for healthy, wholesome labor? In the past much was heard of the right to liberty, the right to work, the right of association; today we begin to hear of the right to be amused. The demand has been formulated that the accumulation of wealth and property, whether acquired by extortion or by thrift, shall be appropriated through the taxing power of the State, for the enjoyment of the people. The burden of public taxes bequeathed to posterity does not affect the conscience of the present generation. The demand of this age is: in the name of progress provide for our needs without effort on our part, free us from all that is painful, and give us all that is pleasant and entertaining.
My friends, do you ask me if this material progress conducts mankind along the path that leads to its goal? Does it guarantee the happiness of society and give us assurance of the uplifting of the human race? Need I traverse the pages of history for you to point out the ruins of the nations that sought the apogee of human civilization in a material welfare? They followed the path of materialism, of luxury, of sensualism, and inevitable law brought them to decadence and ruin.
The hope of attaining a perfect or a higher state of civilization through material progress is perhaps the great delusion of the age. It is the promise of socialism. Man is made for labor, and to suffer and endure is the lot of humanity. We should utilize everything placed in our power to alleviate our unfavorable conditions; we should do all we can to diminish pain and suffering; to abolish them is beyond our power. "In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread,"; and no machinery shall blot out the decree of the Almighty. And if labor is a penalty, it is a blessing and a solace as well. "I have found there is nothing better for a man than to rejoice in his work, for this is his portion"; and the very curse of modern progress is just this, that it has brought conditions which make it impossible for man to rejoice in his work.
The pursuit of the pleasant life brings even greater burdens to man. The spirit of avarice, the motive spring of our industrial system, invents its luxuries to minister to our cravings for sensation, for enjoyment, for pleasure. But in time these luxuries become mere conveniences, and in the end, necessaries. We enjoy them freely in the beginning, but by the law of habit they become our masters, and thus our progress only adds to the burdens and complexities of life. Never was there an age that had greater cause to exclaim "deliver me from my necessities." This material progress, even if the wildest dreams of its worshippers were realized, could never satisfy us; for man is made for higher things than the mere enjoyment of sense.
But it is in our so-called intellectual progress, perhaps, that the modern mind finds its greatest cause for complacency. Intellectual progress is usually identified with the progress of science, or to be precise, with the progress of physical science. No one, we are told, can foresee the limits to which the power of the human mind may ultimately extend in its study of the forces of nature. The results of these investigations have been applied to the satisfaction of man's needs and his wants in every avenue of industry. The enthusiast of progress sees the fulfillment of all our aspirations in the growth of mental power. We believe that we know so much more than all who have preceded us, because we ignore the fact that man forgets as much as he remembers, and we persuade ourselves that we have inherited from the past all the knowledge it had that is worth having, and that we have added to the store. So we call this the age of science par excellence. We organize, systematize, tabulate. Science will solve all our problems, and procure us all blessings.
But "the eye is not filled with seeing, nor the ear with hearing." Every physical science comes to a point in its development where its new problems are like the old ones. The problems themselves are infinite in number and alike in character. The boasted science of the day which refuses the aid of philosophy, not to speak of its contempt for the light of supernatural faith, leads us nowhere. It becomes in the end either the servant of material progress, or merely the satisfaction of curiosity and an aimless mental exercise. It leads to vanity, to ennui, to discontent. Progress in secular knowledge can never satisfy mankind. "Our hearts are made for God and they will not find rest till they rest in the love and the knowledge of Him."
I have said that underneath all this striving and agitation there is a certain practical philosophy. There is a philosophy that directs the current of a nation's life. The nation's controlling tendencies are directed along the lines of the philosophy, or the principles and ideas of its leaders and thinkers. The principles underlying this modern progress are not something external to man; they are moral facts. These principles are, the modern or the prevailing conception of human nature; the modern conception of moral law; the modern conception of man's origin and destiny. These things constitute the very essence of the spirit of progress.
And what is the philosophy of progress? There is today a philosophy enthroned in secular universities which starts from a vague pantheism, and ends in universal skepticism. Its principles are negations. It is the philosophy of decadence and of pessimism. But it is not the popular philosophy of the day. The American people have no patience with the philosophy of impotence. Our philosophy is the philosophy of energy and results. The dominant philosophy of our time is the theory and the principles of the doctrine of evolution. At the basis of the glorification of our material and intellectual life, and to a very great extent the practical working theory of our political and social leaders, is the theory that man came up from lower stages of life. Civilization began in barbarism and, as man emerged from savagery, he took on, one by one, the functions of social life. He is now in a transitional stage, and is moving on to a higher phase of development. We are moved along, the apostles of modern progress tell us, we know not by what impulsion; but by the law of progress we ever tend forward to the perfect man, nay, to the perfect morality, and to the perfect religion. In fact, the mind cannot see, nor the heart conceive the excellence of the future man. The literature of the day is impregnated with this malign philosophy. It has become the very mode of thinking of the time; a form of the modern mind. What is socialism but this philosophy of progress applied to social and industrial life, the effort to create a perfect society on earth? And what is modernism, the synthesis of all heresies, but the philosophy of progress applied to religion, the casting aside of the supernatural, and the effort to rise above the natural by purely natural means?
