The climax of civilisation / by Correa Moylan Walsh.

  • Correa Moylan Walsh
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The climax of civilisation / by Correa Moylan Walsh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    most significant. It is not enough to conceive of civilisation as dependent upon man’s control of nature: we must include the nature itself which is brought under our control, as there is a great difference between nature on the ocean and on land, in the tropics and in cold regions, where the soil is barren and where it is prolific. Better may civilisation be said to depend on man’s control of nature’s forces and materials; for it de- pends as much on nature’s supplies as on our use of them. The extent of nature’s gifts must be taken into consideration, as well as the extent of our ability to take advantage of them. This our ability itself depends on our knowledge of nature’s laws, or science. The two great factors of civilisation, there- fore, are this knowledge and the sources of supplies provided by nature. Each of these factors is essential. The largest and most fertile country in the world would not itself bring forth civilisation without science and without the arts by which science is applied ; and the science and arts of all the academies would not beget civilisation on an isolated coral reef. There are, in other words, both a moral basis of civilisation and a physical. Science itself depends on the interaction of intelligent beings working together ; and on this also depends the use of nature’s materials. This use requires appropriation of nature’s sources by men in common; which, again, is collaboration in the man- agement of a territory. Collaboration, then, is the beginning of all civilisation. It requires the coming together of human beings. This coming together is not civilisation: it is as yet only association, or the formation of society. Society is the basis of civilisation, just as the existence which is possible in a crowded state, or under some well regulated government, is civilisation itself. For this the fitting together of the parts into a whole is necessary; which condition, being comparable with that of the organs in a living body, is called organisa- tion. Civilisation is organic: a civilised state is an organism. To such coming together, or congregation, and organisation there are limits. People must congregate in various combina- tions. Hence mankind is divided into many societies or coun- tries, whose degrees or stages of civilisation may be different. As they borrow one from another, the civilisation of neighbour- ing societies are generally pretty much alike, the prominent
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