Human development

“ But as society proceeds in its development, its phaenomena are determined, more and more, not by the simple tendencies of universal human nature, but by the accumulated influence of past generations over the present. ”

“ Only through a thorough understanding of the principles or forces which govern human development, and a just appreciation of the source whence these principles have sprung, may we hope to gain a clear understanding of the past history of the race, or to perceive the true course to be pursued toward further development. ”

“ It might find the central line of human development in the increase of man’s knowledge, and in particular of his knowledge of Nature and his power of dealing with her. Or that which we call culture, the comprehensive unfolding and polishing of human faculty and of the power of intellectual creation and appreciation, might be taken as marking the most real and solid kind of progress, so that its growth would best represent the advance of man from a savage to a highly civilised condition. ”

“ So true, also, is the process of her development to what is called nature—to the laws and principles that regulate human action and life—that, as it proceeds before us, we almost lose note that there is development. ”

“ All are man-made distinctions, varying with time and place, differing among races and among individuals. To the history of the human race, then, the Man Awake must go in his search for the meaning of Duty. For development proceeds ever from the simple to the complex, and the basis of sane thinking is found in the study of development. To gain an adequate comprehension of anything one must understand its development. ”

“ To introduce into that combination a new living principle of development, and, without prejudice to their original essence, to unite peculiarities the most diverse into a whole in which each part should be a complement to the other, required something higher than any element of human culture. ”

“ The forces employed in the elaboration of the human being, differ in their manifestation at various stages of its growth. There are two marked forces to be noted, often confounded together, but important to distinguish—viz., the power of growth and the power of development, the former possessed throughout life, the latter at certain epochs only. ”

“ Progress expresses itself in a variety of ideals and aims. Progress of the part and progress of the whole. Social progress involves individual development. Progress is enhanced by the interaction of groups and races. The study of uncultured races of to-day. The study of prehistoric types. Progress is indicated by early cultures. Industrial and social life of primitive man. Cultures indicate the mental development of the race. Men of genius cause mutations which permit progress. The data of progress.
III. METHODS OF RECOUNTING HUMAN PROGRESS
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“ The laws which Political Economy discovers, like the facts and relations of physical nature, harmonize with what seems to be the law of mental development—not a necessary and involuntary progress, but a progress in which the human will is an initiatory force. But in life, as we are cognizant of it, mental development can go but a little way. ”

“ It is only when we observe the uses and education of which the physical powers are susceptible, and the development of which the mental powers are capable, that we perceive the immense superiority of the human race, and recognise the type—viz., the true nature of man, towards the attainment of which all the elaborate processes of growth are directed. ”

“ The history of human folk shows that achievement has been gradual, and much of it without conscious planning, but the great inventors, the great architects, the great statesmen have been men of vision, and definite purpose is sure to fill a larger place in the story of achievement. Purposive progress rather than unconscious, telic rather than genetic, is the order of the evolution of society. ”

“ Education, of course, signifies, as a glance at the etymology of the word shows us, a development—an unfolding of innate capacities. In its process it is the gradual [Pg 16] transition from a state of entire dependence, as at birth, to a state of independence, as in adult life. Being a general term, it includes all the faculties of the human being, those of his mortal, and of his immortal part. ”

“ Progress and development mark everything in nature—human societies, as well as everything else. Nothing in the physical world is still; life and motion are in everything; so in the mental, moral, and political. ”

“ But, as we study this process of development, noting with admiration the progressive changes in human relation, the new functions, the extended structure, the increase of sensation in the socialized individuals with its enormous possibilities of joy and healthful sensitiveness to pain, we are struck by the visible presence of some counter-force, acting against the normal development and producing most disadvantageous effects. ”

“ They show the Type of creation towards which the human constitution tends and the distinctive methods of growth by which that type must be reached. In brief recapitulation, these truths are the following—viz., the slowness of human growth; the successive development of the human faculties; the injury caused by subverting the natural order of growth; the necessity of governing this order of growth by the control of Reason; the influence of Mind—i.e., Thought, Emotion, Will—on the development or condition of our organization; the necessity of considering the dual character of sex ”

“ A peculiar combination of the ideas of development and formation from without has given rise to the recapitulation theory of education, biological and cultural. The individual develops, but his proper development consists in repeating in orderly stages the past evolution of animal life and human history. ”

“ All that has been said, from the beginning, has been gradually but surely focusing itself upon a single point; for the development of all these several faculties and powers leads directly to the forming of a well-rounded and fully-developed manhood.
A fully-developed manhood is the highest possible human achievement, and includes within itself all that can be desired; and for this higher manhood we now make our final and most urgent plea. ”

“ In the grand aggregate may still be recognized the few primary germs of thought, working upon primary human necessities, which, through the natural process of development, have produced such vast results. ”

“ A systematic development and a systematic application of the sciences of human relationship, of personal and group psychology, of financial and economic science and of education, sciences still only in their infancy, is required. ”

“ And just as we might judge completely and criticize and improve that outfit from an attentive study of the welfare of plants, and with an entire disregard of his remoter motives, so we may judge all collective human enterprises from the standpoint of an attentive study of human births and development. ”

