INFLUENCE OF THE FORM OF SOCIAL CHANGE 135
ing. It has been shown that under such conditions subjective standards tend to be set up and emotional states emphasized. If, then, it is true that these centuries were abnormally emo- tional, the fact can be explained in terms of the social situation of the time. It was because the transition from the old to the new was long and difficult that the emotions lost their hold on the objective world and gained a validity of their own.
If the mental life of a people is so closely related to its insti- tutions and traditions, it is questionable whether it is ever right for a so-called higher race to bring strong pressure to bear upon a lower one, even in the name of civilization or religion. It is much easier to destroy the hold of the old than it is to force an adjust- ment to the new. Hence it is that the natural races upon con- tact with civilization seem to be affected, in the main, by its vices rather than its virtues. The movement away from the old must have its chief motive from within, if that movement is to result in a more adequate social system. A people should never be forced to break with their past except as this past appeals to them as inadequate. Otherwise the result can only be the destruction of their own systems of control, and with them the virtues connected therewith. If changes are not motivated by elements having organic connection with the past life, a people finds itself deprived of those regulative conditions essential to all morality, whether among civilized or savage. There being no movement from within that calls for the change, there is no basis for a new system of control and hence for a new morality. The virtues of the culture races, which have caused them to break with their past, are dependent upon their complicated social struc- ture and are therefore incapable of being assimilated by the bar- barian. The superficial character of the religious awakening occurring in the Hawaiian Islands during the early days of the missionary propagandism there is a remarkable instance of the futility of a natural race attempting to adopt the morals of a culture people. It amounts, with the masses of the people, to little more than the loss of their own systems of control. The last state of such a people is apt to be worse than the first.
IRVING KING. OSHKOSH STATE NORMAL SCHOOL.