The cardinal doctrine of this philosophy of progress is a false theory of the perfectibility of man, a theory that might be called the ignis fatuus of history; and a theory that is at the foundation of every project that has ever been broached to realize the millennium on earth. This theory postulates that man's nature is ever changing, and improving while it is changing. The doctrines of the fall of man, of original sin, and of the need of supernatural grace to elevate man above his fallen condition and his purely natural state — doctrines without which there can be no true understanding of man, nor of his history — are brushed aside as fables and imaginings. But where does history show us this ascent of man? This theory of man's perfectibility is in flagrant contradiction to the lessons of universal history and of individual experience. On this theory civilization and all history are an inexplicable enigma.
This, my friends, is the spirit of this age of progress in which you are called to live and to lead; and this the philosophy that will confront you in magazine, newspaper, and speech. It is an atmosphere in which we live. Alas, the poison of this secularism has injured the souls of many of the children of the Church, and the false standards of the day lead numbers astray.
But let us inquire now, what is the standard of true worth and excellence for human life? It is a subject of vital interest to know what this true standard of human excellence and perfection is, and to know how man can reach those heights towards which he does and should aspire. Nature does nothing in vain, and there must be some way of attaining the object of humanity's striving. For life is a striving. "Life," says St. Thomas, "is first manifested by this, that a thing moves itself; and every being moving itself is said to be living." We are beings of a noble nature, and we are so constituted by the Creator that we love the true, the good, and the beautiful. The energies of the soul are directed by that motion which we call love, to the attainment of these objects. Our nature would tend upwards; we are born to aspire; but our infirmity, our passions, our concupiscence, incline us downwards. It is this declension of the heart and soul of man, that the modern world so foolishly calls progress. This progress towards low ideals and ignoble ends, is movement indeed, but it is retrogression, and its end is decadence and ruin.
There is a genuine progress, both for the individual and for society. There is progress when the vision is fixed on lofty ideals, and the heart is filled with inspiration, with energy, and with love; and when, through disinterested self-sacrifice, through generosity and mortification, through effort and virtue aided from on high, the soul conquers the obstacles of sense, of passion and of sin and tends towards God Himself, from Whom it had its first beginning, and for Whom it is destined as its last end. This movement, my friends, is progress. This leads to happiness for the individual; to stability, order, peace and justice in society. There is no other progress.
In our Lord Jesus Christ we have the true leader in the onward and upward march of humanity. In His doctrines and in His teachings we have the standards and ideals of true human progress. The impulse towards progress is implanted in our nature, but "let us grow in all things like Him who is our head, Jesus Christ." The path of true progress for the individual and for society is along the lines of His religion. All approach to Him and conformity with His law and doctrine is progress, all departure from Him, either in the individual or in society, is retrogression. He is the standard of our actions, the ideal of our endeavors, the hope of our race, "the way, the truth, and the life."
The world has no need of a new morality or a new religion. The ideal morality and the true religion exist; they need only to be more actual in the lives of men. The standards of true progress are fixed and determined and altogether unchangeable. They are the immutable dictates of the moral law written by God in the heart of man, and the unchangeable doctrines of the religion of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
As the false conception of the perfectibility of human nature is the basis of the utopias that have distracted society, so the true idea of man's perfectibility is the basis of true progress and the key to the proper understanding of history. Human nature was created by God, and remains fixed. It is the same in all times and places. There is nothing new in human life; "nothing new under the sun," says the wise man. But man is created to the image and likeness of God, and though his nature was tainted by the fall of our first parents and by original sin, it is not wholly corrupt; and aided by divine grace it may be brought to its due and proper perfection. Those nations are truly cultured in which the impelling motive is the perfection of the individual based on this conception. That nation is retrograde in which there is wanting a proper understanding of the dignity of man.
The spirit of modern progress is that of pure naturalism and secularism. The very idea of the supernatural seems to have disappeared from the minds of those outside the Church. What the future of a nation must be that turns its back on God, history tells us; and if our age goes on unchecked in its course, instead of that perfection and refinement which are promised to us in the name of progress, history tells us we are in danger of reverting to the decay and barbarism that followed the disappearance of the civilization of Babylon and Rome. But in the religion of Christ we have the secret of the perpetual rejuvenation and perfection of society. Christianity is the conservative force in society today; and the constructive force of the Christian religion is directed to the reform of the individual.
If humanity would be led aright it must be led by men with the spirit of religion. The problems of our civilization are the problems of every other civilization that has gone before us, or will come after us. The cannon, the printing press, the steam engine, and the telegraph are the pillars that support this reign of universal democracy; but this democracy has brought no new problems. Invention and progress have simply extended the old problems to a wider space, and affected simultaneously a greater number of people; and trite as it may sound, it is nevertheless universally true, the great need of society in all ages is virtue in the individual, and the danger of society in all ages is vice in the individual. It is useless to perfect your institutions unless you seek first to perfect your men. Democracy will not save men, material prosperity will not save men, intellectual or artistic progress will not save society; only the effort to fulfill and uphold the moral law will save society; and without religion there can be no moral law.
My friends, would you know the truth? The world is weary of its progress. It wants to get away from its progress. When was there such unrest, so much agitation, such world-wide discontent? Material progress is making man the slave of the machine, and intellectual progress is making him foolish; "professing themselves wise they become fools." What do we need? We need social justice, we need mental repose, we need a reform in morals, in a word, all our needs are summed up in one, the need of religion.
If we would seek true progress, if we would promote the welfare of society and our own salvation, our watchword must ever be the words of Christ, our Leader, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His Justice."
© Joseph F. Wagner, Inc.
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