“ The conditions that direct the order of the whole of the living world around us, are marked by their persistence in improving the birthright of successive generations. ”

“ It matters not at what successive stage of man's developing life we may choose to look at him, the depth and height and breadth, in a word, the fullness and vigor and character of the inner and private life of the individual, will depend directly on the nature and development of the communal life. ”

“ From generation to generation, from century to century, from age to age, as time has rolled on, there has been a gradual moving onward and upward, a steady improvement both in the refining and civilizing of man's own being and in bringing that being into sympathetic relations with the external world, that is, a gradual development of man's own powers, and an ever increasing control of the forces of nature. ”

“ But, beyond this main conception, it was implied throughout that there are such things as laws of social development, natural processes of rectification in society, and an adaptation of man to the conditions of social life. The scientific point of view was thus early assumed, and society was regarded not as a manufacture but as a growth. ”

“ Here, as elsewhere, the gain of creation consists always in the growth of individual minds, which live and aspire, as flowers bloom and birds sing, in the midst of morasses; and in the continual development of that thought, the thought of human destiny, which is given to eternity adequately to express, and which ages of failure only seemingly impede. ”

“ Development according to nature, social efficiency, and culture or personal mental enrichment. In each case we have seen that the aims when partially stated come into conflict with each other. The partial statement of natural development takes the primitive powers in an alleged spontaneous development as the end-all. ”

“ On which I am the more disposed, and even compelled, here to insist, because your modern ideas of Development imply that you must all turn out what you are to be, and find out what you are to know, for yourselves, by the inevitable operation of your anterior affinities and inner consciences:—whereas the old idea of education was that the baby material of you, however accidentally or inevitably born, was at least to be by external force, and ancestral knowledge, bred ”

“ It is one of the chief characteristics of the human race that the knowledge acquired by one generation can be passed on to the generations that follow; and that, in this way, progress in the betterment of life's results and the adaptation of means to ends can make a steady and reliable advance. ”

“ That the life and development of a society is independent of, and far more prolonged than, the life and development of any of its component units: who are severally born, grow, work, reproduce, and die, while the body politic composed of them survives generation after generation, increasing in mass, completeness of structure, and functional activity. ”

“ Looked at in this broad light, the history of man's common life in the world will, I think, show two great streams of progress—the progress of man over Nature, or, as we say to-day, in the control of his environment, and the progress of man in what is essentially a moral task—the art of living together with his fellows. These two aspects of human activity and effort are in constant contact and interaction. ”

“ We know now that they are stages in a growth, and in a growth not determined by an accidental environment only, but by an original purpose, a purpose to be realized in the history of the human race as a whole. ”

“ We cannot, however, say more than that the factors of human progress have always had these three aspects, Folk, Place, Work, and that if progress is to continue on stable lines it must always recognise the essential correlation of fitter folk in body and mind: improved habits and functions, alike in work and leisure ”

“ But may not people go on and learn more, instead of standing still? And don't the needs of different generations differ? Doesn't human nature take fresh developments from time to time, wanting varieties of help? ”

“ Now if we extend the process of growth here described as of a single child passing through a single life to the collective process of growth effected by humanity from age to age, we have quite clearly the principle whose light I wish to shed upon our comparison of the works I have named. ”

“ All of these material improvements have their civilizing influence, their moral significance; as Edmond Kelly put it, "By constructing our environment with intelligence we can determine the direction of our own development." ”

“ There is intellectual progress—an increase in knowledge, a greater abundance of ideas, the training to think, and to think correctly, the growth in capacity for dealing with practical problems, the cultivation of the power to enjoy the exercise of thought and the pleasures of letters and art.
There is moral progress—a thing harder to define, but which includes the development of those emotions and habits which make for happiness—contentment and tranquility of mind ”

“ But whatever the general effect, the present generation will have added the motives of self-expression and spiritual development to the old and still unfinished task of making material headway and progress. ”

“ It is to study the succession of events, not as separate units, but as links of one vast chain, on every one of which is inscribed a phrase discoursing of the progress of the human race, and showing the growth of man in the complex, from infancy to adolescence. ”

“ We are beginning to learn that to swap off a superstition for a fact, to ascertain the real, is to progress. All that gives us better bodies and minds and clothes and food and pictures, grander music, better heads, better hearts, and that makes us better husbands and wives and better citizens, all these things combined produce what we call the progress of the human race. ”

“ And after having caused, as it ultimately must, the due peopling of the globe, and the bringing of all its habitable parts into the highest state of culture,—after having brought all processes for the satisfaction of human wants to the greatest perfection,—after having, at the same time, developed the intellect into complete competency for its work, and the feelings into complete fitness for social life,—after having done all this, we see the pressure of population, as it gradually finishes its work, must gradually bring itself to an end. ”

“ Having taken full note of places as they were and are, of things as they have come about, and of people as they are—of their occupations, families, and institutions, their ideas and ideals—may we not to some extent discern, then patiently plan out, at length boldly suggest, something of their actual or potential development? ”