=Reconstructive Forces.=--We have dwelt at length upon the disintegrating forces, not because civilization necessarily grows worse, but because, having pointed out in earlier chapters the positive advances, it becomes necessary to allude also to the other aspect of the process. Otherwise it might appear that there is no problem. If the evolution were supposed to be all in one direction there would be no seriousness in life. It is only in the pressure of constantly new difficulties and evils that moral character adds new fiber, and moral progress emerges. Individualism, self-seeking, and desire for property force the establishment of governments and courts which protect poor as well as rich. Luxury and ostentation have not only called out the asceticism which renounces the world and sees in all gratification of appetite an evil; they have brought into the fore the serious meaning of life; they have served to emphasize the demand for social justice. The countless voluntary associations for the relief of sickness, misfortune, and poverty; for aiding the defective, dependent, and criminal; for promoting numberless good causes--enlist a multitude in friendly co-operation. The rising demand for legislation to embody the new sentiments of justice is part of the process of reconstruction. And now when all the arts and goods of civilization are becoming more and more fully the work, not of any individual's labor or skill, but rather of the combined labor and intelligence of many, when life in cities is necessitating greater interdependence, finally when contrasts in conditions are brought more forcibly to notice by the very progress of knowledge and the means of knowledge,--the more thoroughly social use of all that civilization produces becomes more insistent and compelling. It is not a matter of sentiment but of necessity. If any one is disposed to deny the claim, it becomes increasingly certain that Carlyle's Irish widow will prove her sisterhood by infecting the denier with fever;[103] that the ignorant, or criminal, or miserable will jeopardize his happiness. § 5. MORAL DIFFERENTIATION AND THE SOCIAL ORDER