Material civilization

“ If we review history, we will observe that human advancement has been greatest in the development of material virtues. Civilization is the sign and evidence of this progression. Throughout the world, material civilization has attained truly wonderful heights and degrees of efficiency—that is to say, the outward powers and virtues of man have greatly developed, but the inner and ideal virtues have been correspondingly delayed and neglected. ”

“ THE DEVELOPMENT OF CIVILIZATION.—Civilizations differ; some are more material, laying stress upon man's conquest of his material environment. Others exhibit a greater appreciation of idealistic elements, the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, the cultivation of the fine arts, the development of humanitarian sentiment. For civilization in general it is not necessary to advance an argument. But there are elements in many civilizations which the thoughtful man may feel called upon to defend. ”

“ Great as are the possible blessings of material progress, it is possible that eventually they may prove a menace. Other great civilizations have fallen because they stressed the importance of the material life and lost sight of the great adventure of the spirit. Will the spiritual wealth rise superior, strong, and dominant to overcome the downward drag of material prosperity and {503} thus be able to support the burdens of material civilization that must be borne? ”

“ So, then, the history of civilization has been what it is because of the economic systems by which the material necessities of life (foods, raiments and houses) have been produced, not because gods have made spiritual revelations, nor yet because men have made great discoveries and persuasively taught them. ”

“ After this general picture of a civilization dominating and mastering in its material decline a vastly greater area than it had known in the height of its material excellence—this sort of expansion in the dark—the impartial observer, whom we have supposed, would remark a sort of dawn. ”

“ They are the raw material out of which is built up the vast complex of government, industry, science, art—all that we call civilization. In a very genuine sense, there is nothing new under the sun. Matter and men remain the same. ”

“ The amount of the accumulation of the wealth of a nation, its distribution among the people, and the manner in which it is obtained and expended, determine the state of civilization. This material prosperity makes the better phases of civilization possible. It is essential to modern progress, and our civilization should seek to render it possible for all classes to earn their bread and to have leisure and opportunity for self-culture. ”

“ The existence of the two classes is necessary to an advanced civilization. The 519 science of accumulating and administrating material wealth, of which you yourself are a great practical master, is the foundation of the material prosperity of nations, and it is only when this prosperity is fully assured to great numbers that the arts and sciences can develop themselves in perfect liberty and with the tranquil assurance of their own permanence. ”

“ The basis of this theoretical contradiction, just as the practical antagonism in social life, lies in the unequal development of the various classes of humanity, in the relations between the dominant and subservient races and classes, in the division of material and intellectual labor, and in the acquisitions resulting from this division. This inequality of development, advancing with the progress of civilization, was the rock upon which ancient society foundered. ”

“ They will study not only our natural resources, our material development and the productions of our industries, but the working of our political institutions, our morals, our customs, our manners, our ways of thinking, all the fruits of our civilization. ”

“ That the civilization of the past three centuries has produced a great store of scientific knowledge, and that this scientific knowledge has altered the material scale of human affairs and enormously enlarged the physical range of human activities, but that there has been no adequate adjustment of men's political ideas to the new conditions. ”

“ From the foregoing it may be said that civilization in its fulness means all of the acquired capabilities of man as evidenced by his conduct and the material products arising from his physical and mental exertion. It is evident that at first the structure called civilization began to develop very slowly and very feebly ”

“ Feeling themselves at ease about the first necessities of their nature, including self-preservation, and daily subjected to that intellectual excitement which society produces, men begin to manifest what is called civilization ”

“ This new realm we name civilization. It is super-imposed upon the physical world, but is as distinct from it as thought from the molecules of the brain. Nature furnishes the basis, but social relations furnish the conditions of the human energy that has lifted itself into the mighty edifice we call civilization. ”

“ The American economic, political, and social organization has given to its citizens the benefits of material prosperity, political liberty, and a wholesome natural equality; and this achievement is a gain, not only to Americans, but to the world and to civilization. ”

“ This leads to a retrospective survey of the origins of civilization,—of agriculture, the mechanical crafts, trade, letters, art, science and the social sentiments. Then the darker side of the picture is developed,—the evils, inhumanities, corruptions and vices of civilized life. ”

“ The social pattern of civilization, like other social patterns which preceded civilization and which continue to exist side by side with civilized communities, is the result of human ingenuity and human energy, of human inertia, ineptitude, and the human urges to build, decorate and destroy. ”

“ The beginning of civilization is the discovery of some useful arts, by which men acquire property, comforts, or luxuries. The necessity or desire of preserving them leads to laws and social institutions... ”

“ In this way a process which on the surface was nationalistic became fundamentally a part of the organic evolution of civilization, which redirected the cultural processes of a nation and eventually of what was, then, the modern world. ”

“ Yes, yes, I see it all—an enormous social activity, a mighty civilization, an accumulation of science, of art, of industry, of morality, and afterwards, when we have filled the world with industrial marvels, with great factories, with roads, with museums, with libraries, we shall fall exhausted at the foot of it all, and it will endure—for whom? Was man made for science or was science made for man? ”

“ DEADLY INFLUENCE OF MATERIALISTIC CIVILIZATION The Bahá’ís should realize that today’s intensely materialistic civilization, alas, most perfectly exemplified by the United States, has far exceeded the bounds of moderation, and, as Bahá’u’lláh has pointed out in His Writings, civilization itself, when carried to extremes, leads to destruction. ”

“ Out of this stir and agitation came the aggressive, conquering spirit that carried civilization straight across the continent, that built up cities and States, that developed wealth, and by invention, ingenuity, and energy performed miracles in the way of the subjugation of nature and the assimilation of societies. ”

“ To observe the origin of civilization—the gradual progress of society, and the refinements of manners, policy, morality and religion—to observe the progress of mankind from simplicity to luxury, from luxury to effeminacy, and the gradual steps of the decline of empire, and the dissolution of states and kingdoms, must blend that happy union of instruction and entertainment, which never fails to win our attention to the pursuit of all subjects. ”

“ In their own persons certain of these people possessed the qualities and the will which were imperative for the organization of the industry, the trade, and the finance that were to control the world for four generations, and produce that industrial civilization which is the basis and the energizing force of modernism. ”

“ The term "civilization" is here used in its broad and legitimate sense, as including not only mental culture, with progress in science and art, but also the comforts, luxuries, and æsthetics of life, which are its natural and inevitable concomitants. ”

“ In the relics of past ages which you find here, you can trace the operation of the fundamental laws of human progress. On this floor you have the works of man in his lowest condition. On the floor above, you find relics of a higher civilization. These have been classified as nearly as possible in their natural order, from the lowest to the highest, with a view to teaching the progressive development of the race in the most effective manner. ”

“ They mirror a state of civilization. Even more true, if possible, is it that the form in which work is done, industry carried on, is the outcome of accumulated culture, not an original possession of persons in their own structure. ”

“ At times and in places the basic propositions were accepted, rejected, fought over. Each civilization which followed them successfully was able to establish itself, maintain itself, and up to a certain point add to its prestige, wealth and power. ”

“ And that quite simple example, from a time when man was living the life, as we should now regard it, of a harried and hunted beast—with his emergence from surrounding perils scarcely yet assured to him—goes on consistently up and up the scale of human evolution; and the more strongly it gets to be established in social institutions, the more noble is likely to be the form of civilization which enshrines it. And the less it shows, the less is that form of civilization likely to be worthy of preservation, or its products of permanent value to the human race. ”

“ These were the great idealists; and as such, they were the great progenitors of all modern civilization, the majestic agents of God for the civil upbuilding of men and nations. For civilization is, in its origins, ideals; and hence, in the loftiest men, it bursts forth, producing letters, literature, science, philosophy, poetry, sculpture, architecture, yea, all the arts ”

“ He sees in all the institutions of civilization, in every department of culture, in the rise and fall of nations, the progress and decay of literatures, a result of natural laws, working out the evolution of human society as it exists to-day. ”

“ Using elaborate techniques of communication, transportation, fabrication, beautification, accounting, planning, initiative, leadership, mobilization, maintenance and replacement of labor power, imposition and sharing of authority, discipline, adjustment to deviation and opposition, means for dealing with revolt and rebellion, the builders of civilization performed their necessary tasks.
As civilizations have matured they have grown at the nucleus, expanded abroad and experimented more or less successfully with various means of exploiting nature, man and human society. ”

“ What contribution has western civilization made to human nature, to human society and to mother nature, and what further contribution can it make in the foreseeable future?
Individuals, born or reared in any form of society are adjusted, shaped and conditioned by the social pattern of which they are a part. Each society attempts to stamp the individuals with its own image and likeness. ”

“ The attainment of a high cultural civilization demands, first, the ideal type of citizen and, then, ideal and adequate social mechanisms wherewith such a citizenry may control the economic and political institutions of such an advanced human society. ”

“ Most civilizations, during most of their history, have been led and ruled by the rich and powerful, who have used their wealth and power to advance their own interests, with scant respect for the hewers of wood, the drawers of water and the tillers of the soil. ”

“ Then I shall attempt to present a bird's-eye view of the steps in human advancement towards civilization as the best anthropologists have traced them. Thus, we shall be able to see our historic social order in right relation to that ideal humanity which our own spiritual constitution projects prophetically above the threshold of our consciousness. Then, if ever, we shall be in a state of mind to judge whether the thing which civilization has begotten after its own kind and named "trade" is good or bad. ”

“ The sum of the relatively abiding interests in a man’s life is called his character, and the sum of the relatively abiding interests of men in any historic period is called the civilization or culture of that period, In contrast with nature, this culture is the human environment. It manifests itself in language, literature, government, science, art, industry, morality, religion and all other human institutions. ”

“ We are to dissect a civilization to find the factors of its strength. One little specimen will reveal the secrets of the whole species. So one sample of civilization will show the hidden springs of all. Go with me to the public square of any modern city and there you will behold the qualities that build all civilization. From the hum and rattle and roar that rises from the sea of humanity come a thousand various voices, but all speak of one theme—industry. There in the center of the throng and press a slender monument rises, crowned perhaps with a figure of Liberty or Justice. ”

“ Now, since the essence of civilization lies first in the amassing of experiences, then in the fixity with which these are retained, and lastly in the capacity to carry them farther or to increase them, our first question must be, how is it possible to realize the first fundamental [Pg 299] condition of civilization, namely, the amassing a stock of culture in the form of handiness, knowledge, power, capital? ”

“ Its bond is a common civilization; and, though there are other civilizations in the world, as there are other societies, yet this civilization, together with the society which is its creation and its home, is so distinctive and luminous in its character, so imperial in its extent, so imposing in its duration, and so utterly without rival upon the face of the earth, that the association may fitly assume to itself the title of “Human Society,” and its civilization the abstract term “Civilization.” ”